The fight against climate change has attracted the interest of Google in the form of their Carbon Footprint Project. UK surfers (for some reason it’s not available at google.com) can find out how to reduce their carbon footprint and also track their progress as well as other people, provided you’re registered to iGoogle.
First of all you need to calculate your carbon footprint - this is the usual stuff you see on other “green sites” for example type pf property, do you have cavity insulation, size of your electricity bill etc. Given Google’s desire to “know” about their users it’ll be interesting how this data (if retained) is used to advertise climate change products.
When you’ve calculated your footprint, Google then suggests some of the ways you can reduce your carbon emissions including:
Once completed you can then add yourself to the Google UK Carbon Footprint map and join other people in showing how big or small your footprint is! The map is already starting to fill up, although there’s a distinct lack of people adding their carbon footprints in Wales!
As it’s Google this no doubt will get considerable press coverage, however MSN and AOL have green sections and one wonders whether anyone, other than those interested in climate change issues is taking any interest in them! The aim has to be to attract those people who aren’t interestedand get them interested. Will Google be able suceed?