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Launch HN: Bend (YC S22) – Automatically measure your company's carbon footprint

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Re: Launch HN: Bend (YC S22) – Automatically measure your company's carbon footprint

#81
Carbon footprints are a scam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J9LOqiXdpE

Carbon offsets are a scam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIezuL_doYw

Hearing people talk about these give me the same vibes as techbros talking about stocks and crypto.

Re: Launch HN: Bend (YC S22) – Automatically measure your company's carbon footprint

#82
post #81

Carbon footprints are a scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J9LOqiXdpE Carbon offsets are a scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIezuL_doYw Hearing people talk about these give me the same vibes as techbros talking about stocks and crypto.

A corporate carbon footprint isn't a scam if it's calculated using primary data and according to the GHG Protocol standards - https://ghgprotocol.org/

Re: Launch HN: Bend (YC S22) – Automatically measure your company's carbon footprint

#83

Quoted post unavailable.

You are getting mixed up between a personal carbon footprint and a corporate carbon footprint, which should be calculated using primary data according to the GHG Protocol standards: https://ghgprotocol.org/

Re: Launch HN: Bend (YC S22) – Automatically measure your company's carbon footprint

#84
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re unwilling to make any sacrifice for the greater good then you’re asking the world to serve perfection to you without any effort on your part. You can’t get a cheap second hand electric car that you can charge for free at your home? That’s unfortunate, but there are other options beyond “well whatever I’ll just get a petrol car then”. Your government represents you, your government is not a nebulous self-suf…

You can't fix systemic issues with individual choices. That requires regulation and a system that can carry out those regulations.

Finish the thought, where do regulations come from?

Re: Launch HN: Bend (YC S22) – Automatically measure your company's carbon footprint

#85

Bluntly, this is a completely fruitless, hopelessly inaccurate, and unnecessarily expensive way to measure and deal with CO2 emissions. What's the easy, accurate, and fruitful way? Toting up the amount of fuel that comes out of refineries and coal mines multiplied by its carbon content. Then, tax it, which will provide a disincentive for all uses that burn that fuel.

We're huge supporters of a carbon tax, but there are significant challenges, both technical and political. If we had perfect information and the political will, I think the approach you describe would be great—in the meantime, unfortunately, the market needs tools like Bend.

I actually wrote a blog post on the subject, if you're curious: https://bend.green/blog/the-path-to-a-carbon-tax

Re: Launch HN: Bend (YC S22) – Automatically measure your company's carbon footprint

#86
post #82
post #81

Carbon footprints are a scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J9LOqiXdpE Carbon offsets are a scam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIezuL_doYw Hearing people talk about these give me the same vibes as techbros talking about stocks and crypto.

A corporate carbon footprint isn't a scam if it's calculated using primary data and according to the GHG Protocol standards - https://ghgprotocol.org/

+1, it also really depends on the offset (as to whether it's a scam or not)—like I talked about elsewhere, even our low-cost offset is a much more credible project than some of the credits frequently purchased by big companies.

If we don't start changing the standard for what's acceptable, who will, ya know?

Re: Launch HN: Bend (YC S22) – Automatically measure your company's carbon footprint

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Even though we have a fintech background and we're tackling carbon accounting from the angle of spend, we know how sensitive revenue and budget data are. Our business is firmly in mapping the carbon graph; we'll never sell financial insights.

What about financial data?

We will never sell financial data.

Re: Launch HN: Bend (YC S22) – Automatically measure your company's carbon footprint

#88
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question! We don't currently consider payroll a carbon emitting activity. Generally we think of salary as paying exclusively for human-hours. In contrast, if your company paid for your metro card or reimbursed for mileage or gas on your commute, we would estimate the carbon intensity for those expenses.

So replacing a 100k employee by a 10k cloud service would increase a companys co2 balance? Seems counterintuitive, no?

I don't understand what you're saying. Replacing a 10k cloud service with 100k of private server equipment would probably reduce a company's co2 balance.

Re: Launch HN: Bend (YC S22) – Automatically measure your company's carbon footprint

#89
post #69

Quite simply, this is a pointless, inaccurate, and expensive method for determining CO2 emissions.

We have a large database of carbon intensity factors generated using government data from two different sources (the EPA and Exiobase). Comparing our merchant specific factors to those industry standards, you might be surprised by how accurate it is.

Re: Launch HN: Bend (YC S22) – Automatically measure your company's carbon footprint

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The attitude presented here is very fatalist and not aligned with reality. No offense to you but Europe is in the middle of a heat wave currently and temperature records have been broken fairly recently. So no, I am not fatalist, I am a realist. I call a spade a spade. It is not debatable that all the issues that we are having now have been known for a least a few decades. So this isn't a lack of foresight or that…

If you’re unwilling to make any sacrifice for the greater good then you’re asking the world to serve perfection to you without any effort on your part. You can’t get a cheap second hand electric car that you can charge for free at your home? That’s unfortunate, but there are other options beyond “well whatever I’ll just get a petrol car then”. Your government represents you, your government is not a nebulous self-suf…

You are misinterpreting what I said but I am not going to repeat myself to reiterate my views which I have expressed pretty clearly in my previous response to you.

You completely forgot to address all my rebuttals to your arguments so I will chose to believe that you are arguing in bad faith at this point.

For the sake of closure let me respond to you and then we can leave it at that:

>> If you’re unwilling to make any sacrifice for the greater good then you’re asking the world to serve perfection to you without any effort on your part.

this is a complete misinterpretation of my argument. I am willing to make sacrifices that have an impact. Taking a shorter shower or recycling a plastic bottle will not change a thing until the biggest polluters are actually doing their part.

I am not sure how else I can explain it. It stands to reason that it makes more sense to tackle the biggest issues first, that is the shipping industry, the petroleum industry, the airlines and so on before asking people to sacrifice some of their little comforts like having a long shower or not drinking from plastic cups.

>> You can’t get a cheap second hand electric car that you can charge for free at your home? That’s unfortunate, but there are other options beyond “well whatever I’ll just get a petrol car then”.

Please do tell what those options are?

And while you are at it why don't you tell that to someone living on minimum wage on the country side where there is no public transport. And don't tell me that they should just move to a city when the cost of housing as increased by 30% within the last 2 years.

Once again, what's your proposal? Should they just bike or walk for 20km maybe twice a day?

You do realize that not everyone can afford a new or second hand electric car right?

>> Your government represents you, your government is not a nebulous self-sufficient entity that exists independent of you and your fellow country people. If your government isn’t doing enough, it’s up to you and the people around you to be a force for good, to do everything in your power to create change. Even if sometimes it feels fruitless, do it. Be the best you can be.

So I should spend my days shouting into the void and hoping that someone somewhere listens to me and my fellow citizens? Well, guess what? I have been there and done that. Unfortunately some of us don't have the luxury or the time to go on a crusade. I have many things going on in my life and time spent away from my family is not a luxury I can afford.

>> Also, the idea that you and I are shouldering the cost of the energy transition is completely ignorant to the realities of the world.

I definitely am shouldering the cost through higher taxes on petroleum products. Higher taxes on energy and higher cost of food and energy in general.

>> The catastrophic disasters that we, the developed world, have created, are an order of magnitude worse in the global south than they will ever be for us.

I never said that the developing countries will not have to bear the consequences of our actions. In fact I hope they realize that the developed countries have screwed them.

>> People are dying every day because of our choice to use fossil fuels, we are destroying the planet, your increased cost of living or exposure to the heat doesn’t come close to the suffering of people who are paying the price for our choices.

I agree with you. But where I disagree is that we have bigger fish to fry than worry if Joe blow's shower was 5 minutes long or 3 minutes.

It's like you are coming back from work or from running an errand and discover that your house is on fire. You don't stop by the mail box to check if your magazine has arrived, no, you run and grab a bucket or a hose and you try to extinguish the flames by yourself before the firefighters arrive.

My problem is that the current governments are too concerned about my meat consumption or the model of my car or the amount of plastic bottles I recycle while carefully avoiding rocking the boat with the big corporations that are responsible for orders of magnitude more pollution than than I could ever produce in 100 lifetimes. That's my problem.

If you choose to interpret this as me not caring then feel free to do so but you will have misunderstood my argument.

>> Yes, this heatwave in Europe is painful, as is the cost of living going up, but perspective is important.

Perspective is a luxury that few can afford. What good is perspective when you can't afford your rent or to heat your house in winter or when you can't feed your kids because the price of food has climbed 20% during the last 12 months?

Forgive me for saying so but from your responses you talk like someone who has a comfortable lifestyle. If that is the case then good for you but just so you know your point of view on these issues seems highly skewed and not representative of the majority of the population that is currently struggling to keep their heads above water in light of the rising cost of living.

On that note I wish you a good day.

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