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Alex
Alex

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Carbon Footprint API for Apps.

As society is turning more and more to sustainable development, any business that’s going green is bound to achieve more success than its competitors stuck in the fossil fuels era. While some business owners turn to recycling, others try to use renewable energy or refrain from using plastic packaging; some contribute to reducing the damage we’ve already done and cleaning up the mess. The point is if you you’re willing to, there are multiple ways how you can help the environment. And technology seems to be an obvious example of how we can do some climate action quickly and easily.

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There are many ways we can use technology to benefit climate change, but today we are going to talk about carbon footprint offsetting. We all probably know what a carbon footprint is and that it’s inevitable for a human being to have one.

But since it’s proved to be harming the environment, people are learning to negate their carbon emissions somehow. A lot of apps and websites provide their customers with the ability to calculate their carbon footprint and some even provide options on how to offset carbon emissions. Typically you can purchase carbon offsets by participating in different projects on climate change around the world.

So, how does it work? First, the app calculates the number of carbon emissions you produced. It depends on the type of data you put in. It might be a flight ticket or a parcel delivery or a gas refill. Then the app offers you ways to ensure carbon removal. As a rule, you can choose from a variety of carbon offset projects to fund and help save the environment. It’s easy for people and it’s good for nature. Win-win on both sides.

But it might get tricky on the part of the app. To get access to carbon emission data, an app needs to either build its API, which is a great deal of work or integrate with the already existing offset APIs.

So, what is carbon footprint offsetting API? This type of API collects information about personal carbon emissions and processes it to make calculations. To make it more specific, let’s have a look at some examples.

Lune API

This API estimates various carbon emissions from goods shipping to the whole company's CO2 level. Lune is widely used by retailers and delivery services, who want to provide their customers with sustainable products and deliver goods without the pain of guilt.

AwardWallet Email Parsing API

This API takes the customer experience to another level by eliminating clients’ efforts to zero. It parses incoming emails for necessary information and transforms it into usable data. The process is automated which allows people to become more carbon-neutral without lifting a finger.

GreenStory API

This API is focused on the product’s carbon emissions at each stage of its production: from the factory, through shipping to consumer use. It’s often used by online shops that strive to become carbon-neutral and want to encourage their customers to do the same.

As you can see the use of carbon-offsetting APIs not only ease customers and developers into the process of becoming net zero but also creates an important social impact.

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