I am extremely skeptical about this sort of thing - I suspect that it's extremely challenging to reliably make assertions about the carbon cost of running a given website given that there are so many unaccountable-for variables; at best the very "edge" of any carbon usage is being guessed at.
Added to that the opportunities for charging the various parties for "certification" are simply too good to pass up it seems.
Yes, but one does not have to reliably make assertions to feed a meme.
People want to be good. The current agenda God says you are good if you sacrifice to the CO2 god. No need to make reliable assertions to feel good about it. Anyone who challenges the act of sacrifice is someone to burn. No challenge means no problems.
Anyone who wants to see both sides of the Co2 discussion is already sceptical at minimum. But it does not make you feel good. Therefore its rare. It feels good to sacrifice to the Co2 god. “Lemme sacrifice you fool.”
This project doesn't seem to care whether I'm sending data to someone else right near us-east-1 or whether I'm sending data to Australia. The energy costs will be very very different.
Not only is it measuring bytes blindly, it's counting rating your energy use as a % of bytes sent, versus total data-center consumption period. As though every byte is equally responsible for the total computing done. Absurdly wrongheaded model.
Added to that the opportunities for charging the various parties for "certification" are simply too good to pass up it seems.