Going Green in the Digital World: DoggyDoggy Does It Sustainably!

At DoggyDoggy we are aware of our negative impact on the climate. When you think of climate change you may think of traditional sectors such as oil companies and airlines, but as a software company we also contribute to global warming. Time to tackle that!

Offsetting emissions

We have decided to offset the CO2 emissions of our operations from 2023 onwards. Per year we use an estimated 1500 kilos of CO2 for our office. On top of that we emit an average of 436 kilos per year through the use of a car. Our servers emit another 150 kilos per year. This brings our total CO2 emissions to an estimated 2086 kilos of CO2 per year, rounded up to 2100 kilos, which converts to 2.1 tonnes. You can find our calculations at the bottom of this article.

We offset our emissions by investing in an independently verified climate project with direct CO2 reduction.

What do we invest in?

We offset the 2.1 tonnes of CO2 we emit in any case, but we'd like to go one better than that. That's why we offset 21 tonnes of CO2 per year through Fairclimatefund. Fairclimatefund is a non-profit organisation from our own Utrecht. Together with partners they invest in climate projects that offset CO2 and that benefit vulnerable people.

At DoggyDoggy we invest in a biogas project in India. Thanks to this project, cooking on an open fire is replaced by cooking on biogas. As a result, fewer greenhouse gases are emitted and fewer trees are cut down. On top of that, local residents no longer breathe in unhealthy smoke and they save time, so more time can be put into the family or into economic activities. The project is verified by Fairtrade Carbon Credits and has a Fairtrade Gold Standard.

So through this project we contribute not only to ecological sustainability, but to social and economic sustainability as well.

On the website of Fairclimatefund you can read more about this project.

Ecological footprint

The fact that the CO2 emissions are offset does not mean that our business activities no longer have a negative impact on the climate. Unfortunately the negative impact remains, but to counterbalance it we invest in making a positive impact in order to bring our ecological footprint more into balance.

We are aware that we (indirectly) have an even bigger impact than through energy and greenhouse gases alone. Think of waste, for example. We do our best to map our impact as accurately as possible in the future, so that we can make our footprint as small as possible.

Calculation of energy for our office

We have based this on the following points:

• Our office of 31m2 has Energy Label A+ (checked on ep-online.nl)
• Per m2 of office, our energy consumption (electricity + gas) will come to 60-140 kWh/m2/year, assuming a large office. Our office is, after all, part of a multi-tenant business building. We determined the energy consumption using the standards table on OG Wijzer.
• We take the average of 60 and 140, 100 kWh * 31 = 3100 kWh per year.
• CE Delft has calculated that in the Netherlands we emit approximately 0.484 kg of CO2 per kWh.
• 3100 kWh * 0.484 = 1500 kilos of CO2.

Calculation of CO2 for car use

Two of us cycle to the office, one of us works from home (abroad), and one of us travels from their home town to the office about 2 times a month in a small car.

A return trip is 122 km, so two times a month is 244 kilometres. The CO2 emissions for the car are 149 grams per kilometre according to milieucentraal. This brings the total emissions to 36.4 kilos per month, so 436 kilos of CO2 per year.

Calculation of CO2 from our servers

Our server park is managed by Google. In Google's dashboard we can view the footprint of our servers. In the period from November 2022 up to and including October 2023 this was: 0.15 tonnes of CO2 (equivalents) in total, in other words: 150 kilos of CO2 in that year. That includes fuel consumption (for emergency generators among other things), electricity and staff working in the data centre.