kaufDA, a young team based in Germany is working for an initiative called “Make it green!” with a goal to take part in reducing the carbon footprint by raising awareness of the severe environmental damage caused by carbon emissions.

They have decided to take an interesting approach to raising awareness of carbon emissions resulting from the use of the internet – specifically of blogs, creating “My blog is carbon neutral” buttons, so bloggers can demonstrate they care about the environment and the carbon footprint of having a blog.

How do they neutralize your blog’s carbon footprint?

By planting trees in cooperation with the Arbor Day Foundation in Plumas National Forest in Northern California for our project to neutralize the carbon footprint of blogs.

“Thousands of wildfires have burned in many national forests over the past ten years and 88.000 acres of Plumas’ were destroyed by two fires in 2007. For replanting this area we need help from bloggers all over the world! For every participating blog, we plant a tree. One blog – one tree.” -Christin Gericke, Make it green! Team

How much carbon dioxide does your blog create?

According to a study by Alexander Wissner-Gross, PhD, physicist at Harvard University and environmental activist, an average website causes about 0.02g (0,0008oz.) of carbon dioxide for each visit. Assuming an average blog gets 15,000 visits a month, it has yearly carbon dioxide emissions of 3,6kg (8lb.). This can mainly be tracked back to the immense energy usage from (mainframe) computers, servers, and their cooling systems.

kaufDA provides advertising brochures of local stores online to help consumers search for specific products and find good deals in their neighborhood. This reduces the amount of brochures printed and so the project helps the environment by reducing unnecessary paper in mailboxes. An American on average receives 41 pounds of junk mail per year. This has the same carbon footprint as burning six gallons of gasoline.

For more details and to find out how you can participate, visit http://www.kaufda.de/umwelt/co2-neutral/my-blog-is-carbon-neutral/