EVALUATION OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

OF E-COMMERCE

FUTURIDEA 14/02/2014 – Benevento - Italy

Valerio Morfino

Information Technology and the

Internet generate CO2

Is it sufficient not to print email messages to make

Internet free of greenhouse gas emissions?

The entire Information and

Communication Technology (ICT)

contribute about 2% of global CO2

emissions.

This is the same value produced by

the entire avionics industry.

Valerio Morfino

The use of Internet and its services generates greenhouse gas emissions

Sending an email generate an emission of 4 g of CO2

In a year:

Skype produces 24 millions tons

Facebook 13.6 millions tons

The whole Internet 300 millions tons

It is estimated that by 2020, CO2 emissions from the ICT industry should

at least double

Some DATA Valerio Morfino

Value of B2C ecommerce

Worldwide 2020

$3.2 trillion*

Worldwide 2015

$1.77 trillion**

North America 2015

$538.3 billion**

Western Europe 2015

$382.7 billion**

* Frost&Sullivan Research 2014

** E-marketers 2014

Valerio Morfino

How an e-commerce site emits CO2?

Direct Emissions

• For example, the greenhouse gas emitted for products delivery to customers

Indirect emissions

• Servers, PCs and network devices works using electricity.

• The production of electricity generates CO2 emissions (eg. Usa2013, 39% of electricity is generated by Coal*)

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* ww.eia.gov – U.S. Energy Information Administration

Evaluation elements

Elements used for CO2 emission evaluation

Hardware SoftwareWeb

Design

Web Marketing

Other

Elements

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Software

The energy performance of a software is related to the software quality

ηi is software energy efficiency rate

ηi → 1 in ideal conditions it tends to 1

Factors affecting software performance:

Algorithms used(CPU)

Appropriate data sizing (CPU)

Database Quality and Optimisation (CPU, HD)

Proper use of cache systems Server side and Client side (CPU, HD)

Size of multimedia resources (CPU)

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Web Design and Usability

The Web Design activity includes tasks related to

design and implementation of a website

In the evaluation of the energy performance are

relevant factors such as:

quantity, quality and compression ratio of Multimedia

Resources

Web Site Usability

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Web Design and Usability

Quality of multimedia resources used in the site ismeasured with ηm, multimedia resources energyefficiency rate

Usability is measured with ηnd efficiency rate of Web Site Surfing, related to Web Design work

A usable web site allows you to find products faster browsing less pages

This value is related to parameters like pages per visit and duration of the visit

Valerio Morfino

Web Marketing

Online Marketing or Web Marketing refers to a set of tools and methodologies used for promoting products and services through the Internet. In the case of an eCommerce it refers to bring visits to the website and convert them into sales.

Some tools and methodologies :

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

DEM (Direct Email Marketing)

PPC (Pay Per Click)

Viral Marketing Campaigns

Prices and discount policies

Contents and website Design

Valerio Morfino

Web Marketing

To evaluate the overall efficiency of the Web

Marketing we refer to the conversion rate Tc, ie the

number of visits that become orders. It is measured

with ηwm efficiency rate of Web Marketing

A good reference value for the conversion rate is 3%*

This means that 97% of visits to a site generates CO2

emissions, without economic benefits directly related

*(Forrester Research 2013)

Valerio Morfino

Examples of emission values

For a website with the following parameters*

Average session duration 8,7 min.

Devices 75% Desktop; 16% Mobile; 9% Tablet

Pages/Session 9,7

Average page weight 430 Kb

The emission includes the contribution of Server, End User Devices and Network equipment

It is excluded the emission caused by delivery of goods

* Parameters can be found via Google Analytics

4.700 visits/month

1,1 T CO2

per year15.600 visits/month

3,3 T CO2

per year100.000 visits/month

22,2 T CO2

per year

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Case Study – Design Optimization

We will examine a website with 4700 visits / month

Improving design parameters ηm and ηnd

compared to the data of the previous slide:

Average session duration < 20%

Pages/Session < 20%

Average Page Weight < 20%

We have:

Total CO2 emissioni: Kg. 751,9 Kg /year

A reduction of 32%

Valerio Morfino

Conclusions

The quality of implementation and the quality of services provided for an eCommerce website is related to the website energy performance and so to its Co2 emissions

Apartments, televisions, refrigerators ... Even an eCommerce site can be more or less Ecological

Currently the CO2 emissions of ecommerce sites is a small value, but data shows that the use of Internet and of eCommerce is increasing dramatically. The identification of metrics and optimization criteria will be certainly helpful.

Valerio Morfino

Thanks for your attention

Valerio Morfino – valerio.morfino@ctcgroup.it

Full Work:

Evaluation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions of E-commerce (Valerio Morfino, Alessandro Perrella and Salvatore Rampone) in Global Sustainability Inside and Outside the Territory: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop

Edited by: Carmine Nardone , Salvatore Rampone

WSPC (23 dicembre 2014)

ISBN: 978-981-4651-31-8 (hardcover); ISBN: 978-981-4651-33-2 (ebook)

Valerio Morfino