With the threat of climate change growing larger each day, individuals and businesses alike are needed to take action and lessen their impact on the environment.
One area which may not be so obvious when it comes to its impact on the environment is our digital activity. Every online interaction leaves a carbon footprint. In fact, the average person contributes around 968 grams of CO2 every single day just by scrolling. Multiply that by 1.13 billion websites that make up the world wide web, and the environmental impact becomes huge.
But for businesses today, when social media pages, branding, and an engaging website are more important than ever, how can you reduce your digital footprint and create a truly sustainable online presence, in every sense of the term? In the following guide domain and hosting experts Fasthosts, offer practical steps for businesses big and small, to go green online.
Energy efficiency
The foundation of a sustainable website begins with how it is being powered. All websites start from hosting websites, and before that from data centres. The data centres require huge amounts of energy to operate. Fortunately the rise of data-centres powered by green energy has made it easier for businesses to choose an eco-friendly hosting provider.
Eco-friendly hosting providers that source their energy from green sources will mean reduced emissions, and improved reliability and performance. Moving to a green hosting provider will be one of the most effective ways to reduce your website’s carbon footprint.
Digital minimalism
When it comes to the layout and design of your website, keep the term digital minimalism in mind. Avoid clutter, and busy pages, which will consume unnecessary energy. To do this, you can archive or delete outdated content to reduce storage requirements, not only streamlining digital assets to enhance performance, but also improving your on-page SEO.
Green technology choices
When building your website, it can be overwhelming trying to decide which tools and platforms to use. One key way to narrow down your options is to opt for those that are green certified, or built with sustainability in mind. To go one step further, you can engage tools that monitor and help reduce your website’s carbon footprint.
Website optimisation
Every time a website’s page is visited, energy is used to process the request. So optimising your website can make it greener. Faster loading websites use less energy, minimising the strain on servers and data centres, and will improve your SEO ranking. To optimise your website you can compress any images without reducing the quality, clean up unnecessary code and deactivate unused plugins, and avoid clutter and eliminate redundant features that could be slowing your website down.
Content Delivery Networks
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are a smart solution to websites with a global audience. CDNs are globally distributed servers that allow users to access the content from the server located closest to them. This reduces latency and load times, and makes web performance faster for its visitors. Because of this, CDNs are not only great for improving user experience, but also reducing energy use leading to lower carbon emissions.
Sustainable AI practices
While artificial intelligence can be a powerful tool for sustainability, it too has an energy cost. By using smaller, optimised AI models, and implementing AI such as chatbots, recommendation engines, or content analysis tools, only where they add value to your website, will ensure energy isn’t wasted on unnecessary tasks.
Scalable architecture
Having a scalable website, allows you to add features and can handle increased traffic without the need for a full redesign. When you can break down growth into smaller steps, this reduces the need for frequent overhauls, meaning that less hardware, and development resources are needed, minimisng e-waste.
Modular code
Similar to having a scalable website, writing modular, reusable, code that can be updated easily will not only extend your website’s lifecycle, it will also reduce digital waste too. Reusable and modular code reduces redundancy, lowering the computer power needed to maintain and update websites. This, in turn, decreases energy usage, reducing the carbon footprint.
Regular maintenance
Lastly, perform routine updates to software, plugins, and security features to keep your site running efficiently and securely. Well maintained websites require less server power, and by regularly and proactively fixing issues on your website, you can prevent major failures that would otherwise require significant energy and resources to resolve.