Is sustainable is your website are you wasting energy? My tips for embracing digital sustainability in 2024
Do you know your brand’s digital carbon footprint?
To date, sustainability conversations have focused primarily on the impact of climate change, waste, resource use, and emissions.
But what about the impact of our digital activities?
Every action we take online has an impact. Each click, share, thumbs-up or thumbs-down quietly contributes to our collective digital footprint. In fact, if the internet were a country, it would be the 7th largest polluter in the world!
While digital technology can help us tackle environmental issues, it can also leave its own ecological footprint and pose an alarming threat to our planet.
So what’s the answer?
As business owners, we each have a role to play in assessing and minimising our impact on the planet. Adopting digital sustainability practices can help.
What is digital sustainability?
Digital sustainability is an ethical approach to how we operate online and looks at leveraging sustainable processes and mindful use of technology to reduce our individual and collective digital footprint.
And why is this important? Well…
Today, most businesses operate online, using various tools to promote and sell their services/products to customers worldwide. These tools require energy. From our servers and website hosts to email providers - it all adds up, putting immense pressure on the planet’s limited resources.
3.7% of global greenhouse emissions come from our devices, internet access and the network of online tools and systems we use daily to keep things running. And, as it stands, we would need to plant a forest twice the size of Portugal just to offset the impact caused by our internet usage!
Adopting mindful digital sustainability practices within our businesses can radically change how we operate and help minimise our negative impact on the environment.
Benefits of adopting digital sustainability practices
Digital sustainability is changing how brands operate online.
The rapid shift toward mindful business practices is no surprise given that globally, sustainability is rated as an important purchase criterion for 60% of consumers.
In many cases, the benefits of digital sustainability go beyond reducing emissions.
By making businesses more efficient, digital sustainability can also help save money and improve your bottom line. In fact, a recent study by Deloitte Insights showed that businesses that actively engage in purpose-driven pursuits see better returns than those driven by profit alone!
So, as a small business owner, you might be thinking, what part can I play? And where should I begin?...
Reviewing your website’s eco-footprint is the perfect first step.
Using digital sustainability practices to design a greener website
According to the online carbon calculator Website Carbon, the average website produces 1.76g of CO2 for every page view. That is the equivalent of an electric car driving more than 3,000 km!
And yep, you guessed it – the more complex a website is, the more energy it requires to load – and the greater its impact. Scale that up to the entire internet, and you’ve got a big problem!
Website design and content have a significant impact on energy efficiency.
The following are key areas to consider when designing a greener website:
Assessing the damage
The first step is to measure your website's carbon footprint with a tool like Website Carbon Calculator. This free tool scans your website and gives you a helpful (and eye-opening) breakdown of where your website currently stands.
Switch to a green website host
One of the most effective ways to reduce a website’s carbon footprint is to switch to a green website host – a hosting company that uses renewable energy to power its’ operations.
If you already have a website, I recommend looking into your existing provider.
When I began my digital sustainability research, I found that my website host, “LetsHost”, is not a sustainable provider. I will be writing to them to ask them to use renewable energy to power their servers.
If you’re looking to set up a new website or move to a more sustainable option, I recommend the Green Web Foundation’s Green Hosting Directory, which gives a location-based breakdown of green website hosting companies that provide proof of their green claims.
For businesses based in Ireland, this list currently includes
Amazon EU (Ireland)
Blacknight
Eirbyte
Web World
Save the planet with… SEO?
When optimising a website for search engine rankings, we help people find the information they want quickly and easily. When SEO works well, it helps people spend less time browsing the web and visiting fewer pages that don’t meet their needs. By making it easier for people to find your website, you save visitors valuable time and help the environment by lowering the web’s carbon footprint.
Here are a few ways to improve your SEO game:
Use researched keywords relevant to your audience and avoid keyword stuffing
Avoid long, complicated sentences. Better readability = improved SEO
Keep Google happy with value-based customer-centric content that answers your customer’s questions in a clear, concise format.
Messaging with meaning
Similar to SEO, copywriting can significantly impact a website's efficiency.
Why? Because it affects the amount of time people spend browsing a website searching for answers or solutions.
While we want our users to spend time on our website, we don’t want them to waste their time wading through pointless content or confusing copy that offers little or no value to them. Therefore, clear and efficient copywriting can help reduce wasted time on the internet and, in turn, reduce wasted energy. Here are some quick-fire tips for cleaner website copy:
Remove the fluff - every sentence should have a purpose
Avoid repetition - are you saying the same thing repeatedly?
Keep it simple - clear copy wins over clever copy any day
Use clear call-to-actions - tell your user exactly what they should do next
Mindful images use
Images are the single most significant contributors to page weight on most websites. The more images you use and the larger those image files, the more data needs to be transferred, and the more energy is required.
Opting for SVG graphics instead of formats like JPEG, PNG, and GIF can help decrease image size.
Alongside any technical optimisation, I recommend all brands consider their image use carefully. The following questions can help you decide what images are worth their weight (and impact) on your site:
Does the image add value to your website visitor? Does it communicate essential or helpful information?
Could the same result be achieved if the image was smaller?
Could we achieve the same effect with a vector graphic (or even CSS style) instead of a photo?
User experience matters
The key to a good user experience is a frictionless user journey. We want our website visitors to be able to find what they want and perform the actions they need to take in the most streamlined manner possible.
Good user experience makes using the web more accessible and more enjoyable for everyone and reduces the energy wasted on sites or pages that don’t serve a purpose. For a guide on providing a seamless website experience for your users, check out my 9 essential best practices to improve your website navigation blog.
Eco-friendly-er fonts
Choosing the right font is essential to your brand’s visual identity, but unfortunately, it can also add significant file weight to your website. In fact, did you know that a single font file could be as much as 250kb?! And, if you want bold, that’s another 250kb - yikes!
So what can you do to reduce your font’s eco-impact? And are there such things as eco-friendly fonts?
Alongside a trusted brand designer, you can consider:
Using fewer font variations
Limiting font-weight variations, i.e., bold, italic, underline etc.
Using standard system fonts (Arial, Courier and Times New Roman) in place of custom fonts
Value-based video only
It’s no secret that video has become one of the most popular and engaging content formats on the web today. However, with popularity comes a price.
Video is, by far, the most data-intensive form of content, and a website with high levels of video content can considerably impact energy consumption.
As with images, ask yourself if videos are really necessary for your website. If they are, see if you can reduce the amount of video by removing auto-play from videos and by keeping video content value-based, short and to the point. Remember, as with all content, the focus should be on quality over quantity.
Email with intention
Yes, even email isn’t without its eco-footprint!
According to Lancaster University studies, an email’s carbon footprint can vary dramatically, from 0.3g CO2e for a spam email to 4g (0.14oz) CO2e for a regular email and 50g (1.7oz) CO2e for those including a photo or attachment.
Looking to adopt a cleaner, greener inbox? You can consider the following:
Swapping data-heavy email attachments to lighter links within your email
Reducing the number of email recipients to only who’s needed (fewer emails = less energy)
Unsubscribing from mailing lists, you no longer open or read
Choosing a sustainable email provider powered by renewable energy
Content with consciousness
You may have guessed at this point that more content = a bigger carbon footprint.
And so, it matters (even more than ever before) to create content mindfully.
The days of churning out low-quality content are over.
Today, your customers expect more.
When it comes to the content on your website, your focus should always be on value. Assess each piece of content and ask yourself, does it provide value to my audience? If the answer is no, then it’s time to either ditch it entirely or replace it with high-quality content with a purpose.
Repurposing content is another way to reduce your digital carbon footprint. This could be revisiting and refreshing old blogs or asking a copywriter to review and re-energise existing copy.
Less data, less damage
It’s no secret that most businesses struggle with data overload – collecting more than they need or can manage.
To start, I recommend entirely overhauling your data policies to eliminate redundant or obsolete data. The goal is to create new guidelines that clearly define what data you need to collect, how much you’ll collect and how long you plan to store it. With this approach, you can reduce storage requirements and costs while reducing energy consumption, a win-win!
Note: It goes without saying that your data collection and storage processes should align with your local data protection laws. In Ireland, this means ensuring you are GDPR-compliant.
Key Takeaway
Digital sustainability is nothing to fear.
Businesses save money, reduce their environmental impact, and improve their reputation. And the environment wins, too, with a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions and an increase in energy conservation.
If you’re a small business owner wondering how you can play a part in reducing our collective digital footprint. Reviewing your website’s eco-footprint is an excellent way to start. A sustainably designed and built website isn’t just better for the planet; it can also contribute to a more accessible and enjoyable website experience for your users.
And that’s a win-win in my books.
Useful links:
Earthology Irish business supporting businesses on their sustainability journey
