The Efficiency Leaderboard
Low-power lifestyle.
Zero apologies.
A live ranking of how much water, energy, and carbon everyday things use — and why the hardy succulent is the smug, undefeated champion.
Since you opened this page
AI queries have used roughly 0 litres of water.
Your succulent used 0.
Time machine
2025
today
2015202020252030
Today's baseline. Now slide either way.
🏆 The Champion
🌵
#1
A+Hardy Succulent
Misted monthly. Sits in natural light. Judges you silently.
Thirst
0.05 L
Vibe
0 kWh
Carbon footprint: 0 g CO₂
⛳
#2
GGolf Course (Daily)
A green desert. Drinks more in a day than you will all year.
Thirst
1.1M L
Vibe
813.3 kWh
Carbon footprint: 254.2k g CO₂
✈️
#3
GShort-Haul Flight
One hour airborne ≈ a year of your succulent's entire footprint × infinity.
Thirst
2.6 L
Vibe
14.7 kWh
Carbon footprint: 4.7k g CO₂
📺
#4
D4K Streaming
A binge-watch is a small data-centre marathon.
Thirst
5.8 L
Vibe
0.25 kWh
Carbon footprint: 115.2 g CO₂
🤖
#5
FReasoning LLM Query
Each thought cycle is cooled by data centre water. You can almost hear it sweat.
Thirst
25.0 L
Vibe
0.15 kWh
Carbon footprint: 215.0 g CO₂
Head to Head
Contender
vs
Compared to
Water
500×
AI Query drinks 25.0 L vs Succulent's 0.05 L
Energy
∞
AI Query burns 0.15 kWh vs Succulent's 0 kWh
UK Grid · live
Checking the grid…
National Grid ESO
Measuring this page's footprint…
Every figure on this page traces back to a real source. We mark live data clearly, flag estimates honestly, and tell you what we're upgrading next.
UK grid carbon intensity (gCO₂/kWh, real-time)
LivePolled every 5 minutes. Free, no auth.
AI query water use (~500ml per reasoning query)
EstimatedPeer-reviewed estimate. Live AI water-use APIs do not yet exist publicly.
AI query energy use (~3 Wh, reasoning models higher)
Estimated4K streaming energy (~77 Wh/hr)
EstimatedWill swap to Carbon Interface API in v1.1 for live calculation.
Golf course daily water use (~290k US gallons / 1.1M litres)
EstimatedAverage across US courses; arid-region courses use significantly more.
Short-haul flight CO₂ (~90kg per pax-hour)
PlannedWire-up template is in the code (see useSiteFootprint section). Drop your API key into env vars and uncomment.
This page's own footprint (live)
LiveTries the /api/page-footprint route first (Lighthouse-grade, cached 24h). Falls back to browser Performance API. Energy/water conversions via Sustainable Web Design model.
Hardy succulent: 0L water today, 0 kWh
LiveBenchmark — verified by static physical reality
A succulent in our shop window does, in fact, use zero kWh. We are confident in this reading.
AI growth trajectory (year-curve)
EstimatedIllustrative projection based on data centre demand forecasts.
