Most of us make an effort to reduce our carbon footprint. At home, personally, we have an electric car, solar panels, we recycle and we monitor our home electricity usage. As a lifestyle choice we are vegan. We feel all of this is makes a difference, not just because we are doing it but because collectively, for all the households like us who do it that figure adds up.
The same can be said for the IT industry. Data Centres are the largest users of energy and are making huge efforts to decrease their usage levels and where they can’t, they are switching to renewables. In order to really reduce this figure that effort really needs to happen all the way down the chain, not just at the top.
As a web developer I feel strongly that we are responsible for our little portion of the internet. Around 6 years ago I made the decision to switch website host and move to a host who used renewable energy. At the time that felt like it was enough.
In 2022 I became very aware of the load speed of websites and the effect that has on energy consumption. For that reason I moved away from the typical page builders in the WordPress community that are used and moved to a new WordPress theme who were sure they were going to be the fasted product on the market.
Last year I committed to building all of my websites in such a way that they reduced the carbon footprint of my website builds but that they also gave the best product to my clients. Fast websites do much better in Google than slow sites. They are better for the user experience and as a result they are good for your SEO.
I am really pleased that my own website is running on green hosting and loads so quickly that my website scored an A+ on a carbon test. This is cleaner than 91% of all web pages globally.
Bulky slow page builders can speed up development time or make it easy for anyone to become a web designer. I’m proud that I’m thinking differently. I want my clients to have beautiful websites but I don’t want to sacrifice my values. My aim is to give every client an A+ website, not a bog standard C!
If you feel your company needs to review your website as part of your sustainability / green policy I’m happy to test your website and recommend what we can do to improve your carbon footprint. Send me a message to arrange a free discovery call.
Lorraine Cheney
Founder Navitas Design