Sustainability 🌍

The things we eat, the items we buy, how we choose to get around, and the services we use all have a social and environmental impact. Making sustainable choices now will shape a better future for those that follow.

The way we build websites should also be sustainable. Each web page we publish requires a certain amount of energy to serve, and this energy has a carbon footprint associated with it. ‘Heavy’ pages served from fossil fuel-powered data centres produce more CO₂, whereas ‘light’ pages served from data centres powered by renewable energy produce much less CO₂.

For small websites such as this, the impact of these carbon emissions is negligible. But for large websites that receive millions of hits every day the numbers are significant; a web page with a carbon footprint of just 0.16g per view and 10 million monthly visitors would produce the equivalent of 19,408.59kg of CO₂, about as much CO₂ as boiling water for 2,629,890 cups of tea. [Source]

Therefore in accordance with the Sustainable Web Manifesto I pledge to do the following:

• Ensure the services I provide and use will be powered by renewable energy
• Ensure the products and services I provide will use the least amount of energy and material resources possible
• Ensure the products and services I provide will be accessible, allow for the open exchange of information, and allow users to control their data
• Ensure the products and services I provide will not mislead or exploit users in their design or content
• Ensure the products and services I provide will support an economy that nourishes people and planet
• Ensure the products and services I provide will function in the times and places where people need them most

If you want to discuss website sustainability or share your ideas then please get in touch