According to the Sustainable Web Manifesto, a public declaration of a shared commitment to create a sustainable internet, if the internet were a country, it would be the fourth largest polluter in the world, behind China, India, and the USA, and its impact is expected to grow significantly by 2030.
We all share and use the internet, just as we all share and live on this planet. The internet consumes large amounts of electricity; in data centers, telecommunications networks, and end-user devices. The number of internet users in the world grows by 1.8% and reaches 5.350 billion (2024).
Where is the greatest environmental impact?
The internet is active 24 hours a day and, therefore, many data centers scattered around the planet are consuming energy, energy produced by diesel generators, meaning that the internet runs on fossil fuel and is polluting the environment more than an entire country.
How can we reduce our energy consumption?
As web designers, we want to join in and participate in responsible and sustainable web design. We cannot change the internet system, but we can make sustainable use and contribute our bit to the sustainability of the planet.
The first action is to be aware of the energy consumption generated by our own websites, applications, etc. Just by switching from a hosting server that uses fossil energies to one that uses renewable energies, we can reduce almost 50% of the carbon emissions we generate.
For example, large multinationals like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are already aware of this necessary change and are indeed already implementing this initiative for 2030, including the use of solar panels.
Currently, there are free tools that allow us to verify such consumption, like Websitecarbon.com, a website that provides an estimated figure of the energy consumption of your site when you enter your web address, i.e., the amount of carbon it emits.
Creating a Sustainable and Greener website is, in fact, creating an efficient website. As Tom Greenwood, a pioneer in sustainable web design, says: “Sustainable web design is about creating digital products whose main objective is to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption.”
As web designers, there are two areas where we really have some control.
- Where we host your website. Choose one that uses renewable energy supply to the data centers. At Thegreenwebfoundation.org you can check if your website is using a renewable energy hoster.
- On the other hand, and more importantly, we can create a more efficient design and development process. Essentially, it’s about improving efficiency in all aspects and using less data, which means computers do less work and consume less energy. Performance and efficiency = Sustainability
This is where we are placing our focus and applying it to all our web designs.
How to move toward a more sustainable and efficient design?
- More efficiency technology (software)
- Make files smaller
- Designing things and considering what things are really necessary on our website, like images, videos, fonts, gifs…
Benefits:
Making things technically more efficient therefore entails less use of energy and thus the web gets faster. It will be accessible to everyone, even for people who have a slower internet. And therefore you will ensure a good user experience (UX), nobody wants to be waiting for the web page to load.
At MS Nordic, we combine the clean minimalism and ‘less is more’ philosophy of Scandinavian design to help you create not only an amazing and stylish web design but also one that is sustainable for the environment.
msnordic.com hosted by a renewable energy supply!
Which we are very proud of!
