Absolute footprint, every quarter
Scope 1, 2 and 3 published beside the per-product figures, against a declared path.
OhMyUnicorn turns one sentence into a working app or game in about 40 minutes, on a few shared servers. We measured what that does to the footprint of making software, and we show the case least favourable to us first.
What is measured: products made by outside users on OhMyUnicorn (apps) and OhMyGames (games), the two public front doors of our factory. The factory itself, the agents, rules and servers that make them, is the company; its own development is counted inside every product as the research share.
AI computing to build a typical app, counted from its own logged calls. A game takes about 2 kWh.
Each product we build logs every AI call: what was read, what was written, by which model. So the computing behind one app is counted per unit; its energy is then estimated from published coefficients, with the range shown. A typical app takes about 1.1 kWh of AI computing to build, about one dishwasher cycle; a game about 2 kWh. No studio or agency can show that for a single product.
Each product logs every AI call: what was read, what was written, by which model. Failed attempts and the first two weeks of edits are counted on the product.
Fresh input, cached input, cache writes and output, by model. This part is counted, not estimated.
Energy per token from the EcoLogits family, hardware made included, cross-checked against Google's and Mistral's published figures. The range is shown.
1.1kWh app2kWh gameOne extra booking app: its AI with failed attempts, edits, hardware and a training share, plus the customer's screen time; before hosting and our research share (modelled median).
0.71kg CO2eBooking site with deposits and admin for a tattoo studio (real customer build, 44 min sentence to live)
| Model | Tokens read | Written to cache | Tokens written (output) | Energy (estimated) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | 9.3M | 413k | 206k | 0.5 kWh |
| Claude Opus 5.5 | 485k | 167k | 54k | 0.35 kWh |
| This product | 9.8M | 579k | 260k | 0.85 kWh |
Tokens measured (build window); energy estimated, central coefficients; plan stage not split.
The conventional way, in hands-on person-days (low to high): a simple website 3 to 15; a booking or business app like those our users make 6 to 60; a web game like those our users publish 12 to 65; a studio-grade casual game with progression 120 to 880. We deliver each in about 40 minutes from sentence to live (median: apps 39, games 40).
Conventional hands-on effort, task-based range
| Class | Low (person-days) | Central | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simple small-business website (brochure) | 3 | 7 | 15 |
| Booking or business web app like those our users publish | 6 | 25 | 60 |
| Hyper-casual web game like those our users publish, small team | 12 | 25 | 65 |
| Same web game, one developer at home | 12 | 25 | 65 |
| Studio-grade casual game with progression (upper scenario) | 120 | 400 | 880 |
The violet tick is OhMyUnicorn's 40 minutes, drawn at a width you can see; to scale it would be far thinner than a pixel. This is a physical ratio from logs and effort ranges; no carbon model is needed for it.
Equivalence by class and written checklist, checked on 4 real customer products: see Method.
Every day of work brings computers and screens (made mostly in Asia, replaced every four to six years), an office to light and heat, a trip to get there, business travel. Thirteen company reports, from Ubisoft and Unity to Capgemini, put it at a median of 6.5 kg CO2e per employee per working day, before counting their computers. We count it two ways: equipment and energy only (strict), and the whole project including trips (wide). The headline numbers in this deck use the strict count.
kg CO2e per person-day (modelled, central values)
| Component | Boundary | kg CO2e per person-day |
|---|---|---|
| Commute to the office | project | 1.4 |
| Workstation and screens, made in Asia | strict | 0.64 |
| Office heating | project | 0.34 |
| Home office energy | project | 0.34 |
| Cloud and software tools | strict | 0.2 |
| Business travel | project | 0.2 |
| Office electricity | strict | 0.093 |
| Devices, electricity used | strict | 0.016 |
Cross-checks sit beside this bottom-up figure and are never averaged with it: 13 company reports and a spend-based estimate. We frame equipment, buildings and trips; never people.
About 150× less (modelled median; range 70× to 310×), 29× in our least favourable scenario. Upper scenario: a casual game with progression made by a Paris studio, hybrid week, equipment and energy only, the studio's unbilled time included; on our side the build, failed attempts, edits, hardware, model training and half of our research computing (the share we attribute to production; the whole fleet is a stress case).
For the web games our users publish today (about 25 person-days of conventional work), the gap is about 11× (82 kg vs 7.3 kg). Each extra game costs us about 1.2 kg; the rest is research shared across products.

Each cube is the CO2 of making one studio-grade game, at street scale: 8.4 m and 1.6 m on a side (upper scenario, modelled).CO2 gas at 15 °C is 1.9 kg per cubic metre.
Modelled, internal study, not yet critically reviewed. Medians of paired draws unless marked central values. Method and sources in the sheets.
For a simple website, a freelancer's week on a laptop is light and our own research computing is not zero: today the gap is small, about 1.8× (13 kg vs 6.7 kg), and we say so. A booking or business app: 6.7× (45 vs 6.7 kg). A web game: 11× (82 vs 7.3 kg); made by one developer at home: 11×. A studio-grade game: 150×. For small websites our impact is access, not carbon.
Ratio conventional / OhMyUnicorn, modelled, Paris, typical work pattern
| Class | Strict p10 | Strict p50 | Strict p90 | Whole project p50 | Conventional kg (strict, whole company) | OhMyUnicorn kg | Modelled chance of no benefit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple small-business website (brochure) | 0.87 | 1.8 | 3.8 | 7.3 | 13 | 6.7 | 14.8% |
| Booking or business web app like those our users publish | 2.8 | 6.7 | 14 | 24 | 45 | 6.7 | 0.2% |
| Hyper-casual web game like those our users publish, small team | 5.3 | 11 | 23 | 34 | 82 | 7.3 | 0% |
| Same web game, one developer at home | 4.9 | 11 | 22 | 17 | 77 | 7.3 | 0% |
| Studio-grade casual game with progression (upper scenario) | 70 | 150 | 310 | 450 | 1,100 | 7.2 | 0% |
The modelled chance of no benefit for a simple website is 14.8% of draws. Absolute kg are on each row: the conventional route (whole company) versus ours.
Modelled, internal study, not yet critically reviewed. Medians of paired draws unless marked central values. Method and sources in the sheets.
US hubs drive: 7 to 8 kg of CO2e per office day for the commute alone. Paris, Berlin and Tokyo ride trains, but offices on carbon-heavy grids (Warsaw, Bangalore, Tokyo) make up for it. The leanest studio we could model works from home in Montreal, on hydro power.
Studio-grade casual game with progression (upper scenario): footprint by hub (modelled, typical work pattern)
| Hub | Conventional kg (strict, whole company) | Ratio (strict, median) | Conventional kg (whole project) | Ratio (whole project, median) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paris | 1,100 | 150 | 3,200 | 450 |
| Lyon | 1,100 | 160 | 3,600 | 500 |
| Montpellier | 1,100 | 150 | 3,800 | 530 |
| Stockholm | 1,100 | 150 | 3,100 | 430 |
| Montreal | 1,100 | 150 | 4,000 | 550 |
| Helsinki | 1,200 | 170 | 3,000 | 410 |
| London | 1,800 | 250 | 4,200 | 580 |
| San Francisco Bay Area | 2,200 | 300 | 6,300 | 870 |
| Los Angeles | 2,200 | 300 | 6,500 | 900 |
| Berlin | 2,300 | 310 | 4,400 | 610 |
| Seattle | 2,500 | 340 | 6,500 | 900 |
| Seoul | 2,600 | 350 | 5,300 | 730 |
| Austin | 2,700 | 360 | 6,800 | 940 |
| Tokyo | 2,800 | 380 | 4,800 | 660 |
| Warsaw | 3,300 | 450 | 6,200 | 860 |
| Bangalore | 3,600 | 490 | 6,200 | 860 |
The violet hairline at the left edge is OhMyUnicorn's 7.2 kg on the same scale. Every hub is built bottom-up (commute, office, home, devices, tools, trips); sources are graded in sheet S2.
Modelled, internal study, not yet critically reviewed. Medians of paired draws unless marked central values. Method and sources in the sheets.
Our footprint per product includes the AI that builds it, failed attempts, edits, the hardware, an estimate for model training, the user's own screen time, and half of our research computing spread over the products we ship (the whole fleet is a stress case on slide 8). That research is the biggest part today: our own R&D spends about nine times what customer builds spend on AI, about five times the electricity. Each extra product costs about 0.71 kg for an app and 1.2 kg for a game; research adds the rest, and it shrinks as volume grows.
If research stayed at today's level while volume reached 2,000 products a month (central values): a web game about 54× lighter to make, a studio-grade game about 860×, even a simple website about 13×.
Parts of one casual game, central values, kg CO2e
| Route | Part | kg CO2e |
|---|---|---|
| Conventional | Devices (made, then used) | 503 |
| Conventional | Commuting | 550 |
| Conventional | Cloud and software tools | 80 |
| Conventional | Office (electricity strict, heating project) | 177 |
| Conventional | Home office | 130 |
| Conventional | Trips and client meetings | 416 |
| OhMyUnicorn | Allocated R&D (our own AI fleet, by session purpose) | 2.9 |
| OhMyUnicorn | AI compute for the build (failures and edits included) | 0.47 |
| OhMyUnicorn | Share of model training | 0.21 |
| OhMyUnicorn | The customer's own device time | 0.031 |
| OhMyUnicorn | Hardware the AI runs on (made) | 0.028 |
The conventional bar is the whole project (wide count); 620 kg of it falls inside the strict count. Allocated R&D is 80% of our production footprint today. The headline kg elsewhere in the deck are medians of 20,000 draws; the parts here are central values, so they differ a little.
Ratio conventional / OhMyUnicorn as volume grows (strict count, Paris, modelled)
| Products a month | Website: ratio (kg per product) | Booking app: ratio (kg per product) | Web game: ratio (kg per product) | Studio-grade game: ratio (kg per product) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 200 | 2.9x (3.3 kg) | 10x (3.3 kg) | 15x (3.6 kg) | 250x (3.6 kg) |
| 500 | 6x (1.6 kg) | 21x (1.6 kg) | 29x (1.9 kg) | 470x (1.9 kg) |
| 1,000 | 9.4x (1 kg) | 34x (1 kg) | 42x (1.3 kg) | 680x (1.3 kg) |
| 2,000 | 13x (0.72 kg) | 47x (0.72 kg) | 54x (1 kg) | 860x (1 kg) |
| 5,000 | 17x (0.55 kg) | 61x (0.55 kg) | 65x (0.86 kg) | 1,000x (0.86 kg) |
| 10,000 | 19x (0.49 kg) | 68x (0.49 kg) | 69x (0.8 kg) | 1,100x (0.8 kg) |
Modelled, internal study, not yet critically reviewed. Medians of paired draws unless marked central values. Method and sources in the sheets.
We built the case against us, Scenario F: the leanest studio we could model (fully remote, in Montreal, on hydro power), AI energy at the top of published ranges, everything we attribute counted, whole company on both sides. In that scenario the 10th percentile is 29× for a studio-grade game and 2.1× for a web game made by one developer at home. For a booking app it is about even (1.1×) and for a simple website it falls below 1: there, our case is access, not carbon.
Our least favourable modelled scenario: leanest studio, AI energy at the top of published ranges (modelled)
| Class | Strict, 10th percentile | Strict, median | Whole project, 10th percentile | Per extra product (direct pair), strict 10th percentile | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple small-business website (brochure) | 0.34×below 1: no benefit | 0.67× | 1.1× | 2.5× | Montreal, fully remote |
| Booking or business web app like those our users publish | 1.1× | 2.4× | 3.1× | 8.1× | Montreal, fully remote |
| Hyper-casual web game like those our users publish, small team | 2.1× | 4.2× | 5.1× | 9.6× | Montreal, fully remote |
| Same web game, one developer at home | 2.1× | 4.2× | 3.5× | 9.6× | Montreal, fully remote |
| Studio-grade casual game with progression (upper scenario) | 29× | 57× | 68× | 130× | Montreal, fully remote |
Tornado, studio game, strict ratio at central values
| Input | Ratio at low input | Ratio at high input |
|---|---|---|
| Conventional hands-on effort (person-days) | 74 | 540 |
| Energy of re-reading cached text, large model | 390 | 86 |
| Carbon of making a workstation | 160 | 380 |
| Share of model training counted | 310 | 170 |
| Grid carbon at the data centre | 350 | 210 |
| Cloud and software tools per day | 220 | 310 |
| Device lifetime (years) | 290 | 220 |
| Energy of re-reading cached text, mid-size model | 260 | 190 |
Studio-grade casual game with progression (upper scenario): ratio conventional / OhMyUnicorn at central values under stress (modelled)
| Case | Strict count | Whole project | Studio and week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central values | 250× | 740× | Paris, typical work pattern |
| AI ten times dirtier | 28× | 84× | Paris, typical work pattern |
| Our R&D overhead doubled | 150× | 440× | Paris, typical work pattern |
| All of it, in the leanest city | 15× | 34× | Montreal, fully remote |
Studio-grade casual game with progression (upper scenario): ratio conventional / OhMyUnicorn, medians, under the two modelling choices; shown beside the draws, never inside them (modelled)
| Modelling choice | Studio-grade game |
|---|---|
| Base: everything counted | 150× |
| Without model training | 230× |
| Without input tokens | 510× |
Modelled, internal study, not yet critically reviewed. Medians of paired draws unless marked central values. Method and sources in the sheets.
Most of our users would never have hired a studio. So the honest question is: how many of our products must replace a real conventional build for the whole production to emit less, counting only the emissions that really stop and the extra hosting of everything else? Today about 1 in 13 for games and 1 in 10 for apps (illustrative until the share is measured). 16% of requests already carry a business signal (an existing site, a registered business or a quote): signals, not proof. From now on we ask every publisher, and we credit a replacement only when the answer is backed by an outside signal.
Central values: at 2,000 products a month, if 1 in 10 replaces a conventional build, about 192 t CO2e a year of conventional production stops in the short run, against about 39 t for our whole company at that volume.
Break-even share of products that must replace a conventional build (consequential, modelled)
| Class | Median share | One product in | 90th percentile share | One product in (tail) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Booking or business web app like those our users publish | 10.3% | 10 | 18.6% | 5 |
| Hyper-casual web game like those our users publish, small team | 8% | 13 | 14.2% | 7 |
Conventional production that stops in the short run, t CO2e a year, against our whole-company footprint at that volume (central values, modelled, illustrative until the share is measured)
| Products a month | Our whole company, t CO2e a year | If 2% replace a conventional build | If 5% replace a conventional build | If 10% replace a conventional build | If 16% replace a conventional build |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 260 | 17 | 5 | 13 | 25 | 40 |
| 1,000 | 26 | 19 | 48 | 96 | 154 |
| 2,000 | 39 | 39 | 96 | 192 | 308 |
| 5,000 | 75 | 96 | 240 | 481 | 769 |
Option order is randomised. A credit needs the answer and a behavioural signal; "not sure" earns none; a third party samples respondents.
Modelled, internal study, not yet critically reviewed. Medians of paired draws unless marked central values. Method and sources in the sheets.
An app online uses about 0.4 W, about 3.5 kWh a year. Intensity alone never suffices, so each guardrail is dated honestly: what runs today, what is planned.
Scope 1, 2 and 3 published beside the per-product figures, against a declared path.
Published with the mix, so the average cannot be flattered by changing what we build.
Weight budgets, eco-design and accessibility rules written once into the factory and re-checked on each change.
Not built today. Apps nobody visits will hibernate and wake on demand.
Each job goes to the lowest-energy model that passes our quality checks. Cost is not energy; today's routing saves money.
Between four and five in ten app requests are for an own business or trade, in 12 languages. Outside accounts grew 14 times in 60 days. In France, 35% of small and mid-sized firms (about 840,000) have no website, and 1.17 million companies were created in 2025, two thirds of them by micro-entrepreneurs who start with no tech team and little money: two thirds of French firms spend under EUR 300 a year on their web presence. In the EU, 73% of SMEs reach basic digital intensity against a 90% target for 2030.
Share of 170 requested apps. Apps requested by outside users, classified one by one by Gemini 3.8 Flash, two passes agreeing 92%; midpoints shown.
Booking portal and AI assistant for a tattoo studio
Back-office tool for independent physio clinics
Marketing and booking website for a golf club
Stock tracker for informal market traders
Workflow tool for energy-performance diagnostic requests
Peer-to-peer student tutoring and skill swap
Financial-literacy game for kids and teenagers
Gamified task manager for people with ADHD
Board where game makers find teammates
App that turns photos of sweaters into knitting patterns
The three prongs of a sustainable investment, with the honest status of each: evidence collection is underway on all three, with an owner and an open condition.
An enabling solution for lower-carbon software production; footprint per product estimated per unit; displaced production tracked with a validated substitution share.
Status: evidence collection underway; share measured from now; the fund's methodology to confirm.
Owner: OhMyUnicorn
Footprint by scope (inventory v0 done, preliminary; v1 next); hosting about 0.4 W per app; AI energy counted with failures and edits; rebound guardrails.
Status: evidence collection underway; water and materials not assessed yet.
Owner: OhMyUnicorn
French SAS, BSA AIR round, quarterly KPI note, data hosted in the EU.
Status: see the round structure.
Owner: OhMyUnicorn
Verified organisations whose app serves someone other than its creator every month for 3 months.
baseline pending: telemetrykg CO2e per published product passing our quality floor, direct and allocated, on a dated glide path.
Typical app, modelled, today's baseline.
Substituting products credited only with an outside signal (registered business, previous site, quote) × conventional person-days, reported as estimated effort substituted; short-run CO2e only for evidenced cases; reviewed externally.
credited share pendingMonte Carlo on graded, sourced inputs (16 cities, 13 company reports, manufacturer footprints, EcoLogits with Google and Mistral as cross-checks, our own logged tokens). Two boundaries, two consistent pairs (per extra product; whole company), modelling choices kept apart from uncertainty. Each class has a written acceptance checklist; 4 real customer products were scored against it from their source code and priced the conventional way for that exact feature list; an observed-effort study is funded by the round. Scope: what the factory makes through its two public front doors, OhMyUnicorn and OhMyGames; the factory's own development sits inside every number as the research share; vertical products built on the same factory (such as Escale or AdStudio) are not in this study yet. Before any public comparison: an ISO 14044 critical review by an independent panel. Until then, we do not use these comparisons in marketing.
EUR 1.5M pre-seed. We want Wind as the impact reference of the round, with our numbers reviewed by people who do not work for us.
Timothée Le Borgne, founder · tim@ohmyunicorn.com