In an era where everything is online, digital sustainability is becoming more important than ever before.
Just because something exists online doesn’t mean that it’s not having an impact on the real world. In fact, just a single email sent and received on a laptop generates around 0.3g of CO2e!
Whilst we might not have the ability to make the internet more energy efficient (yet), there are things that designers, developers and individuals alike can do to begin improving their own online carbon footprint. Here are three of our top tips for improving your website’s digital sustainability.
Optimise Everything!
Almost every website built requires some form of assets – from images and videos to animations and downloadable resources. When it comes to website assets, optimising for web can vastly reduce their file size whilst retaining the quality required. This, in turn, can reduce the amount of energy required to load them. Most editing software will offer a ‘save for web’ or ‘reduce file size’ option – reducing the overall size of the file whilst retaining as much quality as possible. Smaller-sized assets also have the added benefit of being quicker to load and reducing the amount of space they occupy on your website – keeping your website lightweight and reducing loading times.
Keep It Simple
When designing and developing your website, always consider how a user will interact with your site. Complicated websites with numerous pages not only overwhelm your users, but they require much more energy to load. Ideally, a user needs to be able to find what they are looking for quickly and with ease. Try to keep your website concise with straightforward navigation. Reducing the number of things a user needs to click on to find what they are looking for, which in turn will reduce the amount of energy consumed by your website.
Green Hosting
Green hosting is website hosting that is powered exclusively by sustainable energy. Wherever possible, opt for a green hosting provider. As demand has increased for sustainable hosting, many different hosting providers are now offering ‘green’ packages. Make sure to check these packages and compare them against one another to avoid pitfalls – some green hosting providers only offset their emissions, whilst others have data centres which are solely powered by renewable energy. It is worth evaluating each hosting provider you are considering, to develop an understanding of their sustainability commitments. Whilst we inevitably need energy to power our websites, we can at least choose sustainable energy!
These are just a few of the things we can do to improve our digital sustainability. At Studio Seventeen, we design and develop all of our websites with sustainability in mind. If you’re wondering whether your website could be more sustainable, why not get in touch and see how we could help!
