Eco
Five Ways to Lower Your Site’s Carbon Footprint
14 September 2022
Many of us are concerned about the planet and how we affect the environment of the one beautiful planet we call home. Each of our actions has a direct or indirect effect on the environment, including our websites.
Each website requires electricity to run, which produces carbon emissions. Many people don’t realise how their online time has such an impact on nature! Consider that some believe if the Internet were a country, it would be the world’s seventh-largest polluter. Who would have thought that the Internet’s carbon footprint was that big?
Reducing the Internet’s carbon footprint starts with the websites we build and use. The key is to find ways to reduce the amount of electricity our sites require.
We’ve put together some methods you can implement to lower your site’s carbon emissions in this article. But first, let’s take a look at how you can measure your site’s emissions!
How to Measure Your Website’s Carbon Footprint
There’s a handy tool called the Website Carbon Calculator that can measure your site’s carbon footprint. The tool is very easy to use. Just type in the URL of the site, and the tool gets to work calculating your site’s carbon emissions.
The Website Carbon Calculator will show you different measurements, which include:
You’ll also find links to information on how to lower your site’s carbon footprint.
1) Reduce Energy Consumption
The very first place to start reducing your site’s carbon footprint is by reducing its energy consumption. The carbon produced by the Internet is created by the devices we use to go online and the servers that host the sites’ data.
All of this is run on computers, which generate heat. Servers are computers and are very sensitive to becoming too hot. When they do overheat, they tend to slow down. Energy is needed to keep the servers cooled down and working efficiently. So, how can you reduce your site’s energy usage? Let’s take a look.
Make it faster: sites that use fewer amounts of data simply put out less carbon. So, make sure the site’s web pages load fast.
Reduce the number of resources used: reduce the number of files requested to reduce emissions.
Optimise images: reducing the size of the site’s images can also help lower its carbon footprint. You can use a free tool such as TinyPNG to reduce the size of your images without sacrificing image quality.
Lazy load images: this is another way to reduce the amount of energy your site requires. Lazy loading means the means are only loaded when required. For example, images at the top of the page load; however, the images further down the page only load when a site visitor scrolls down to them. If the user does not scroll down, then the image doesn’t load, which improves your site’s emissions.
Reduce JavaScript: unfortunately, JavaScript tends to use a large amount of energy. For instance, with a parallax site, the JavaScript page keeps redrawing the screen. The page keeps using energy on the device, which increases the amount of energy required.
Choose a sustainable hosting company: another way to reduce the energy your site uses is to choose a hosting company that uses energy from sustainable sources, such as wind or solar.
2) Design to be Inclusive
What do we mean by this? Here, we are encouraging designers to be inclusive about the types of devices their sites support. Many individuals are caught up with the excitement of a new device. But what happens to the old device? It may sit on the shelf, be recycled, or even thrown away. Devices thrown into the landfill carry harmful metals and chemicals that can damage the environment.
So, why not consider creating a site that supports legacy devices? Keeping a device for an extra six months can cut the environmental cost of the device by as much as 20%. For this reason, ensure your site supports legacy devices, which helps to reduce electronic waste.
3) Use SEO
Not many people can see what SEO has to do with lowering a site’s carbon footprint. But there’s a huge tie-in. When a site is optimised, site users are able to find the site quickly and then find the information they want on the site easily and fast.
Do you see what we mean? The less time a person spends on the site, the less energy is used. Plus, the energy used is optimised to provide a great user experience.
4) User Experience (UX)
While we’re speaking about user experience, there are ways to improve the UX on a site and lower its carbon footprint at the same time. Again, it comes down to making the site easy to navigate. Site visitors can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily, which means fewer minutes on the site. The result is a lower amount of energy consumed by the site for each visitor.
Energy is wasted when site visitors have a difficult time navigating the site’s pages and trying to figure out what they need to do next.
Improve your site’s UX, and you’ll lower the site’s carbon emissions.
5) Choose Fonts Carefully
Here’s another issue that not many realise can affect a site’s energy usage. Font files can be rather large at times, requiring more energy to serve the page. To reduce the environmental impact of the site:
Summing It Up
When looking for ways to lower your website’s carbon footprint, be sure to go with the fundamentals of web design. When followed, these fundamentals can help reduce the site’s emissions by quite a bit.
Be sure your site is fast and easy to use. Remember to make the site inclusive for legacy devices, and you will have a great site. What’s more, your site will present visitors with an excellent experience and help the environment at the same time.
WEB DEVELOPMENT
12 March 2024
Google Consent Mode – March 2024
WEB DEVELOPMENT
20 July 2023
Honey Monster
WEB DEVELOPMENT
17 July 2023
Transforming Luxury Automotive Conversions Online: Apache Automotive Website Launch
WEB DEVELOPMENT
8 March 2023
Happy International Women’s day – Ada Lovelace
WEB DEVELOPMENT
20 January 2023
Pragmatic Web Development Training
WEB DEVELOPMENT
16 January 2023
How a simple idea of automating a simple task changed the course of my life forever.
WEB DEVELOPMENT
30 September 2022
Sustainable Web Design: How to Reduce Your Site’s Carbon Footprint
WEB DEVELOPMENT
28 September 2022
The Best Browsers for Web Developers
WEB DEVELOPMENT
26 September 2022
The Best Craft CMS Plugins for Your Site
WEB DEVELOPMENT
23 September 2022
6 Free Websites to Learn Coding
WEB DEVELOPMENT
21 September 2022
Elements That Help Landing Pages Convert
WEB DEVELOPMENT
19 September 2022
Simple Ways to Improve Your Website’s CX
WEB DEVELOPMENT
16 September 2022
How to Integrate AI Into Your Toolset
WEB DEVELOPMENT
12 September 2022
How to Improve PageSpeed Insights Score & SEO
WEB DEVELOPMENT
9 September 2022
How to Tell When Your Website Needs a Redesign
WEB DEVELOPMENT
7 September 2022
How to Use Modern Image Formats – AVIF & WebP
WEB DEVELOPMENT
5 September 2022
Skills to Look for in a Web Developer
WEB DEVELOPMENT
2 September 2022
9 Signs It’s Time for a New Website
WEB DEVELOPMENT
31 August 2022
Tips for Choosing the Best Website Hosting Provider
WEB DEVELOPMENT
29 August 2022
9 Common Misconceptions About WordPress
WEB DEVELOPMENT
26 August 2022
Maintaining a Large Application
WEB DEVELOPMENT
24 August 2022
What to Look for When Hiring for Digital Accessibility Roles
WEB DEVELOPMENT
22 August 2022
Programming Languages for Mobile Apps
WEB DEVELOPMENT
19 August 2022
Why Laravel is One of the Best PHP Frameworks
WEB DEVELOPMENT
17 August 2022
Why You Should Choose React Native
WEB DEVELOPMENT
15 August 2022
The Advantages of Symfony Framework
WEB DEVELOPMENT
12 August 2022
What You Need to Know about Headless CMS
WEB DEVELOPMENT
10 August 2022
The Differences Between WooCommerce and Magento
WEB DEVELOPMENT
8 August 2022
Free Things You Need to Do After Launching an Ecommerce Website
WEB DEVELOPMENT
5 August 2022
What is Elasticsearch?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
3 August 2022
Mapping User Journeys
WEB DEVELOPMENT
1 August 2022
Performing a Website Migration
WEB DEVELOPMENT
29 July 2022
The Psychology of Web Design & Influencing Consumer Choices
WEB DEVELOPMENT
27 July 2022
The Ultimate Guide to WebGL
WEB DEVELOPMENT
25 July 2022
How SSL Can Protect Your eCommerce Transactions
WEB DEVELOPMENT
22 July 2022
Benefits of Making a Website a PWA
WEB DEVELOPMENT
20 July 2022
Ways to Use AI in Your eCommerce Business
WEB DEVELOPMENT
18 July 2022
DevOps: Important for Mobile Application Development
WEB DEVELOPMENT
15 July 2022
CRO Techniques that Will Boost Your ROI
WEB DEVELOPMENT
13 July 2022
Trends in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in 2022
WEB DEVELOPMENT
25 May 2022
From Kitchens to QA – My Experience Moving from the Hospitality Industry into the Tech Sector
WEB DEVELOPMENT
18 May 2021
Magento – Is It Still Worth It?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
18 May 2021
5 of The Most Common WordPress Errors
WEB DEVELOPMENT
14 May 2021
Top reasons to use Magento 2 for Ecommerce Development
WEB DEVELOPMENT
14 May 2021
10 Benefits Of Outsourcing Software Development Services
WEB DEVELOPMENT
14 May 2021
WordPress for Enterprise – Is it Good Enough?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
11 May 2021
What’s the Difference Between a Web Developer & a Web Designer?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
7 May 2021
Signs Your Web Hosting is Causing Your Site Problems
WEB DEVELOPMENT
11 March 2021
Choosing Between Magento & Shopify – Which is Right for Your Business?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
20 January 2021
What is Agile Software Development?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
4 January 2021
5 Advantages of Continuous Integration
WEB DEVELOPMENT
4 January 2021
What is Continuous Development?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
4 January 2021
AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud. What is the Best Cloud Platform for Enterprise?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
27 November 2020
What You Need to Know about the .NET Framework
WEB DEVELOPMENT
27 November 2020
What is CRO?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
27 November 2020
What is React Native?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
27 November 2020
PHP vs .NET – How to choose the right one.
WEB DEVELOPMENT
12 November 2020
Which is Best for Your Site: Umbraco or WordPress?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
12 November 2020
10 Top Reasons to Choose OpenCart
WEB DEVELOPMENT
12 November 2020
Top Reasons to Use React.JS
WEB DEVELOPMENT
12 November 2020
Is Magento or OpenCart the Right eCommerce Platform for Your Business?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
18 July 2020
Why Hire a White Label Web Development Agency?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
16 March 2020
Why Magento Should Be Upgraded to Magento 2
WEB DEVELOPMENT
5 March 2020
LMS Security Features That Should Be Demanded
WEB DEVELOPMENT
31 January 2020
7 Ways Business Websites Go Wrong
WEB DEVELOPMENT
31 January 2020
8 Things to Never Skip in Website Design
WEB DEVELOPMENT
31 January 2020
5 Ways to Make Websites Accessible
WEB DEVELOPMENT
22 January 2020
Java or Kotlin: Which Should You Choose?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
19 January 2020
Sitecore SEO: Our Evaluation of this Enterprise Platform
WEB DEVELOPMENT
19 January 2020
Optimising Your WordPress Website’s Performance
WEB DEVELOPMENT
19 January 2020
Should You Make Your WordPress Website Multilingual?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
5 January 2020
Reasons Why Your SME Needs a Customer App
WEB DEVELOPMENT
5 January 2020
The Right Direction of Mobile UX
WEB DEVELOPMENT
5 January 2020
Protecting Your WordPress Website Against Ransomware
WEB DEVELOPMENT
5 January 2020
Key Features of Umbraco 8
WEB DEVELOPMENT
18 December 2019
Why WordPress is the Best CMS for Your Enterprise Website
WEB DEVELOPMENT
18 December 2019
The Benefits of a WordPress Support Retainer
WEB DEVELOPMENT
18 December 2019
DigitalOcean – A Worthy Competitor to AWS?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
23 September 2019
CMS or Frameworks?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
23 September 2019
Should You Use WordPress or Magento for Your Next eCommerce Project?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
23 September 2019
10 Unbeatable SEO Tips for WooCommerce
WEB DEVELOPMENT
23 September 2019
Responsive Website Design Tips and Guidelines
WEB DEVELOPMENT
23 September 2019
Best PHP Frameworks for Web Development
WEB DEVELOPMENT
31 August 2019
15 Questions to Ask a Web Designer
WEB DEVELOPMENT
31 August 2019
10 Common Misconceptions About WordPress
WEB DEVELOPMENT
31 August 2019
How to Choose the Right Agency for a Web Design Project
WEB DEVELOPMENT
31 August 2019
How to Choose the Right Agency for App Development
WEB DEVELOPMENT
31 August 2019
Why Choose WordPress for Your Next Website?
WEB DEVELOPMENT
1 July 2019
Why You Need A Well Designed Website For Your Business
WEB DEVELOPMENT
1 July 2019
Why you need to backup your website
WEB DEVELOPMENT
29 June 2019
How to Hire PHP Web Developers
WEB DEVELOPMENT
28 June 2019
5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Should Outsource Their Web Design And Development Services
WEB DEVELOPMENT
11 March 2019
What You Should Consider Before Hiring a Web Development Agency