Greenverse

Greenverse is the solution to carbon emissions reporting and optimization.

The Problem

The evolving digital landscape demands increasing amounts of energy every year. Alongside this usage growth, there is a reporting gap that is growing too. People don't know how much carbon they are emitting simply by streaming their favorite shows or playing their favorite game. Greenverse will allow these users to understand their emissions in a direct and personal way.

The Solution

Greenverse interfaces with popular scheduling solutions, like Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, and more. It brings local historical and forecasted emissions data directly to the user in a human readable way, so they know how much carbon they are emitting. Greenverse can go further than that, by suggesting the optimal time for users to perform certain activities, thus lowering their carbon emissions. In an optimal case, this can save as much as 600g of CO_{2 kWh}

Carbon Aware SDK

Greenverse uses the Forecast API to predict when the best time for a user to perform an activity will be. It is smart enough to collate ranges so that if a user wants to spend an hour doing an activity, it will pick the interval to do so. This minimizes friction and will increase adoption. It also leverages Electricity Maps  to let users select their regional data for more accurate results. As Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification data becomes supported, it will use live emissions data to calculate how much a device, such as an Xbox, is consuming while streaming or gaming and provide feedback for the user.

Impact

Since Greenverse targets a global audience, the impact is highly variable but will undoubtedly scale with adoption. For the UK, we estimate that the grid variability ranges from 100g-700g CO2/kWh If Greenverse optimizes 1 hour for 1000 users, we could save as much as 600g CO₂ kWh! On an average basis, we would estimate the savings to be 300g CO₂ kWh. Of course, as adoption scales, the savings will too. 

Greenverse will also support a business use-case by integrating with popular business tools, like Microsoft Outlook. This will give businesses increased tools for The Greenhouse Gas GHG protocol scope 3 emissions reporting and optimization. One example of this could be Zoom or Teams calls. Greenverse can suggest the best "green" time to have these team calls, and create a ripple effect of savings. For large companies like Amazon, by reducing just 1g of CO₂ emissions per employee, we could save a whopping 13 million tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere per year.

Getting Production ready

The good news is that todays POC is functional and deliverable on Google Workspace Add-ons Marketplace. To best deliver value, we'd like to improve the UI and UX of the app before marketing it. This would improve adoption, market traction, and help with word-of-mouth marketing.  We'd also like to add support for Microsoft Outlook so we can more easily provide value to businesses. Once sufficient data is gathered, we would be ready to build a backend service that can store, aggregate, and report on the collected user data for business and consumer reporting.

Consumer user, conveying best time to stream/game.

Business user, conveying best time to send emails, schedule voice-only meetings v/s video meetings or upload large attachments).

Nonetheless, we are already close to an MVP production ready release!

Vision

We want people to be able to seamlessly implement Greenverse into their day to day life and routine. Greenverse will enable people to be content and carbon aware, and bring carbon emissions to the forefront of their daily habits. This will lead to a lifestyle, behavior, and conscientious change in the routine of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people. As it spreads in popularity and becomes adopted by both businesses and people, we would like to track the total savings and ensure there is a real impact on the Climate crisis.

The Source Code

Greenverse is viewable and installable via this Google AppScripts link:

Click the Deploy button in the top right > Test Deployment > Google Workspace Add-on > Install

https://script.google.com/d/1njp_te3vd8BYF9j6VqU-c_bqQNr7B3Qj7oJpUfewMr3GGI8CGkDhe-cJ/edit?usp=sharing

8. Link to Youtube video

https://youtu.be/nam_TTjvAJY