Co2Stats (YC summer 08) compensates for your site pollution
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
If I were to have an online business, I would gladly pay for clean energy (perhaps even at a small premium) rather than buy energy from an old-style fossil fuel burning energy company. However, with Co2Stats I have to pay twice - once to buy energy for my site, and once to put renewable energy into the grid so that someone else can use it. As much as I want to support renewable energy companies, I'm not willing to buy energy for someone else.
It seems that the real business problem here is that there are a lot of companies that do want to buy renewable energy, but can't. How do I power my home with energy generated by a clean company? If Co2Stats would let me do that, it could easily become huge. But simply paying a Co2Stats to calculate my footprint and redirect my money to someone else? I'd rather just donate that money, or invest it into clean energy.
CO2stats has more revenue and more profits than all the other YC Summer 2008 companies combined. It's not even close.
Personally, I feel that regardless of political views: if you want to cut down on something, no matter what it is, you cut down on consumption (e.g. don't give government rebates, cut government spending).
It is truly the classic American view on things: Don't have enough money? Use a credit card. Don't want to exercise? Get liposuction. Why worry about things now when you can worry about them later? Gotta love this country. And of course this isn't how every American thinks, but based on our debt amounts and obesity rates, it's how a lot of Americans act.
Unfortunately, my views on prevention aren't widely adhered to and CO2stats might just work (it already is really), and they can laugh their way straight to the bank.
This is like saying, "I'll offset your polluting car by building another car using clean materials." That doesn't physically offset my car, it builds another whole car (which in itself is wasteful). Now my footprint is increased, not decreased.
As I understand it, the general theory in the business of conservatism is that you should literally offset the consumption, not cause more of it. If I use X amount of energy, I expect a company like CO2Stats to do something to physically counter the pollution and other environmental impacts that went into creating X amount of electricity. Like planting trees or buying real carbon credits or funding research of cold fusion or something.
Even traditional "offsetting" is silly; the science is shaky at best. WE NEED TO DECREASE CONSUMPTION. I'm clueless as to why no one is admitting this. I blame Al Gore :P.
I for one will - this is a great idea. People who are looking at the fad aspect of it are missing the position that the company has.
What these guys have set up is a system that allows them to be the middle man between companies and green energy. Yes, having a green website may or may not appeal to the majority of small internet startups out there, but all they need to do is build up some reputation as a green company. What they've built is incredibly flexible; you can throw out the 'calculation of your website's green energy cost' and replace it with anything, really. After they've had a couple of good months of press coverage and some big corporations using their service, they then have the perfect position to reshape their website to go after the hundreds of green opportunities that will come up within the next few years.
After thinking about it for a bit, I decided that I don't have anything against CO2Stats itself. What's more, it seems like a pretty obvious idea (more power to them if they're the first to implement it), and I think it's pretty likely to succeed.
What really bugs me is the kind of faulty thinking which is what will make it a success. It's the same kind of thinking which leads to huge unnecessary cardboard or plastic packaging with a recycling sign on it. It has the currently fashionable environment-friendly sign on it, therefore it's OK to consume more!
I guess I'm just not comfortable with the idea of offsetting actually making a difference. You're still putting that CO2 out there, you just have a shiny certificate to show that... you're... not? It's basically the same objection as coffeemug's, just from a different perspective.
Edit: the video on the CO2Stats website actually sums it up nicely. It's about making your visitors "feel good". It's not very clear to me that it's about making an actual difference.
Being borderline crazy actually seems to be a good indicator of success, as long as you're a.) not completely crazy and b.) stick around in the game long enough for other people to come around. I think Tony Wright said as much in one of his posts here...