The environment, and our combined impact upon it, is an important global issue. Every day there are new headlines highlighting the environment challenges facing our world, and ways that we can all help combat climate change and reduce our carbon footprint.
Earth Hour
Here at MIDAS you may be aware that we have previously taken part in Earth Hour and we will be taking part again this year on Saturday 27 March 2021. The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness of environmental issues and asks for both individuals and businesses alike to switch off their lights for an hour between 8.30pm – 9.30pm in their local time zone.
How MIDAS is responding
Whilst thinking about this year’s Earth Hour we have been reviewing our current environmental strategies and looking at ways in which we could further reduce our carbon footprint.
As MIDAS is an online room booking system, we’re conscious of our environmental impact. We’re also pro-active in researching ways we can reduce our impact on CO2 emissions.
As part of our research, we recently discovered the Website Carbon Calculator. The website carbon calculator uses five key metrics to estimate the carbon emissions of a website. These factors include the volume of data being transferred when a web page is viewed, the type and amount of energy used at the data center serving the web page, as well as the volume of traffic to the site.
The carbon calculator remarks that:
The average web page tested produces 1.76 grams CO2 per page view. For a website with 10,000 monthly page views, that’s 211 kg CO2 per year.
websitecarbon.com
For our own website homepage, the Carbon Calculator estimates that MIDAS is 86% cleaner than all other websites tested. It estimates that just 0.19g of CO2 is produced every time someone views our home page (1).
We also compared our website’s carbon footprint against those of other similar businesses in our sector, to see how we fare in comparison (1).
| Company | Comparison against all websites tested through the carbon calculator | CO2(g) produced per view of home page |
| MIDAS | 86% Cleaner | 0.19 |
| Roomtime | 82% Cleaner | 0.26 |
| Supersaas | 82% Cleaner | 0.26 |
| Skedda | 75% Cleaner | 0.40 |
| Acuityscheduling | 70% Cleaner | 0.49 |
| Teem | 59% Cleaner | 0.73 |
| Bookinglive | 52% Dirtier | 1.00 |
| Roomzilla | 52% Dirtier | 1.00 |
| Getjoan | 56% Dirtier | 1.10 |
| Myrendezvous | 63% Dirtier | 1.35 |
| Cloudbooking | 66% Dirtier | 1.47 |
| Bookitwise | 68% Dirtier | 1.54 |
| Deskflex | 92% Dirtier | 4.45 |
| Meetio | 98% Dirtier | 12.01 |
(1) Data correct at time of testing, and purely relates to the amount of CO2 produced per view of the homepage of each website.
As can be seen from the information produced by the website carbon calculator, there are some significant differences between some of these businesses. In some cases, viewing the home page of one of these other websites produces more than 60 times the amount of CO2 than visiting MIDAS!
Now, when choosing a room booking system, resource scheduling software, or appointment scheduler, the amount of carbon it produces probably isn’t top of your list of criteria. In fact, it may not factor in your decision making process at all!
Choosing greener online businesses
Most businesses, when focusing on reducing their carbon emissions, look to do so in “visible” ways. For instance, by reducing heating costs through better insulation, or reducing electricity costs by switching to LED light bulbs.
Reducing the amount of carbon produced by the various software products they choose is a less obvious and less “visible” action.
But when you consider the vast differences that do exist today between software vendor’s carbon production, choosing a software vendor with a low carbon footprint makes sense! Not only does it help with your own business’ green credentials, but it also – more importantly – it helps our planet.
Why choose a business that would require the equivalent of 60 trees a year to absorb the carbon it produces, when you could choose a business requiring just 2?
For a room booking and resource scheduling system committed to being green, be sure to consider MIDAS.
