Components › Accountability & Audit › Environmental Impact
AA02 · Governance

Environmental Impact

Purpose Surfaces the real-world resource cost of AI inference — energy consumption, water use for data center cooling, and estimated carbon footprint — at the point of use, as cumulative session totals, and as a pre-request warning for high-impact operations.
Use when Any interface where AI inference is user-initiated, particularly for high-volume operations, long sessions, or contexts where organizational AI footprint is tracked or governed.
Do not use In low-latency inline interactions where surfacing impact metrics would interrupt critical user flow. Reserve warnings for materially high-impact requests.
Failure mode prevented Users and organizations have no visibility into the environmental cost of their AI usage, making conscious consumption choices impossible and obscuring organizational AI footprint from governance and sustainability reporting.
Example Dark Academia
Dark Academia
The Atelier
Neon Tide
The Archive
Candlelight
The Conservatory
This Request Standard inference · ~1,200 tokens
Energy
0.003 Wh
≈ 10 sec of LED light
Water
0.5 ml
≈ small ice cube
Carbon
0.8 mg CO₂e
≈ 1m car drive
Session Total
47 requests · 84,000 tokens
Within budget
Energy
0.14 Wh · 34%
Water
24 ml · 23%
Carbon
38 g CO₂e · 41%
Carbon is running above target. Switching to efficient mode for remaining requests would bring this session within budget.
Overview
impact-per-request — compact inline indicator after a completed requestimpact-session — cumulative session totals with budget bars and mode-switch affordanceimpact-warning — pre-request warning for high-impact operations with scope-reduction alternatives
Design rule

Environmental impact must be surfaced at point of use and as session totals. Comparisons must use concrete equivalences users can reason with. Users must be able to reduce scope or switch to a lower-impact inference mode.

Theming API

Override these CSS custom properties to apply your own visual treatment without touching the component's behavioral contracts.

Shared semantic tokens

Token Controls
--rad-surface-card Card backgrounds
--rad-color-approve "Switch to efficient" button fill
--rad-radius-card Card border radius

Component-scoped tokens

Token Controls
--rad-env-color Metric labels, session title (green)
--rad-env-metric-bg Per-request metric card background
--rad-env-metric-value-color Metric number color
--rad-env-metric-unit-color Unit text color
--rad-env-metric-eq-color Equivalence text color
--rad-env-session-context-color Session subtitle text
--rad-env-bar-bg Progress bar track background
--rad-env-bar-ok Within-budget bar fill and value
--rad-env-bar-warn Over-budget bar fill and value
--rad-env-note-bg Session note panel background
--rad-env-warning-border High-impact warning left accent
--rad-env-warning-emphasis Strong values in warning body
--rad-btn-eco-bg Eco button background
--rad-btn-eco-color Eco button text

"*This component surfaces the cost of running inference — energy, water, carbon. Build it without editorializing. The numbers speak.*"

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RAD is the original work of Jackie Curry. All rights reserved. No portion may be reproduced, adapted, or incorporated into any product or system without express written permission.

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© 2025 Jackie Curry. All rights reserved. Publication date: 2025.

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