WEBVTT 00:00:27.145 --> 00:00:30.291 Good morning, Chris. Morning, Christian. How are you today? 00:00:30.599 --> 00:00:36.461 Fine. A bit exhausted, because yesterday we both were at the Midabout Head in 00:00:36.461 --> 00:00:40.131 the Cloud, or Heat in the Cloud event, or we, like, renamed it. 00:00:42.171 --> 00:00:46.255 The crowd is about right, yeah. Yeah, it was quite warm. Yes. And it's still. 00:00:47.271 --> 00:00:52.071 But it was a fantastic festival-esque conference event or, like, 00:00:52.071 --> 00:00:54.248 celebration crossover thing. 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:58.981 Like a nice, nerdy summer garden party with a wacking great data center in the 00:00:58.981 --> 00:01:02.346 corner of the building. Yeah. Gently wearing a wave. Yeah. 00:01:02.666 --> 00:01:06.571 And a well-climatized data center building, I have to add. 00:01:08.064 --> 00:01:13.021 So you also gave a talk yesterday. So there were three tracks. 00:01:13.021 --> 00:01:18.281 Yes. There was culture and creativity. There was DevOps and there was the tech. 00:01:18.281 --> 00:01:21.079 And tech, because cloud and DevOps are totally different to tech. 00:01:21.329 --> 00:01:23.604 Totally. Totally. Yeah. 00:01:24.668 --> 00:01:29.936 Yeah, I think it's like a, maybe it's like a Michelinist kind of track where 00:01:30.376 --> 00:01:33.326 they can just put everything. Yeah. And it always works. 00:01:34.377 --> 00:01:38.556 So you gave a talk about sustainability. My talk was called, 00:01:38.556 --> 00:01:41.516 What Does a Fossil-Free Internet in Germany Look Like? Yeah. 00:01:41.516 --> 00:01:44.954 And that's because I work for an organization called The Green Web Handelschen. 00:01:45.430 --> 00:01:48.982 And we're working towards fossil-free internet globally. 00:01:49.348 --> 00:01:53.506 But given the fact that I'm in Germany, like, we're a Dutch organization. 00:01:53.506 --> 00:01:56.856 But one of our headquarters, as in our biggest office, is in Berlin. 00:01:57.476 --> 00:02:01.056 And if I'm speaking at a German conference, it probably makes sense to kind 00:02:01.056 --> 00:02:04.464 of adjust some of the content to fit the country. 00:02:04.679 --> 00:02:08.466 And also Germany is particularly interesting because it's the largest economy 00:02:08.466 --> 00:02:13.396 in Europe, has the largest data center sector in Europe, and arguably probably 00:02:13.396 --> 00:02:18.234 has, I think, the most potential to actually improve. 00:02:18.495 --> 00:02:23.503 Because Germany is like the land of coal and the land of solar, as we saw yesterday. 00:02:23.654 --> 00:02:27.172 And there is a chance for it to switch. So yeah, that was it. 00:02:28.409 --> 00:02:34.302 Yeah, there's also this project that you also, of course, know of, electricity maps. Yes. 00:02:34.312 --> 00:02:42.306 You can clearly see how Germany is still very, like, or partly fossil drilling. Yes. 00:02:42.608 --> 00:02:45.732 Well, this is precisely what you said. You're referring to the map that basically 00:02:45.732 --> 00:02:48.389 shows how clean the electricity is all around the world. 00:02:48.517 --> 00:02:53.792 And Germany's grid switches quite a lot between being very, very clean and very, very dirty. Yeah. 00:02:54.192 --> 00:02:57.092 Dependent on how windy and sunny it is, more so than other countries. 00:02:57.612 --> 00:03:02.812 And now that we're seeing this move to batteries and things like that, that means you get, say, 00:03:03.352 --> 00:03:06.992 when it's clean, you can get it to stay clean by actually thoughtful use of 00:03:06.992 --> 00:03:10.912 how computing works and thoughtful use of storing some energy that you don't 00:03:10.912 --> 00:03:13.188 need when you have too much, as it were. 00:03:13.316 --> 00:03:16.312 So you can use it instead of having to kind of go back to using coal a lot. 00:03:16.898 --> 00:03:21.892 Yeah, it's laying below that threshold where the coal power plants are being 00:03:21.892 --> 00:03:23.572 booted. Yes, precisely. 00:03:24.132 --> 00:03:27.002 That's the role that batteries are able to play inside this. 00:03:27.002 --> 00:03:30.608 And we spoke a little bit about that yesterday, about there was a big growth taking place. 00:03:30.817 --> 00:03:33.552 But primarily, it was about introducing people to the idea that, 00:03:33.552 --> 00:03:37.782 yes, the electricity that we view, that we rely on to power or provide digital 00:03:37.782 --> 00:03:39.089 services, it comes from somewhere. 00:03:39.652 --> 00:03:43.602 And as professionals, we probably should be thinking about that. 00:03:43.602 --> 00:03:45.266 And there are actually steps we can take. 00:03:45.521 --> 00:03:49.192 So that was it. That was the general idea behind the talk to give people an 00:03:49.192 --> 00:03:50.902 idea. But yeah, we can head there. 00:03:51.883 --> 00:03:57.610 So, what steps can it take? Yeah, there's a few things that you can do. 00:03:58.190 --> 00:04:01.900 We recently launched a report called The State of the Fossil Free Interlamps, 00:04:01.900 --> 00:04:04.387 the first one that we will be doing in three years. 00:04:04.933 --> 00:04:09.470 And we basically touched on, essentially, there's one kind of issue that we 00:04:09.470 --> 00:04:11.790 currently have, where we had, 00:04:12.370 --> 00:04:17.230 a sector which was decarbonizing, but then since we've essentially seen this 00:04:17.230 --> 00:04:21.656 kind of media to build out more and more and more data centers, particularly to, 00:04:22.271 --> 00:04:26.570 meet demands of mostly generative AI, not the actual kind of traditional kinds 00:04:26.570 --> 00:04:30.578 of AI or predictive AI that we often get a lot of value from already, 00:04:31.385 --> 00:04:34.340 we see this incredible build-out right now. 00:04:34.340 --> 00:04:37.846 And that's basically, A, doubling the amount of energy you need to decarbonize. 00:04:38.049 --> 00:04:43.053 But it also means that this is actually problematic in lots of other ways because 00:04:43.483 --> 00:04:49.398 you've actually seen this idea from a shift from decarbonization to re-carbonization. 00:04:49.520 --> 00:04:54.640 So rather than phasing out fossil fuels, you're now seeing some cases where 00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:57.960 you're seeing data centers which are powered exclusively on fossil fuels. 00:04:58.401 --> 00:05:02.450 And this is something that we're now seeing in Germany. Like there's one data 00:05:02.450 --> 00:05:05.251 center which is set up with its own gas turbine. And we're like... 00:05:06.099 --> 00:05:09.655 Guys, this is like the opposite of where we need to become. So we were speaking 00:05:09.655 --> 00:05:12.833 about some of that. But to go back to your initial question, what can you do? 00:05:13.705 --> 00:05:16.281 I think there are three things we've kind of laid out in the report. 00:05:16.408 --> 00:05:19.185 So first of all, it's actually manage the demand. 00:05:19.185 --> 00:05:24.285 Be thoughtful about it. Think about, okay, how much demand am I placing onto 00:05:24.665 --> 00:05:28.835 the grid and how much demand am I using and am I creating through the design 00:05:28.835 --> 00:05:29.985 of my services, for example. 00:05:30.585 --> 00:05:34.145 And that's just like things like efficiency and thoughtful in architecture. 00:05:34.505 --> 00:05:38.135 Now, the one was about greening the energy, which is pretty self-explanatory, 00:05:38.135 --> 00:05:43.815 but there's different ways that you can purchase more meaningful green energy 00:05:43.815 --> 00:05:45.775 versus not-so-meaningful green energy. 00:05:45.775 --> 00:05:52.985 To make that concrete, some companies basically try to do carbonize on an hourly 00:05:52.985 --> 00:05:58.605 basis, with the idea being that instead of saying, we're just going to buy a. 00:06:00.425 --> 00:06:04.175 Normal energy tariff and buy some certificates from say Norway or Iceland and 00:06:04.175 --> 00:06:07.215 then apply them and say they're green because the loyalties you do that you 00:06:07.215 --> 00:06:12.855 can offset your yeah it's a little bit like an offset by like yeah exactly that's 00:06:12.855 --> 00:06:14.725 one of the things that is used a lot of the time 00:06:15.125 --> 00:06:19.023 but a more convincing way is to actually meaningfully match this so 00:06:19.447 --> 00:06:23.383 at night you actually are matching that with rather than just relying on solar you might say well, 00:06:24.253 --> 00:06:29.342 We're working with a supplier who actually gets power from wind and from solar 00:06:29.342 --> 00:06:32.762 and from storage so that there's always some kind of meaningful clean power 00:06:32.762 --> 00:06:35.242 and the actual kind of demand signals that we do. 00:06:36.162 --> 00:06:39.702 If you're purchasing from a supplier and they're purchasing the batteries and 00:06:39.702 --> 00:06:42.862 things like that, that changes the cost of batteries in the long term. 00:06:42.862 --> 00:06:47.618 The same we've seen that basically Germany played a massive role in the 2000s 00:06:47.844 --> 00:06:51.252 to bring down the cost of solar and wind such that That is basically one of 00:06:51.252 --> 00:06:54.692 the main hopes for climate right now in terms of decarbonizing our system. 00:06:54.692 --> 00:06:58.758 We can do the same with batteries and we can do the same with all kinds of new technologies. 00:06:58.955 --> 00:07:01.902 And that's one of the things that as a developer, you don't have to do it yourself, 00:07:01.902 --> 00:07:05.532 but you do need to make a deliberate decision. Who am I purchasing this from? 00:07:05.689 --> 00:07:07.602 And there are actually providers in Germany that do this. 00:07:08.822 --> 00:07:14.662 Incentivize energy providers to offer these kinds of energy nixes because there's demand. Exactly. 00:07:14.982 --> 00:07:18.975 This is a new shift. This is like the cool new thing in the world of energy, basically. 00:07:19.201 --> 00:07:22.542 And that's one thing that most developers haven't really had to think about. 00:07:22.542 --> 00:07:25.922 But I think there's something that we probably should be thinking about if we're 00:07:25.922 --> 00:07:29.964 going to think of ourselves as responsible technologists. 00:07:30.330 --> 00:07:33.512 And the final thing that we mentioned, the third thing that is in the report 00:07:33.512 --> 00:07:39.246 that we launched, was actually about democratizing the actual industry. 00:07:39.484 --> 00:07:46.042 So that you don't have three massive companies taking up more than half of all of the sector. 00:07:46.442 --> 00:07:51.462 Because the three hyperscalers yes the three hyperscalers because the priorities 00:07:51.462 --> 00:07:55.964 that they have it's pretty clear that they're not really aligned with the goals, 00:07:56.586 --> 00:08:01.352 like the climate goals that I think most of us in society and that's one thing 00:08:01.352 --> 00:08:03.447 that came up when I was presenting. 00:08:04.248 --> 00:08:06.090 In the report, this is the thing we're talking about. We're saying, 00:08:06.090 --> 00:08:10.120 well, we need to have a wider set of ownership models. You need to have a more 00:08:10.120 --> 00:08:12.317 diverse ecosystem of providers. 00:08:12.427 --> 00:08:17.710 Because when we're at a conference where you have a company which is much, 00:08:17.710 --> 00:08:20.940 much more client-aligned and client-aware than some of them. 00:08:20.940 --> 00:08:25.880 So a company, one of the hyperscalers, which is literally deploying a new data 00:08:25.880 --> 00:08:30.990 center with the same data center capacity, 2.7 gigawatts, as all of Germany. 00:08:31.670 --> 00:08:35.066 Right and they're like they've just said oh we're going to do a deal with chevron, 00:08:35.791 --> 00:08:40.140 to power this so you basically got that gives you know that that that is a clear 00:08:40.140 --> 00:08:44.354 statement that you have very very different priorities yes for your for for, 00:08:44.810 --> 00:08:47.760 society versus this country right so that's one of the things you need to be 00:08:47.760 --> 00:08:52.640 thinking about i'm like i think when you have a more democratized larger set 00:08:52.640 --> 00:08:55.238 of smaller players then you don't have this, 00:08:55.824 --> 00:08:58.910 unaccountable unaccountability essentially that you have this, 00:08:58.910 --> 00:09:02.268 because this should be outrageous to most of us, that it's happening. 00:09:02.396 --> 00:09:07.481 But yeah, if we didn't have such concentration, you might not see things like that so much. 00:09:07.870 --> 00:09:12.390 I would also say that only the hyperscalers are, 00:09:13.407 --> 00:09:19.497 able to build data centers and plan them with a power plant included because, 00:09:20.042 --> 00:09:26.614 i don't think midwild or etzner or any of the typical european hosters, 00:09:27.432 --> 00:09:31.135 is big enough and also mad enough to. 00:09:32.335 --> 00:09:37.165 To be able to build such a thing so this is true there is a lot of a lot when 00:09:37.165 --> 00:09:40.766 you do hear some of the big stories about saying i know let's put together a 00:09:41.144 --> 00:09:44.295 on-site massive gas-fired power station, 00:09:44.775 --> 00:09:47.872 uh net exclusively for say the, 00:09:48.415 --> 00:09:52.235 exclusively for a data center yeah you generally see it being you generally, 00:09:52.735 --> 00:09:57.075 see it being aimed at large hyperscale providers all right now there isn't always 00:09:57.075 --> 00:10:01.351 microsoft and amazon and google but usually the people who are building that 00:10:01.525 --> 00:10:05.055 would like are hoping to sell to groups like that and that's when you see these 00:10:05.395 --> 00:10:06.895 mega projects particularly in the us, 00:10:07.765 --> 00:10:12.215 they will usually kind of use these words to use these companies to say yeah we're in talks with it, 00:10:12.657 --> 00:10:16.082 but whether they actually have that contract or not is another matter if there's 00:10:16.471 --> 00:10:19.665 there's a whole question about how speculative this boom actually is and we've 00:10:19.665 --> 00:10:23.994 seen quite a number of projects actually not make it in the US for example. 00:10:25.341 --> 00:10:29.363 It's not just the hyperscalers who are actually driving this. 00:10:29.363 --> 00:10:32.633 You do see the data center sector themselves trying to do things like this. 00:10:32.633 --> 00:10:40.423 And the example that we mentioned in, say, this example of a massive 60-megawatt, 00:10:41.203 --> 00:10:46.723 gas-fired power station, that's largely being aimed at the U.S. hyperscalers. 00:10:47.249 --> 00:10:50.263 But it may be the case that once it's built, another kind of company might come 00:10:50.263 --> 00:10:54.713 into it as well because you're seeing lots and lots of new entrants into this 00:10:54.713 --> 00:10:55.805 field because there's a boom. 00:10:55.973 --> 00:10:59.693 And it may be that there are even European providers or European companies who 00:10:59.693 --> 00:11:05.823 are a bit more relaxed about gas than really they should be given the state of the climate. 00:11:05.823 --> 00:11:09.493 And like it's warm today, it's not like it's going to get cooler, 00:11:09.493 --> 00:11:11.338 right? Yeah, absolutely. 00:11:15.872 --> 00:11:19.709 So you also offer, like the Green Web Foundation, 00:11:20.363 --> 00:11:27.063 itself offers also like tooling around like that helps developers and everybody 00:11:27.063 --> 00:11:32.463 else also to get like visibility into these things and also to maybe get closer to that goal. 00:11:32.563 --> 00:11:36.153 Yeah, I can tell you a little bit about that. So I'm glad you mentioned Electricity 00:11:36.153 --> 00:11:39.303 Maps before. So Ernie on this team did a collaboration with Electricity Maps 00:11:39.303 --> 00:11:45.243 to basically put the carbon intensity of every single country into CO2.js, 00:11:45.243 --> 00:11:46.481 our kind of flagship library. 00:11:46.963 --> 00:11:49.933 Now, if you have five blocks. We have to explain what CO2.js is. 00:11:49.963 --> 00:11:52.176 So co2.js is a JavaScript library, 00:11:53.127 --> 00:11:56.333 you can use in any kind of product and it will give you a it'll tell you how 00:11:56.333 --> 00:11:58.993 clean power is based on where you are in the world, 00:11:59.547 --> 00:12:03.583 because it's basically got like all the lookups so if i'm in say germany i know 00:12:03.583 --> 00:12:07.813 it's going to be this if i'm in france it's going to be that and so on all right so it's like it's it's 00:12:08.233 --> 00:12:13.063 always like uh where the visitor comes from right uh we have it set up so that 00:12:13.063 --> 00:12:15.923 it's just it's just a lookup table basically that's what we have inside it that's 00:12:15.923 --> 00:12:18.494 the deal we do with electricity maps so we have annual figures there 00:12:18.906 --> 00:12:22.964 uh you can use that and uh if you have Firefox installed in your computer, 00:12:23.289 --> 00:12:27.335 you probably have this code already installed on your computer as well, because, 00:12:28.072 --> 00:12:33.203 CO2.js is used inside the Firefox browser to provide some of the carbon metrics 00:12:33.203 --> 00:12:35.555 in their developer tools themselves, because. 00:12:36.553 --> 00:12:39.897 They were the first browser to work with us. And in fact... 00:12:40.303 --> 00:12:49.843 There's a fantastic profiling tool to see at what moment in time on your website, 00:12:49.843 --> 00:12:53.363 how much electricity was considered, which part of your computer. 00:12:53.363 --> 00:12:58.072 Yes, so you've got that kind of detail. So you can basically optimize at that micro-level detail. 00:12:58.310 --> 00:13:03.122 So you can, you know, essentially optimize at the micro-level for carbon. 00:13:03.488 --> 00:13:08.523 And we initially had some data from another organization called EMBA, 00:13:08.523 --> 00:13:11.123 who are a non-profit who had been publishing this information. 00:13:11.123 --> 00:13:14.267 But the thing we found with that Electro-StyMaps data was actually, 00:13:14.598 --> 00:13:17.053 it's really, really good for the grid that you're actually on. 00:13:17.053 --> 00:13:19.783 Because in certain parts of the world, the grid might be very, 00:13:19.783 --> 00:13:23.133 very different. For example, if you're in the US, on, say, the East Coast, 00:13:23.633 --> 00:13:25.296 you're going to be using a lot of coal, right? 00:13:25.511 --> 00:13:28.263 But on the West Coast, you might be using loads and loads of, 00:13:28.263 --> 00:13:32.313 say, hydro and solar, which means you will have much, much cleaner power. 00:13:32.313 --> 00:13:34.486 So you need to kind of represent this inside it. 00:13:34.753 --> 00:13:40.323 So it's more detailed than the one... Exactly. It's much better geographic detail. 00:13:41.263 --> 00:13:44.424 Yes. Now, the thing I'll share with you is that, 00:13:45.022 --> 00:13:48.197 This is geographic detail, which is one thing that you need to take into account. 00:13:48.615 --> 00:13:54.111 But obviously, solar panels don't work as well at night as they do during the day. 00:13:54.571 --> 00:13:57.183 So there's a kind of temporal thing you need to take into account as well. 00:13:57.549 --> 00:14:02.401 Now, if you want to design systems that respond to these changes in carbon intensity 00:14:02.401 --> 00:14:05.611 throughout the day, then electricity maps provide that as a service. 00:14:05.911 --> 00:14:09.593 We don't do that. We just have that annual data. Exactly, yeah. 00:14:09.877 --> 00:14:11.131 So that's what we have so you can start. 00:14:11.468 --> 00:14:15.011 And then when you want to actually get a bit more sophisticated or you want 00:14:15.011 --> 00:14:20.301 to have things respond because who knew that the power in Germany is negative 00:14:20.301 --> 00:14:24.692 at lunchtime during the summer most of the time because there's that much sitting there, right? 00:14:25.011 --> 00:14:28.701 These are things that are useful to be aware of and that's what electricity and that does. 00:14:28.701 --> 00:14:32.361 But we started to kind of at least give people something so they can start to 00:14:32.361 --> 00:14:35.491 understand and realize, okay, wow, there's this whole dynamic thing and there 00:14:35.491 --> 00:14:39.251 are all these things I can do to change where I might run computing to kind 00:14:39.251 --> 00:14:40.651 of change the environmental impact. 00:14:41.071 --> 00:14:47.691 Doing that, for example. I think one of your colleagues, Fershad? Fershad, yes. 00:14:48.311 --> 00:14:52.731 I think he built a project where he used that in Cloudflare. 00:14:53.531 --> 00:14:59.491 Yes, you're talking about the GridWare website project. We actually worked with 00:14:59.491 --> 00:15:05.185 Electricity Maps to get a specific API that was available for free, basically. 00:15:06.456 --> 00:15:09.081 Normally, if you want to have very, very high detailed data, 00:15:09.081 --> 00:15:12.701 the kind of data that you would need to use for accounting, you might pay for 00:15:12.701 --> 00:15:16.411 that. And there's basically a subscription you can use that you can integrate 00:15:16.411 --> 00:15:17.532 into your business, for example. 00:15:18.485 --> 00:15:22.032 We work with NNN to get kind of levels API available. 00:15:22.673 --> 00:15:28.005 So you don't have the specific numbers in kind of grams of CO2 per hour, 00:15:28.156 --> 00:15:32.513 but you do get high, low, and medium, which is enough for you to design things accordingly. 00:15:32.513 --> 00:15:37.083 Yeah, and it's easier to work than like creating buckets yourself. 00:15:37.083 --> 00:15:41.363 Exactly. So this is the thing that's kind of, that was the work we had to put 00:15:41.363 --> 00:15:44.445 into that because honestly, every grid is slightly different. 00:15:44.770 --> 00:15:49.653 So what is high, low, and medium matters. on a per-grid basis. 00:15:49.953 --> 00:15:52.073 So that's one thing we have, and that provides a really nice, 00:15:52.073 --> 00:15:58.006 easy API for you to use that. So yes, there's an open-source library that we have for that now. 00:15:58.753 --> 00:16:02.313 If you look up Grid Aware and Green Web Foundation, we should be at the top 00:16:02.313 --> 00:16:03.613 of the list in most search engines. 00:16:03.973 --> 00:16:06.833 So that's one thing you can do. And that doesn't use CO2.js, 00:16:06.833 --> 00:16:10.183 but that uses some of the other code we have because we have a number of open-source 00:16:10.183 --> 00:16:14.913 projects in our batch of repositories. Yeah, you also have this... 00:16:16.441 --> 00:16:18.548 What is it like to be like a... 00:16:20.132 --> 00:16:26.079 Verzeitnis, what is it, in like an index of web hosters? Indeed, 00:16:26.079 --> 00:16:29.859 yeah, this is how we started out. So the Green Web Foundation initially started. 00:16:30.279 --> 00:16:32.179 It's basically a list and a 00:16:32.179 --> 00:16:35.115 way of checking this website runs on Green Energy. So we still have that. 00:16:35.626 --> 00:16:39.149 And that means that if you have any domain, you can look up the domain and say, 00:16:39.149 --> 00:16:44.619 Agbi, where is my site being hosted? And what we do behind the scenes is we 00:16:44.619 --> 00:16:46.339 find where that domain is being hosted. 00:16:46.639 --> 00:16:51.799 We basically contact that provider or moreover the provider contacts us and 00:16:51.799 --> 00:16:56.619 then we look those who already have established yourselves they have an interest 00:16:56.619 --> 00:17:01.459 in interest and then if we have evidence that they're running on green energy, 00:17:01.979 --> 00:17:05.317 that they show this is the tariff I'm using or these are the steps we're taking 00:17:05.619 --> 00:17:09.459 we'll show that in a website and then that means that you get a checking system 00:17:09.459 --> 00:17:12.699 and we get between 5 and 15 million checks a day, 00:17:14.039 --> 00:17:17.069 depending on the day to be honest and we have to have a directory which is the 00:17:17.069 --> 00:17:19.046 list of all these ones so it may be that you're looking for, 00:17:19.638 --> 00:17:23.799 i'm looking for a provider of a certain managed service let's say wordpress or, 00:17:24.259 --> 00:17:29.279 a platform as a service or a managed database we list that stuff so that you 00:17:29.279 --> 00:17:33.269 can actually kind of think through your stack and then see how you can green 00:17:33.269 --> 00:17:38.039 your stack basically that's the stuff that we do there as well yeah yeah nice and. 00:17:39.531 --> 00:17:46.519 Uh finally yesterday you also presented something new i think or rather new at least uh which is uh, 00:17:47.490 --> 00:17:53.889 like uh carbon txt carbon dot tux yeah this is our new project right now so 00:17:53.889 --> 00:17:58.634 i spoke before about how we have a kind of checking system which is based on domains now 00:17:59.070 --> 00:18:04.259 in order to use that you have to trust us for that and like okay we have a team who do this research and, 00:18:04.706 --> 00:18:06.901 there's there's some work that happens there but, 00:18:07.928 --> 00:18:10.853 we would really like this to be not something that's run by a small team of 00:18:10.853 --> 00:18:14.073 people, but instead this is something that should happen at protocol level. 00:18:14.493 --> 00:18:21.030 So the big idea behind carbon.txt is to set this expectation that of course, 00:18:21.605 --> 00:18:25.924 this kind of sustainability data that we look for should be available if you look up a domain. 00:18:26.092 --> 00:18:30.293 Just like how you look up robots.txt or llms.txt, we think you should be able 00:18:30.293 --> 00:18:32.849 to find the stuff for how green a domain is. 00:18:33.035 --> 00:18:38.403 So that's the stuff for you. And the thing we're doing is we're basically shifting 00:18:38.403 --> 00:18:40.204 from having a centralized database 00:18:40.599 --> 00:18:43.783 to nudging people towards having a more distributed approach, 00:18:43.783 --> 00:18:49.126 because that would allow other Green Web Foundation kind of organizations in, say, India or China. 00:18:50.413 --> 00:18:55.333 If we have the kind of same approach, that allows us to change how the web works, 00:18:55.333 --> 00:18:56.897 basically. That's the big idea. 00:18:57.013 --> 00:19:00.783 And that allows also more kinds of innovation on this as well, 00:19:00.783 --> 00:19:03.457 on the side as well, that allows people to kind of try new ideas. 00:19:03.753 --> 00:19:09.663 So it may be that we have a bunch, we do this with primarily hosting providers 00:19:09.663 --> 00:19:14.413 right now, but it may be that, let's say you're building some kind of self-hosted 00:19:14.413 --> 00:19:16.274 solar powered websites or things like that. 00:19:16.622 --> 00:19:19.623 Maybe that's a point of innovation that means that, okay, people start changing 00:19:19.623 --> 00:19:22.584 how people design sites like that. And there are actually examples. 00:19:22.886 --> 00:19:28.389 There's a project called the Solar Protocol, which has a bunch of Raspberry Pis all around the. 00:19:31.152 --> 00:19:34.570 Basically, the request is routed to the Raspberry Pi in the world with the most 00:19:34.570 --> 00:19:36.632 battery and where it's sunniest, right? 00:19:36.778 --> 00:19:44.520 And in the world of CMSs, I found out that Dries, Dries Bitet of Drupal, 00:19:45.020 --> 00:19:46.050 he's done something similar. 00:19:46.050 --> 00:19:49.620 So if you go to dree.es, his website, you can see his website, 00:19:49.620 --> 00:19:53.110 but there's also solar.dries, where he shows, here's my website, 00:19:53.110 --> 00:19:57.140 here's how I'm powering it with literally solar and battery on my garden roots. 00:19:57.140 --> 00:19:59.600 Was that the thing you showed? That was the thing I showed, yeah. 00:19:59.940 --> 00:20:04.030 Like there were dots for every day. Exactly. And you could see where there was 00:20:04.030 --> 00:20:08.300 like a few days where I think the service was even like It was a bit slower. 00:20:08.300 --> 00:20:09.760 Yeah. Slower, I don't know. 00:20:10.120 --> 00:20:13.063 Because, yeah, there wasn't enough solar. 00:20:13.308 --> 00:20:16.600 This is the idea. Like there are things that you can do and you can change some 00:20:16.600 --> 00:20:21.280 of that by changing your batteries or maybe changing what your device is doing 00:20:21.280 --> 00:20:23.316 to kind of make it through these times. Yeah. 00:20:23.420 --> 00:20:26.360 But the thing, the reason we wanted to set up something that Carbonite takes 00:20:26.360 --> 00:20:30.380 was to essentially actually have a space where innovators and people who are 00:20:30.380 --> 00:20:35.170 working on ideas can try new things so that rather than all the all the good 00:20:35.170 --> 00:20:36.679 ideas just coming from one place us 00:20:37.120 --> 00:20:40.490 they were from a community yeah we've seen how things work with open source 00:20:40.490 --> 00:20:44.003 we've seen how new ideas come through we figured let's go for something like that because, 00:20:44.462 --> 00:20:48.241 well we like the web our entire background is open data and open source we figured 00:20:48.660 --> 00:20:51.642 maybe this is one place you can actually kind of bring some new ideas to bear, 00:20:52.090 --> 00:20:53.760 and hopefully accelerate how, 00:20:54.528 --> 00:20:57.970 i guess this change in culture that we might actually have because I think most 00:20:57.970 --> 00:20:59.450 developers would like to be. 00:21:00.460 --> 00:21:02.882 More responsible developers but a lot of the time they don't know about this 00:21:02.882 --> 00:21:06.372 because they've had no reason to lag so hopefully this is this makes it a bit 00:21:06.372 --> 00:21:11.223 easier for them to kind of start getting into this in my view new and kind of exciting well, 00:21:12.007 --> 00:21:15.642 and like to get like more into detail about the carbon 00:21:16.082 --> 00:21:22.202 text file so how is that like basically what you write in there is like uh all 00:21:22.202 --> 00:21:26.852 kinds of information how your website is being what we have is we have a kind 00:21:26.852 --> 00:21:29.147 of we have relatively lightweight syntax. 00:21:29.147 --> 00:21:35.142 So it's largely a Tumble file because the thing we wanted to have was have something 00:21:35.142 --> 00:21:39.132 which was easy for humans to read, but also for machines to read. 00:21:41.382 --> 00:21:45.662 One of the principles inside is basically links or it didn't happen. 00:21:46.022 --> 00:21:50.832 The idea being that you might have a carbon.txt file that has a little bit of 00:21:50.832 --> 00:21:54.556 lightweight syntax, like what's your organization, for example or, 00:21:55.136 --> 00:22:00.212 do you have a supply chain for example and or if you if you if you've met some 00:22:00.212 --> 00:22:04.582 kind of certification where would you be what what was that certification and where's the link to, 00:22:05.102 --> 00:22:08.882 the supporting data so there's stuff like that it's quite lightweight syntax, 00:22:09.376 --> 00:22:12.802 it's in it's designed in the open on carbontext.org, 00:22:13.442 --> 00:22:17.142 and uh that's basically what we have so these are lightweight files which are 00:22:17.142 --> 00:22:21.562 designed to be passed quite easily or passed by various validators and tools 00:22:21.562 --> 00:22:24.887 and we have an open source validator that people can use themselves 00:22:25.235 --> 00:22:29.142 or you can use our hosted version if you want to just point at a domain and 00:22:29.142 --> 00:22:30.384 see what comes down to it. Okay, nice. 00:22:32.122 --> 00:22:33.902 I think you showed pieces of it. 00:22:36.142 --> 00:22:39.957 I saw the link things, but I wasn't fully sure. I, 00:22:41.047 --> 00:22:44.902 couldn't fully parse it myself. Yeah, to be honest, the thing I wasn't, 00:22:45.052 --> 00:22:48.012 when I was presenting yesterday, I was like, I'm not quite sure. 00:22:48.511 --> 00:22:53.613 Tech is a very, very wide term, so I'm not going to make it too technical, 00:22:54.213 --> 00:22:57.068 so that's why it ended up being quite an expansive talk first. 00:22:57.264 --> 00:23:01.033 There was a bit of code for the nerds at the end, right? So we shared some code samples. 00:23:01.033 --> 00:23:06.466 Oh, it was perfect. And you can still, it's just like you gave it yesterday, I hadn't time to, 00:23:07.573 --> 00:23:12.443 research, because we all returned pretty late to the yeah exactly yeah there's 00:23:12.443 --> 00:23:15.453 actually one thing that is probably worth mentioning here is that literally 00:23:15.453 --> 00:23:19.633 the day before i had a much deeper dive uh with smashing magazine with uh, 00:23:20.453 --> 00:23:23.883 smashing magazine yeah they actually did i registered for these wishing meats 00:23:23.883 --> 00:23:27.543 they're smashing meats a bit of sustainability one so i was opening this and 00:23:27.543 --> 00:23:32.953 then uh there was an in inis oh inis oh yeah, 00:23:34.153 --> 00:23:37.223 inis akrab thank you yeah i forgot how to pronounce her son in so i wrote the 00:23:37.223 --> 00:23:40.564 full word for her new book that she was actually telling people about because. 00:23:42.013 --> 00:23:46.506 She just finished a book about sustainable web design with Chris Chinchilla. 00:23:46.924 --> 00:23:51.913 So she was a speaker after me and then Tom Greenwood who was one of the original 00:23:51.913 --> 00:23:54.866 people to build the website carbon website back in... 00:23:55.104 --> 00:23:58.003 Now you also wrote this book, right? Exactly. He was also one of the authors 00:23:58.003 --> 00:24:01.710 of one of the books around sustainable web design for... 00:24:02.273 --> 00:24:05.912 I forget the name of the actual book but they did it with a book of art. 00:24:06.023 --> 00:24:09.047 It was sustainable web design? They might actually lose, yeah. 00:24:09.512 --> 00:24:14.318 So there's a number of authors, and we basically did an entire session all about that. 00:24:14.556 --> 00:24:18.115 So I did a kind of deep diagram on carbon.txt, the theory of change behind it, 00:24:18.416 --> 00:24:19.733 some of the things we've learned along the way. 00:24:20.233 --> 00:24:22.579 And then you had Ines talking about, here's where things are. 00:24:22.764 --> 00:24:27.130 And you had Tom Greenwood saying, here's what's happened over the last 10 years, for example. 00:24:27.263 --> 00:24:30.381 So yeah, for people who are listening to this and want to learn a bit more, 00:24:30.706 --> 00:24:32.453 that's one place to go to. Yeah, we'll link to it. 00:24:32.773 --> 00:24:37.203 I registered. I knew that I would not be able to participate, 00:24:37.203 --> 00:24:39.703 but I wanted to register to get the news afterwards. 00:24:40.383 --> 00:24:44.207 Because it was the birthday of my nephew and we were in the mountains and there 00:24:44.207 --> 00:24:46.924 was like crappy internet anyways. 00:24:47.504 --> 00:24:54.707 So I was just keen on getting the videos fast and not having to wait or be on 00:24:54.707 --> 00:24:58.117 the lookout on YouTube. Well, glad you got here. We got a chance to get it from 00:24:58.117 --> 00:24:59.816 the horse's mouth directly as well. 00:25:01.575 --> 00:25:07.427 Yeah, so the final thing, maybe we could quickly discuss is your involvement 00:25:07.427 --> 00:25:13.027 in the WCC and then the Web Sustainability Interest Group, I think? 00:25:13.027 --> 00:25:18.827 Yes, there are a few other projects going on. So I think last year, no, no, I think, wow, 00:25:19.987 --> 00:25:25.087 a little over a year ago, the W3C, as in the guys behind HTML, 00:25:25.087 --> 00:25:29.447 CSS, and the web part of JavaScript, The W3C, basically. Yeah, exactly. 00:25:29.987 --> 00:25:36.005 They hired a director of sustainability, and she's been supporting the web, 00:25:36.767 --> 00:25:40.917 and interest group inside the interest group is a bit like a kind of like working 00:25:40.917 --> 00:25:45.047 group but it's not quite the same yeah like not super official exactly yeah then one level down, 00:25:46.127 --> 00:25:49.732 so there's like I mean in the W3C kind of jargon there's like community groups 00:25:49.999 --> 00:25:56.112 interest groups and then working groups so the working groups manage CSS and HTML so it's one down, 00:25:56.707 --> 00:26:00.127 and so that's the idea it's on the way you don't need to like have a membership 00:26:00.127 --> 00:26:01.947 or being like an invited expert, 00:26:02.707 --> 00:26:06.137 jumps through these you still need to become invited experts to be part of it 00:26:06.137 --> 00:26:09.317 or I mean there are still steps you need to jump jump through like that so it's 00:26:09.317 --> 00:26:11.087 it's got that level of fish on this okay. 00:26:12.307 --> 00:26:16.737 Exactly yeah so it's in there and uh one of the things that that group has been 00:26:16.737 --> 00:26:20.767 working on for the last i think year and a half actually is um what's something 00:26:20.767 --> 00:26:23.247 called the web sustainability guideline the wsgs 00:26:23.667 --> 00:26:27.727 these are trying they're kind of you might think of them as a little bit like the wCAG, 00:26:28.227 --> 00:26:33.154 but for sustainability yeah that's one thing they're doing and independently they're, 00:26:33.979 --> 00:26:36.767 I work for the Green Web Foundation, we're a Dutch non-profit of, 00:26:36.767 --> 00:26:37.816 I would say, nine people. 00:26:38.685 --> 00:26:42.137 There is a larger body called the Green Software Foundation with companies like 00:26:42.137 --> 00:26:45.567 Google and Microsoft and GitHub and Accenture and all these people there. 00:26:45.587 --> 00:26:50.297 Are they related or linked? We were one of the founding members of the Green 00:26:50.297 --> 00:26:53.917 Software Foundation. So we were one of them because that was set up about five 00:26:53.917 --> 00:26:58.107 years ago. Actually, yeah, five years ago because it had its fifth birthday recently. 00:26:58.527 --> 00:27:02.847 So that was set up with us, the Green Web Foundation, but also Microsoft put 00:27:02.847 --> 00:27:08.227 money in and I believe, maybe not too hard, but a few other companies put the 00:27:08.227 --> 00:27:09.614 money in to actually get it set up. 00:27:10.137 --> 00:27:13.687 And I've been involved with that group for a while. So I host one of their podcasts 00:27:13.687 --> 00:27:14.767 called Environment Variables. 00:27:15.387 --> 00:27:21.847 And I also, we're leading, we basically kind of brokered a deal between the 00:27:21.847 --> 00:27:27.367 W3C and the Green Software Foundation because they have a standard called software carbon intensity. 00:27:27.947 --> 00:27:32.127 All right yeah so with the green web foundation we were like a logical group 00:27:32.127 --> 00:27:35.787 to kind of work inside that to say okay let's make a more specialized one specifically 00:27:35.787 --> 00:27:39.972 for websites and web applications and we said well okay we don't mind doing this but. 00:27:40.798 --> 00:27:44.471 The W3C is right there. And we should probably have these conversations. 00:27:44.745 --> 00:27:49.970 So we ended up brokering a memorandum of understanding. So the GSF and the W3C 00:27:50.154 --> 00:27:53.962 are working together. And we are leading, as in the GreenMath Foundation is 00:27:53.962 --> 00:27:56.284 leading this new standardization process. 00:27:56.610 --> 00:28:00.862 But the key thing is that we got consultation with all three so that people 00:28:00.862 --> 00:28:02.501 know what each other is doing rather than it just being... 00:28:02.919 --> 00:28:06.442 Everybody working in isolation. Precisely. 00:28:06.442 --> 00:28:11.547 So that's the thing we're doing. And it looks like we're aiming for the first 00:28:11.750 --> 00:28:15.882 draft of a spec for software carbon intensity for the web, something that all 00:28:15.882 --> 00:28:18.918 these various tools from vendors can actually kind of conform to. 00:28:19.366 --> 00:28:23.682 We're aiming for Q4 to have a first version of this app for people to start 00:28:23.682 --> 00:28:24.788 implementing and use of. 00:28:25.019 --> 00:28:29.682 So hopefully this time next year, we should actually have like an ISO standard 00:28:29.682 --> 00:28:36.822 or something being on the ISO track and a number of vendor tools which are interoperable 00:28:36.822 --> 00:28:39.612 that follow the same standard, which would be wonderful. 00:28:39.728 --> 00:28:44.082 Because that's something that you need standards to have any kind of interoperability 00:28:44.082 --> 00:28:49.532 and comparability and basically set up a real kind of movement around this. 00:28:49.764 --> 00:28:51.523 So yeah, that's the thing we're working with as well. 00:28:51.802 --> 00:28:59.802 Yeah, that's nice. Also seeing how successful WCAG has become because it's now 00:28:59.802 --> 00:29:02.187 being ported and applied to. 00:29:03.102 --> 00:29:07.112 Apps to any kind of digital software product. 00:29:07.112 --> 00:29:09.632 Exactly. I mean, this is also one of the ways that you're able to kind of change 00:29:09.632 --> 00:29:12.802 some of the culture related to kind of like computing, right? 00:29:12.802 --> 00:29:17.022 So WCAG, you know, for accessibility, yes, it has an impact here. 00:29:17.022 --> 00:29:21.102 But when you have a standard, which you can show buy-in and you can show people 00:29:21.102 --> 00:29:23.700 actively using, that means you can then say, well. 00:29:24.734 --> 00:29:30.376 We have laws for society which make sure that certain groups' needs are always met. 00:29:31.230 --> 00:29:35.922 And the existence of things like the WCAG and the existence of there being clear 00:29:35.922 --> 00:29:38.582 evidence of organizations working and there being something. 00:29:40.002 --> 00:29:43.992 Which is objective enough to kind of base laws around means that you can now 00:29:43.992 --> 00:29:47.462 have things like the European Accessibility Act, which basically means that 00:29:47.462 --> 00:29:51.092 everyone has to be building websites that take into account the needs of people 00:29:51.092 --> 00:29:53.096 who have disability needs. 00:29:53.293 --> 00:29:57.512 And that feels like, for me, that was one of the things that attracted me about 00:29:57.512 --> 00:30:01.867 the web. The idea that you want to have something which is universally available, serve everyone. 00:30:02.842 --> 00:30:07.162 We saw Tim Berners-Lee, he says, this is for everyone. I think that's a real rallying cry. 00:30:07.722 --> 00:30:14.754 I get a bit emotional about this stuff, but that's where we saw it with WCAG and accessibility. 00:30:15.509 --> 00:30:18.685 We should be able to do something with sustainability because we've only got 00:30:18.685 --> 00:30:25.915 one planet right now you know yeah yeah that's a fantastic idea and it's a fantastic work you're doing, 00:30:26.755 --> 00:30:31.889 always like following along um and uh really interested where where that's going, 00:30:32.499 --> 00:30:36.315 well it's nice of you to say we we're still we're still a small group and we 00:30:36.315 --> 00:30:40.446 could all get bigger uh so i think our movement if people listen to this and they, 00:30:41.125 --> 00:30:45.255 like the idea of like more sustainable also Free Web, then there's lots of places 00:30:45.255 --> 00:30:47.375 they can get involved. They can speak with the Green Med Foundation. 00:30:47.815 --> 00:30:50.802 They can do work with the W3C, these kind of groups here. 00:30:51.916 --> 00:30:55.411 If they're a larger corporate or if they're working inside a company, 00:30:56.275 --> 00:31:00.159 there are places like the W3C and the Green Software Foundation now. 00:31:00.496 --> 00:31:05.435 And if you're a techie and you just want to find a community of other climate-minded 00:31:05.435 --> 00:31:11.075 techies, there's one organization called climateaction.net, which is one of 00:31:11.075 --> 00:31:15.345 the most supportive and really, really useful communities to be part of. 00:31:16.152 --> 00:31:23.797 I was working in that since 2018 actually. It's gone from 70 people to 10,000 members. 00:31:23.960 --> 00:31:27.193 And that's one of the places where I learn loads from other people. 00:31:27.414 --> 00:31:29.637 So yeah, those are the things that if people are listening and they're curious, 00:31:30.415 --> 00:31:34.375 that's for the show notes. Yeah, we'll definitely link to it also to the York 00:31:34.375 --> 00:31:39.575 profile so if there's any questions arising, coming up. 00:31:40.555 --> 00:31:42.361 Yeah, I'm always, I'd love to hear. 00:31:43.307 --> 00:31:47.854 Yeah, so thank you, Chris. It was fantastic to finally meet you here because, 00:31:48.614 --> 00:31:54.544 I knew your face already from things you do as well as the ones from your colleagues. 00:31:54.544 --> 00:31:58.854 Well, Christian, thank you for letting me do this auf Englisch and auf Deutsch. 00:31:58.934 --> 00:32:04.623 Yeah, so you can speak German. I'm slowly learning, but. 00:32:06.672 --> 00:32:10.434 I think I would sound much better on a podcast in English than auf Deutsch. 00:32:11.634 --> 00:32:17.194 I totally understand and I know it's hard. Understanding a language is always okay. 00:32:18.054 --> 00:32:22.004 But then speaking, you're always looking for the right words. 00:32:22.004 --> 00:32:25.934 Ich habe Restaurant Deutsch, nicht Podcast Deutsch. 00:32:26.334 --> 00:32:31.254 Okay, then maybe at a Restaurant Podcast. All right. Thank you very much. 00:32:32.034 --> 00:32:36.031 Safe travels. Thank you very much. And hope to see you soon again. 00:32:36.165 --> 00:32:42.277 And I'll try to, I will link to anything we discussed for people to dig in. 00:32:42.515 --> 00:32:46.494 Dankeschön, Christian, and gute Reise. Dankeschön. Okay, ciao. Tschüss.