GreenMail

The problem

Global email use is estimated to produce as much CO2 as 7 million cars. A large proportion of email traffic comes from newsletter/marketing campaigns, with large companies routinely sending millions of these types of emails on a daily basis. We feel we can use the Green Software Foundation's Carbon Aware API to cut into these emissions. 

Our solution

GreenMail is a green alternative for services like Mailchimp and Sendgrid. We provide a dashboard where business owners can create and schedule their newsletter/marketing campaigns. Then, our backend determines how best to distribute the emails by prioritizing resources that run on green energy.

How our project uses the API/SDK

The GreenMail dashboard currently allows users to schedule the delivery of their emails on specific days. Our backend then consults the Carbon Aware API to determine the best time and place from which to initiate deliveries within those days.

Impact to CO2 production

This project is an example of a high reach, low reduction strategy. While the amount of emissions that may be reduced per singular email is negligible on its own, the sheer quantity of emails being sent on a daily basis means that this small reduction will grow quite large. 

Production ready state and implementation by others

Given that GreenMail is meant to be an alternative to large, established services like SendGrid and Mailchimp, getting to a production ready state would require adding quite a bit of functionality to both the dashboard and the backend.

Vision

We feel that, by targetting the relatively unknown source of carbon emissions that is global email use, we can reduce the amount of pollution being generated on a daily basis and make the world a cleaner place.

Prototype URL and GitHub repositories

• Link to prototype
• Link to frontend repository
• Link to backend repository