By Janus Boye
Hannah is the Operations and Training Manager for the Green Web Foundation
If you think that going green on your website is just something for the few, you are not the only one. Still, while it might be a relatively new requirement for many, and we still have a long way to go, there’s change afoot.
According to UK-based Hannah Smith, who works as Operations and Training Manager for the Green Web Foundation, customers increasingly care about environmentally sustainable digital leadership and it’s no longer just a novelty to think about the green web.
In the UK, Hannah is seeing large and complex organisations integrating sustainability into their procurement for digital services. Joining us in a recent member call, Hannah shared case studies and examples on how her team is accelerating the transition to a fossil-free internet.
Below are my notes from the call and towards the end, you can also find the slides, additional links and even the entire recording from the call.
The internet is the world’s largest coal-powered machine
Hannah opened by setting the stage and explaining what it means to The Green Web Foundation, when they talk about a fossil-free internet. Many people actually still think digital has no impact and that mindset needs to change.
In brief: Emissions arise from creating the energy needed to manufacture and use digital devices and infrastructure.
Hannah Smith quoted Helen Keller to make the point that we can all make a difference when it comes to greening the Web. This 1920 image is from the Los Angeles Times.
As Hannah shared, to The Green Web Foundation it is not just about a decarbonised internet, it’s also about a social foundation that respect and empower the rights of all humans to thrive.
Before getting to the case studies, Hannah weaved in an inspirational quote by American author, activist and disability rights advocate Helen Keller (1880 - 1968) who famously became the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree:
“The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”
In this context, you might be thinking that your efforts fade in comparison with the likes of the tech giants like Google, Netflix, Microsoft or Amazon, but as Hannah said:
“If we are all working together and finding ways to make a small impact, we can actually make a big difference”
Case studies: Who’s out there working towards fossil-free?
The first example that Hannah shared is the popular tools by The Green Web Foundation, notably:
Green Hosting Directory, where you can find a green hosting provider. This currently has 2k monthly uses
Green Web Check, where you can check the hosting of any website URL. The automatic version used by apps has 3.5m daily uses, while the manual checker has some 9k monthly uses
The cover of Issue 3 of the branch magazine
If you are looking for an online magazine written by and for people who dream of a sustainable and just internet, then check out branch. Initially published in Autumn 2020, the publishers see the magazine as a space for personal reflection, critical engagement with technology and internet economics, as well as experimentation and storytelling.
Interestingly, the magazine serves different content depending on the renewables on grid. In other words: This site changes its design based on the quantity of fossil fuels on the grid to stay inside a carbon budget at all times. As an example, when the grid demand is high and less renewables are being used, they reverse the way media content is shown by emphasising the alt text instead. Read more about their Sustainable Interaction Design Principles.
Staying in tech, there’s also the Low-Tech magazine, which underscores the potential of past and often forgotten technologies and how they can inform sustainable energy practices. They went so far and created a solar powered version of Low-Tech magazine, which has been designed to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing their content. The solar powered site runs on a solar powered server located in Barcelona, and goes off-line during longer periods of bad weather.
Moving outside the sustainable internet circles, Hannah also mentioned the frequently used example from the fashion industry with Organic Basics, a Danish brand that produces eco-friendly underwear, activewear and essentials. They’ve created a Low Impact Website as an e-commerce experience, which reduces data transfer by up to 70% in comparison to their regular website.
Thinking about the big need to educate on this topic, Hannah also shared an example from the European University Institute, which saved 4.6t of CO2 through website content redesign and simplification. The biggest area of work: images. Read more in the EUI Website audit and report (PDF) which Hannah co-authored.
In UK government, they’ve developed an ICT energy and carbon footprinting tool, which enables departments to estimate their operational energy consumption for their ICT.
Next step: Building it into procurement
One way for change to happen, specifically for the move towards a fossil-free Internet, is for organisations to start to build it into their procurement processes when they buy services or software.
Similar to how it has become the norm to require accessibility compliance, also pushed by legislation, we need customers to start making a ‘Digital Service Carbon Assessment’ before they sign a contract. Look at both the technical aspects, like hosting, storage, engineering, but remember that many big decisions which impact the environment are actually made earlier in the design phase.
As organisations have told Hannah that they are making steps to build this into procurement, unfortunately she doesn’t have publicly available examples to share yet.
Learn more about the move towards a fossil-free internet
Since our member call with James Cannings on building websites for environmental sustainability in August 2021, we’ve been focused more on sustainability. It was also a big topic at the Boye Aarhus 22 conference in Aarhus, which featured the story of herning.dk, Denmark's first carbon-friendly municipal website (slides, PPT).
Danny Mastrup and Tobias N. Pedersen from the municipality of Herning redesigned their website, so that it’s now up to the user, whether the visit should take place with a climate-friendly display or not, which makes is possible for the citizen to save 30-70% of the data during a visit. Photo: Ib Sørensen from the Boye Aarhus 22 conference.
At the conference, there was also a keynote by Thorsten Jonas, founder of The Sustainable UX Playbook titled: How UX can save the world (slides, PDF). As shown on the slide below, he carried a somewhat similar message to Helen Keller.
Hannah has also written a helpful how-to guide if you want to improve your own web estate: How we improved our Website Carbon Calculator score from 59% to 84%.
During the call, we were also joined by Tim Frick, who shared a link to the UN digital for sustainability learning path. Tim is one of the developers of Ecograder, a popular service that tests how green your website is.
The work of Gerry McGovern also came up. He hosted a member call earlier this year titled: Waste is the business case of big tech.
Thinking about what to do? Join digital cleanup day on March 18 - an opportunity to take out your digital trash and save the environment.
Finally, you also download the slides (PDF) or lean back and enjoy the entire recording