{"headline":{"perSearchG":0.004,"locationLowG":0.004,"locationHighG":0.0043,"marketG":0.0037},"provenance":{"measuredOn":"2026-06-08","methodVersion":"v1","standard":"ISO/IEC 21031","horizonSearches":1000000000},"embodiedKg":1200,"horizons":[100000000,1000000000,10000000000],"contributors":[{"what":"Answering your search (server electricity)","carbon":"~0.0003–0.0007 g","how":"measured — read from the CPU energy counter (RAPL)","method":"measured","g":0.0005},{"what":"The page we send to your device","carbon":"0.00248 g","how":"modeled — CO2.js (Sustainable Web Design) over our 20 KB page","method":"modeled","g":0.00248},{"what":"Making the server hardware (shared across every search)","carbon":"0.0012 g","how":"fetched live — Boavizta hardware database","method":"fetched","g":0.0012},{"what":"Building the search index (shared, one-time)","carbon":"under 0.00001 g","how":"measured — CPU + GPU energy counters","method":"measured","g":0.00001}],"comparison":[{"service":"Argand search","carbon":"≈ 0.004 g","g":0.004,"tip":"≈ a text message split four ways — about 250 searches make one gram.","what":"Measured, full lifecycle (serving + your page + hardware). This page.","us":true},{"service":"Google Search","carbon":"≈ 0.2 g","g":0.2,"tip":"≈ one short email, or about 50 Argand searches.","what":"Google’s own figure — but from 2009, and never updated since."},{"service":"Google Gemini (AI)","carbon":"≈ 0.03 g","g":0.03,"tip":"≈ about 8 Argand searches.","what":"Google, 2025. Serving energy only (0.24 Wh) — excludes your page + hardware."},{"service":"ChatGPT (AI)","carbon":"≈ 0.15 g","g":0.15,"est":true,"tip":"≈ about 40 Argand searches.","what":"Independent estimate from ~0.34 Wh (OpenAI, 2025); OpenAI gives energy, not a method."},{"service":"Anthropic Claude (AI)","carbon":"not published","what":"No per-query figure; no Scope 1/2/3 emissions reported as of 2026."},{"service":"Microsoft Bing","carbon":"not published","what":"No public per-search figure (company-wide totals only)."}],"everyday":[{"thing":"One Argand search","co2":"0.004 g","n":"1","us":true},{"thing":"A text message","co2":"~0.014 g","n":"~4"},{"thing":"A Google search","co2":"~0.2 g","n":"~50"},{"thing":"A short email","co2":"~0.3 g","n":"~75"},{"thing":"One ChatGPT answer","co2":"~0.15 g","n":"~40"},{"thing":"A cup of tea (boiling the kettle)","co2":"~21 g","n":"~5,000"},{"thing":"A banana","co2":"~80 g","n":"~20,000"},{"thing":"1 km in an average car","co2":"~170 g","n":"~42,000"},{"thing":"A cheeseburger","co2":"~3,000 g","n":"~750,000"}],"sources":[{"group":"ours","label":"Software Carbon Intensity (Green Software Foundation)","href":"https://sci.greensoftware.foundation/"},{"group":"ours","label":"ISO/IEC 21031:2024","href":"https://www.iso.org/standard/86612.html"},{"group":"ours","label":"GHG Protocol (dual Scope-2)","href":"https://ghgprotocol.org/"},{"group":"ours","label":"Fingrid open data, dataset 396 (Finland grid carbon)","href":"https://data.fingrid.fi/en/datasets/396"},{"group":"ours","label":"Hetzner sustainability (hydropower)","href":"https://www.hetzner.com/unternehmen/nachhaltigkeit"},{"group":"ours","label":"CO2.js (The Green Web Foundation)","href":"https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/co2-js/"},{"group":"ours","label":"Sustainable Web Design model","href":"https://sustainablewebdesign.org/"},{"group":"ours","label":"Boavizta (hardware carbon)","href":"https://www.boavizta.org/en"},{"group":"ours","label":"Boavizta API","href":"https://doc.api.boavizta.org/"},{"group":"third-party","label":"Google Search ≈0.2 g (2009)","href":"https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/powering-google-search.html"},{"group":"third-party","label":"Google Gemini ≈0.03 g, 0.24 Wh (2025)","href":"https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/measuring-the-environmental-impact-of-ai-inference/"},{"group":"third-party","label":"Gemini study (paper)","href":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.15734"},{"group":"third-party","label":"ChatGPT ≈0.34 Wh (Sam Altman, OpenAI, 2025)","href":"https://blog.samaltman.com/the-gentle-singularity"},{"group":"third-party","label":"AI energy context (IEEE Spectrum)","href":"https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-energy-use"},{"group":"third-party","label":"AI footprint context (Hannah Ritchie)","href":"https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/ai-footprint-august-2025"},{"group":"third-party","label":"Anthropic / Bing disclosure gap (2025–26)","href":"https://carboncredits.com/chatgpt-vs-claude-ai-carbon-footprints-pentagon-deal-and-energy-impact/"},{"group":"third-party","label":"Everyday equivalents — How Bad Are Bananas? (Berners-Lee)","href":"https://www.howbadarebananas.com/"},{"group":"third-party","label":"Driving equivalents — US EPA calculator","href":"https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator"}]}