Go green with your digital carbon footprint

SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS:

GO GREEN WITH YOUR DIGITAL CARBON FOOTPRINT

Are your digital habits sustainable?

As our lives become increasingly dominated by technology, it’s all too easy to think that the invisible data floating in the cloud powering an endless stream of services has little to no impact on the environment.

But in fact, the opposite is true. When adding up the impact of the internet, the massive infrastructure used to power it, the devices we use to access it, and the data required to support the services we use, our digital carbon footprint places all too high a toll on the planet’s resources.

DID YOU KNOW: digital CO2 emissions are estimated to be 3.7% of the global emissions total, comparable to the global aviation industry. Around the globe, day to day living is empowered by data. From our business activities to home entertainment and leisure activities they all, somewhat blindly, have an impact on the environment. Data centres across the globe enable our digital activity. Data centres consume vast amounts of electricity to power the thousands of computers they contain and a substantial amount of water in their cooling processes. Did you know: a typical data centre uses 3-5 million gallons of water per day - the same as a city of 30,000-50,000 people. The good news is that there are ways to limit the carbon emissions produced by our digital activities. A 2019 study found that 64 billion unnecessary emails are sent every day in the UK. The study found that cutting out just one email per person per day could save 16 tonnes of carbon emissions, saving 2,750 trees processing unnecessary pollution. Finding ways to limit email use can reduce your digital carbon footprint, so by not routinely hitting ‘reply all’ or sending a thank you email you’re not being rude, you’re helping to save the planet! Did you know: every email sent has an estimated carbon footprint of 4g CO2, rising to 50g with large attachments. With some simple tweaks, it’s also possible to reduce your website’s carbon footprint. Many of these, such as ensuring your website is optimised for mobile viewing, are also recommended for improving customer experience, meaning businesses don’t have to choose between success and sustainability. Did you know: just one page view on an average website produces the equivalent of 1.76g of carbon. On a site gaining 10,000 monthly page views, that’s an annual total of 211kg – as much as 10 trees can absorb in one year. Top tips to reduce your website’s carbon footprint: Choose greener website hosting Green website hosts use renewable energy to power their servers and data centres, significantly reducing carbon emissions. Enter your URL at www.websitecarbon.com to check if you currently receive green hosting, and if not, check your green hosting options at www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/directory. Help your customers find what they need The more time your customers have to spend searching your website for the information they need, the more likely it is that they’ll leave – and the more carbon their activities will emit in the meantime. Help your website visitors find what they’re looking for with effective search engine optimisation (SEO) and clear navigational menus. Reduce the data demand of website images Images use more data than text, so consider carefully how you use them on your site. Using graphic design elements such as Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG files) can be more efficient than using photos, but where photos are needed to add value for your readers, use WEBP, a modern file format that can reduce image size by as much as 30%. If your site doesn’t yet support that format, try to use a JPEG, PNG or GIF. You can also keep image files as small as possible without losing quality with compression tools such as ImageOptim, Tiny PNG or ShortPixel. Ensure efficient use of video Auto-playing videos wastes data, particularly when visitors may have tabs open in the background and not even see it play. If you choose to use video on your site, disable autoplay and use embedded media players like YouTube. YouTube are actively committed to a sustainable future and are working towards net zero operations. Streamline your text Using custom fonts or multiple styles such as bold, underlined and italic text requires more data to be processed to show your website content to users, and therefore emits more carbon. Try to keep different font styles to a minimum.