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Nowadays a lot of websites and apps offer the service of calculating your carbon emissions and the ways to offset them. The websites and apps providing such services have various types of APIs at their disposal, and here are some of the most popular ones. Cloverly API Cloverly API offers you to offset carbon emissions by calculating the amount you produced. It can assess carbon emissions in several categories: Ecommerce (emissions from shipping a package), Freight (emissions from freight shipping), Travel (emissions from air travel, use of personal vehicles and hotel stays), and Utility (electricity and fuel). Cloverly API is used by several websites and services, for example Aclymate, a software platform that help companies to become more sustainable. AwardWallet Email Parsing API AwardWallet Email Parsing API collects information from users’ emails which then can be used to calculate carbon emissions. The good thing about that is that users do not need to enter any details manually, because the process is automated if they give their consent. The API parses any travel related data, such as flights, train trips, cruises, car rentals, hotel stays and more. AwardWallet Email Parsing API is used by a variety of companies, but its greenest partners are probably AirCare and Bearth. Carbon API Carbon API collects information about different types of carbon emissions, such as: energy consumption, air travel, freight, shipment, logistics, fuel consumption, ground and marine transport. It then processes the data and returns the result in kilos of carbon. Climatiq API Climatiq API is focused mainly on business operations, so it’s a great option for corporations. The API calculates carbon emissions produced by transportation and logistics, purchased goods and services, computer use, energy consumption, flights and air cargo, supply chain.  The Climatiq API is already used by Celonis, a global company that specializes in process mining helping other companies to improve their business operations. Lune API Lune API provides its partners with the ability to estimate carbon emissions and offset them via environmental projects. The types of carbon emissions include: air travel, shipping, transactions, electricity consumption, company emissions (office-related emissions, employee transportation, food, drinks, electronic equipment and computing or networking operations).  Lune API is used by Budbee, a sustainable delivery company which takes environmental issues rather seriously and mostly uses vehicles working on electricity or renewable diesel. GreenStory API GreenStory API is a good fit for online and offline stores who want to become greener. It calculates and offsets the product’s carbon emission at all stages: production, shipping and use. Greenstory API is already used by such famous brands as Esprit and Pangaia. The list goes on as more environmental APIs emerge by the minute, but these are the ones that will add sustainability to your app. Carbon footprint APIs help both companies and users to track and offset their carbon input while also help the community by supporting the environmental projects. I hope that the implementation of at least one of these APIs will spur the growth of your product and provide you with tools for further development.

Help Users Determine Their Carbon Footprint With These APIs

At Prynt, we have creativity days, we work on everything we want for few days. I believe this is really important to have some time you can work on something else for your company. A colleague did some art paint in our office, another create slack emoji of everyone in the company, I decided to create this cloud with the help of some colleagues (by the way, we name it Claudie). As you can see in the video, you can plug the cloud to any trigger that will light his LEDs. For instance if someone likes your Facebook page, a transaction made in your shop etc… How to build Claudie? ✨ First we started with this video from instructables, it’s a great start, but it wasn’t easy to build something solid that won’t break, acrylic roads are quite expensive and the glue doesn’t really stick to. The goal here is to have a structure that is really light. So after trying to build something with acrylic roads, we decided to take a cardboard and put bubble paper wrap around it to give to more a cloud form. After we tapped the LEDs on the bubble paper. Finally, we followed the procedure with the vinyl fabric and the polyester fiberfill shown on the video. What you will need technically 🛒 Disclaimer: We made this cloud with all the followings components, there is many ways to do it, you can use an Arduino instead of a Raspberry Pi, use different types of LEDs. A Raspberry Pi with a PWM pin. A kit can be useful if you want to play with others stuff.A power adaptor for the LEDsA female connector for the DC power adaptorA diode to adapt the voltageAnd of course, LEDs!! The link is for 30, we used 120 LEDs for our cloud.Wiring The Pi & the LEDs 🛠 Wiring The Pi & the LEDs 🛠 This is how you wire the Pi and the LEDs, the diode is really important, it will reduce the input DC voltage from 5V to 3.3V, so the Pi which is delivering a voltage from 0 to 3.3V on the PWM will be able to control the LEDs. If you don’t put the diode, your Pi might be destroyed. This article is a great source if you want to understand why. Image courtesy of Adafruit Deploying the code on the Raspberry Pi 👩‍💻 If you are not familiar with the Raspberry Pi environment, the setup is really easy. You just have to download Raspbian and install it on a SD Card. The installation documentation is really helpful. The rpi_ws281x is the lib that manages the LEDs, you might want to fork it to set the amount of LEDs you have and to customize the light animation (see all the examples in the python folder). The Claudie repository is handling a web server, every time we send a POST on http://IP_ADDRESS:PORT/prynt it lights the cloud in a storm effect. Getting the Raspberry Pi ready Once you have the OS running and can ssh on the Raspberry Pi you can clone this project and install everything you will need: pip install RPi.GPIO # Python module to control Raspberry Pi GPIO
pip install Flask # a Python framework to create a web server
git clone git@github.com:rvi/Claudie.git # our implementation of the web server that will light the LEDs

# Installation of the lib that control the LEDs via the GPIO 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev git scons swig
git clone git@github.com:rvi/rpi_ws281x.git
cd rpi_ws281x
scons
cd python
sudo python setup.py install

# Go back to Claudie code and run the app
cd ../../Claudie
python app.py Now you have your app ready by doing POST on http://IP_ADDRESS:PORT/prynt should light the cloud. Customize with your own needs 🛠 As said before, you can put any trigger you want, a like on your Facebook page, one on Instagram to light your cloud, the possibilities are endless :) This is the code that is doing the animation on Claudie side: @app.route('/prynt', methods = ['POST'])
def prynt():
  	time.sleep(0.5) # usefull when you have a lot of requests at the same time
	# Launch a subprocess in Python to light the LEDs with a greenStorm animation
	subprocess.call(['sudo', sys.executable, '/home/pi/Desktop/rpi_ws281x/python/examples/greenStorm.py'])
	return 'Clould storm successful!' Each time a POST is made on /prynt we create a subprocess with the sudo authorisation. That was the main difficulty of this project, sudo is required to use the rpi_ws281x lib. This subprocess executes the storm animation on the cloud one time. The user ( pi by default) executing the command need to have the sudo authorisation. If there is a power outage, it can be great if your program restart by itself, on the startup of the Pi. To do so, one of the several ways to do it, is editing the crontab script: sudo crontab -e Start Claudie program: @reboot python /home/pi/Desktop/Claudie/app.py & Customize your Claudie 🌈 🌈 If the double rainbow is your kind of thing, you can customize it like this. If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to read them in the comments! Disclaimer: Setting sudo by default on the pi user is not recommended in terms of security. Further more if your Raspberry Pi is accessible from outside your network. At Prynt , we have creativity days, we work on everything we want for few days. I believe this is really important to have some time you can work on something else for your company. A colleague did some art paint in our office, another create slack emoji of everyone in the company, I decided to create this cloud with the help of some colleagues (by the way, we name it Claudie ). Prynt Claudie As you can see in the video, you can plug the cloud to any trigger that will light his LEDs. For instance if someone likes your Facebook page, a transaction made in your shop etc… How to build Claudie? ✨ First we started with this video from instructables , it’s a great start, but it wasn’t easy to build something solid that won’t break, acrylic roads are quite expensive and the glue doesn’t really stick to. The goal here is to have a structure that is really light. video instructables So after trying to build something with acrylic roads, we decided to take a cardboard and put bubble paper wrap around it to give to more a cloud form. After we tapped the LEDs on the bubble paper. Finally, we followed the procedure with the vinyl fabric and the polyester fiberfill shown on the video. What you will need technically 🛒 Disclaimer: We made this cloud with all the followings components, there is many ways to do it, you can use an Arduino instead of a Raspberry Pi, use different types of LEDs. Disclaimer: A Raspberry Pi with a PWM pin. A kit can be useful if you want to play with others stuff. A power adaptor for the LEDs A female connector for the DC power adaptor A diode to adapt the voltage And of course, LEDs!! The link is for 30, we used 120 LEDs for our cloud.Wiring The Pi & the LEDs 🛠 A Raspberry Pi with a PWM pin . A kit can be useful if you want to play with others stuff. A Raspberry Pi with a PWM pin kit A power adaptor for the LEDs A power adaptor A female connector for the DC power adaptor female connector A diode to adapt the voltage A diode And of course, LEDs !! The link is for 30, we used 120 LEDs for our cloud.Wiring The Pi & the LEDs 🛠 LEDs Wiring The Pi & the LEDs 🛠 This is how you wire the Pi and the LEDs, the diode is really important, it will reduce the input DC voltage from 5V to 3.3V, so the Pi which is delivering a voltage from 0 to 3.3V on the PWM will be able to control the LEDs. If you don’t put the diode, your Pi might be destroyed. This article is a great source if you want to understand why. article Image courtesy of Adafruit Adafruit Deploying the code on the Raspberry Pi 👩‍💻 If you are not familiar with the Raspberry Pi environment, the setup is really easy. You just have to download Raspbian and install it on a SD Card. The installation documentation is really helpful. installation documentation The rpi_ws281x is the lib that manages the LEDs, you might want to fork it to set the amount of LEDs you have and to customize the light animation (see all the examples in the python folder). rpi_ws281x rpi_ws281x set the amount of LEDs The Claudie repository is handling a web server, every time we send a POST on http://IP_ADDRESS:PORT/prynt it lights the cloud in a storm effect. Claudie Claudie POST POST http://IP_ADDRESS:PORT/prynt http://IP_ADDRESS:PORT/prynt Getting the Raspberry Pi ready Once you have the OS running and can ssh on the Raspberry Pi you can clone this project and install everything you will need: clone this project pip install RPi.GPIO # Python module to control Raspberry Pi GPIO
pip install Flask # a Python framework to create a web server
git clone git@github.com:rvi/Claudie.git # our implementation of the web server that will light the LEDs

# Installation of the lib that control the LEDs via the GPIO 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev git scons swig
git clone git@github.com:rvi/rpi_ws281x.git
cd rpi_ws281x
scons
cd python
sudo python setup.py install

# Go back to Claudie code and run the app
cd ../../Claudie
python app.py pip install RPi.GPIO # Python module to control Raspberry Pi GPIO
pip install Flask # a Python framework to create a web server
git clone git@github.com:rvi/Claudie.git # our implementation of the web server that will light the LEDs

# Installation of the lib that control the LEDs via the GPIO 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev git scons swig
git clone git@github.com:rvi/rpi_ws281x.git
cd rpi_ws281x
scons
cd python
sudo python setup.py install

# Go back to Claudie code and run the app
cd ../../Claudie
python app.py pip install RPi.GPIO # Python module to control Raspberry Pi GPIO pip install Flask # a Python framework to create a web server git clone git@github.com:rvi/Claudie.git # our implementation of the web server that will light the LEDs # Installation of the lib that control the LEDs via the GPIO sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev git scons swig git clone git@github.com:rvi/rpi_ws281x.git cd rpi_ws281x scons cd python sudo python setup.py install # Go back to Claudie code and run the app cd ../../Claudie
python app.py pip install RPi.GPIO # Python module to control Raspberry Pi GPIO pip install Flask # a Python framework to create a web server git clone git@github.com:rvi/Claudie.git # our implementation of the web server that will light the LEDs # Installation of the lib that control the LEDs via the GPIO sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev git scons swig git clone git@github.com:rvi/rpi_ws281x.git scons cd python sudo python setup.py install # Go back to Claudie code and run the app Now you have your app ready by doing POST on http://IP_ADDRESS:PORT/prynt should light the cloud. POST POST http://IP_ADDRESS:PORT/prynt http://IP_ADDRESS:PORT/prynt Customize with your own needs 🛠 As said before, you can put any trigger you want, a like on your Facebook page, one on Instagram to light your cloud, the possibilities are endless :) This is the code that is doing the animation on Claudie side: @app.route('/prynt', methods = ['POST'])
def prynt():
  	time.sleep(0.5) # usefull when you have a lot of requests at the same time
	# Launch a subprocess in Python to light the LEDs with a greenStorm animation
	subprocess.call(['sudo', sys.executable, '/home/pi/Desktop/rpi_ws281x/python/examples/greenStorm.py'])
	return 'Clould storm successful!' @app.route('/prynt', methods = ['POST'])
def prynt():
  	time.sleep(0.5) # usefull when you have a lot of requests at the same time
	# Launch a subprocess in Python to light the LEDs with a greenStorm animation
	subprocess.call(['sudo', sys.executable, '/home/pi/Desktop/rpi_ws281x/python/examples/greenStorm.py'])
	return 'Clould storm successful!' @app.route( '/prynt' , methods = [ 'POST' ] ) def prynt (): time.sleep( 0.5 ) # usefull when you have a lot of requests at the same time # Launch a subprocess in Python to light the LEDs with a greenStorm animation subprocess.call([ 'sudo' , sys.executable, '/home/pi/Desktop/rpi_ws281x/python/examples/greenStorm.py' ]) return 'Clould storm successful!' @app.route( '/prynt' , methods = [ 'POST' ] ) def prynt (): time.sleep( 0.5 ) # usefull when you have a lot of requests at the same time # Launch a subprocess in Python to light the LEDs with a greenStorm animation subprocess.call([ 'sudo' , sys.executable, '/home/pi/Desktop/rpi_ws281x/python/examples/greenStorm.py' ]) return 'Clould storm successful!' Each time a POST is made on /prynt we create a subprocess with the sudo authorisation. That was the main difficulty of this project, sudo is required to use the rpi_ws281x lib. This subprocess executes the storm animation on the cloud one time. The user ( pi by default) executing the command need to have the sudo authorisation. POST POST /prynt /prynt the main difficulty sudo sudo rpi_ws281x rpi_ws281x If there is a power outage, it can be great if your program restart by itself, on the startup of the Pi. To do so, one of the several ways to do it, is editing the crontab script: several ways crontab crontab sudo crontab -e sudo crontab -e sudo crontab -e sudo crontab -e Start Claudie program: @reboot python /home/pi/Desktop/Claudie/app.py & @reboot python /home/pi/Desktop/Claudie/app.py & @reboot python /home/pi/Desktop/Claudie/app.py & @reboot python /home/pi/Desktop/Claudie/app.py & Customize your Claudie 🌈 🌈 If the double rainbow is your kind of thing, you can customize it like this. double rainbow If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to read them in the comments! Disclaimer: Setting sudo by default on the pi user is not recommended in terms of security. Further more if your Raspberry Pi is accessible from outside your network. Disclaimer: Setting sudo by default on the pi user is not recommended in terms of security. Further more if your Raspberry Pi is accessible from outside your network.

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