For an online company such as Yahoo!, their service requires a lot energy for its servers. Come to think of it, it could be to their benefit if consumers realized that browsing online or playing Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball is better for the environment, as opposed to carbon intensive activities such as quad biking or hopping on a Caribbean cruise.
Moving along on the spectrum of sensibility, I also found JPMorgan's calculator. There's an angle: they are selling carbon offsets. So actually, they are informing their clients of their environmentally-unfriendly deeds. Of course, we often see guilt being used by advertisers as a motivational device.
I wasn't impressed by HP's calculator. HP kept it pertinent by limiting their calculator for printing and buying HP stuff. I didn't make it through their entire calculator because it froze, but I suspect that they will tell me how much money I'm wasting, how bad my operations are for the planet and how much money and carbon emissions I can save by buying HP products.
Can you blame perspicuously bad companies from trying to look good? BP is trying. They also have a cutesy animated character named Professor B who provides tips on how to save energy and the environment. Each calculator has a specific call to action that results in more consumption, or at the very least, a better way to consume. I suppose a business purpose needs to be defined above all else. If anything, we should be grateful that at least a solution is offered and awareness is being raised.
My favorite calculator was on EarthDay. You get to pick an avatar and walk around the block as you figure out how many planets it would take to sustain your lifestyle. Sadly, it will take 4.6 planets if everyone lived with my consumption habits. I'm ashamed. It's the airplane flights, I tell you.
