Real-Time Carbon Counter Drives Awareness about Climate Change and the Need for Carbon Accounting

In a bold move to draw attention to the urgency around greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, a new carbon counter has been installed on the corner of West 33rd and 7th Avenue in New York City. Sponsored by Deutsche Bank, the digital tracker provides a real-time reading of the total amount of greenhouse gasses in the earth's atmosphere. At 70 feet tall, the carbon counter will be difficult to ignore. Currently, it’s estimated that we generate about 2 billion tons of greenhouse gases every month, resulting in approximately 3.6 trillion metric tons to date. MIT scientists helped develop the calculation methods, which includes all 24 gases named in the Kyoto and Montreal Protocols.

The timing couldn’t be better for this new greenhouse gas tracker given ongoing discussions about the Waxman-Markey bill recently introduced into Congress and an increased amount of activity in the technology world on helping companies find solutions for managing their carbon risk.

While getting a handle on enterprise carbon accounting may seem daunting for C-suite executives and IT professionals, it’s a very manageable problem with the right set of tools. Companies that are able to control, measure and reduce carbon emissions, will be the real winners as the practice of greenhouse gas reporting becomes a true competitive advantage.

The carbon counter can also be accessed online and is available as a downloaded widget.