Overview
Nearly everyone has their own or uses a website. But are these green websites? In this episode we delve into the world of internet and websites, discuss a little of what makes the internet function (and consume so much energy) before finally diving into individual websites.
Sit back, listen and learn with us and don’t forget to let us know if you have any facts you think we should discuss.
Take away actions
-
- Switch to a green web host
- Do they talk about sustainability, renewable energy, offsetting?
- Make your site more efficient
- Optimise and reduce images/videos – could you use text instead?
- Use standard fonts – don’t download additional
- Nice clean code – remove features and functions you don’t need
- Use AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) – strips out unnecessary content
- Use caching so users don’t need to download everything every time
- Be clear and transparent with internal and external users about the impact
- Switch to a green web host
Timings
02:00 – Why the internet uses so much energy – even though you can’t see it
08:50 – Impact of email, messaging and streaming
13:20 – What impact does your content have?
17:20 – Suggested actions to improve the impact of your website
Email Carbon
0.3g CO2e: A spam email
4g CO2e: A proper email
50g CO2e: An email with long attachment
Fact Bucket
- If the internet was a country, it would rank sixth for electricity usage
- The emissions generated by watching 30 minutes of Netflix (1.6 kg of CO2) is the same as driving almost four miles
- The communications industry could use 20% of all the world’s electricity by 2025
- Single Youtube video burns energy equal to 40,000 homes
- The carbon footprint of our gadgets, the internet and the systems supporting them account for about 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions
- If every adult in the UK sent one less “thank you” email, it could save 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year – the equivalent to taking 3,334 diesel cars off the road
- A single Google search could power a low-energy light bulb for an hour
Useful Info
Send us your fact or fake news, both good and bad! We’re @greenelepod on social
Some useful links about green websites from today’s episode:
- https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/choose-a-green-web-host/
- https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/website-energy-efficiency/
- https://sustainablewebdesign.org/
Acknowledgements
Special thanks as always to Harriet Teagle for her Green Elephant artwork.
