# Unlocking Carbon Neutrality with DAO IPCI in the BBF Building

## Introduction

Energy consumption is a major contributor to carbon footprints, and it is becoming increasingly important to find ways to reduce our environmental impact. Offices and commercial buildings contribute to energy consumption a lot, and this article will discuss a system that was installed in [BBF](https://bbf.com/)’s office to track collect electricity measurements and provides a way to compensate carbon footprint.

## Tracking Energy Consumption

There is an office building of the BBF company, on which a certain number of solar panels are installed. The solar panels were already connected to the [Solarweb](https://www.solarweb.com/) system, so it was not difficult to collect analytics. There are indications of the building's total electricity consumption and how much electrical power has been generated by the solar panels. But what this system lacked was a way to offset the carbon footprint for the electricity used on top of what was obtained from solar panels.

## Determine How Much to Compensate

If we have data on total electricity consumption and how much electricity the solar panels have produced, then calculating the carbon footprint is a simple task. We consider that electricity from solar panels has a carbon footprint equal to 0. This means that you only need to compensate for what was consumed in excess of the electricity generated by solar panels.

CO2 emissions vary from country to country. According to [Hannah Ritchie, Max Roser and Pablo Rosado (2022) - "Energy"](https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix#carbon-intensity-of-electricity). Cyprus’ average pollution is 587 g/kWh .

To compensate the carbon footprint, carbon credits are used, which represent 1 ton of CO2.

## Compensating the Carbon Footprint

So, with energy consumption in hand, how much solar panels produce and the coefficient for Cyprus, it is easy to calculate how many tokens need to be burned to offset the carbon footprint.

For these purposes, we installed a Raspberry Pi, setup [Home Assistant](https://www.home-assistant.io/) to collect analytics, and wrote an [integration](https://github.com/Multi-Agent-io/solarweb-hass-integration) to compensate the footprint. Energy dashboard in Home Assistant looks like this


Our integration adds such a control panel to view statistics and initiate compensation


## Reducing Energy Consumption

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An example of offsetting a carbon footprint through integration. [Transaction](https://polkadot.js.org/apps/?rpc=wss%3A%2F%2Fkusama.rpc.ipci.io#/explorer/query/0xfc8cea3514805f8f170ab0a06e7787f86659197d607ddfde23e879efd105d737) on success

## Conclusion

In addition to compensating for the carbon emissions, it is also important to reduce the energy consumption in the office building. This can be done through making small changes, such as using energy efficient lighting and appliances, as well as making sure that all of the office equipment is properly maintained and in good working order.

Energy consumption is a major contributor to carbon footprints, and businesses have a responsibility to reduce their environmental impact. A system that tracks energy consumption and provides a way to compensate for carbon emissions is a great way to help reduce the carbon footprint of an office building. With the right attitude and approach, businesses can help to reduce their impact on the environment and create a more sustainable future.