Digital sustainability: Improving the web for people and the planet.
Last month I signed the Sustainable Web Manifesto, to declare my commitment to creating a sustainable internet. Sustainability has long been a topic I have been passionate about, but only recently have I started to consider the impact of my digital footprint on the planet.
Like any physical product, digital products and services also have an environmental impact.
Although we might have some awareness of the cost of our digital life in terms of bills for mobile data, electricity, and/or the cost of a physical device, we don’t often consider the energy expenditure of our everyday online interactions. The emails we send, photos we like, or videos we stream – all require large amounts of data that must be stored somewhere.
The data centres that power all this online activity require a tremendous amount of energy and resources to run. For example, a typical data centre can require up to 19 million litres of water per day! In addition, it’s now estimated the internet currently produces approximately 3.7% of global carbon emissions, which is more carbon emissions than the aviation industry!
This is a problem that is only going to grow – research shows energy used by data centres is doubling every four years – despite hardware innovations improving their capacity to store data.
The good news is that this is a problem we as digital professionals can actually help resolve! Designers, Developers and Product Owners can potentially have a significant impact by adopting some basic sustainable web practices. And even better – the benefits of web sustainability are not just for the environment, web sustainability also focuses on what is good for society by actively challenging exploitative, inaccessible, invasive and misinformative practices that have previously challenged societal wellbeing.
The Sustainable Web Manifesto covers 6 principles to shape a more planet and people-friendly web, which include; Clean, Efficient, Open, Honest, Regenerative and Resilliant.
In this post, I’m going to start by introducing the 3 pillars of a Sustainable Web; Clean, Efficient, and Open.
Principle 1. Clean
This pillar says ‘the services we provide and the services we use, will be powered by renewable energy’.
This means being purposeful and considerate of the energy sources we use to build and host our products and choosing a hosting service that uses 100% renewable energy.
Now realistically many of us may have little influence over decisions like who hosts our services at work, however, you can still arm yourself with knowledge about why this is important, and start open discussions within your business.
For personal projects, such as portfolios, most of us will likely have more autonomy. The Green Web Foundation have a useful directory tool to help you find a green hosting service.
What is the impact of designing ‘clean’ products?
MightBytes suggests just by using a web host that powers its servers with renewable energy, such as solar, wind, wave, and hydroelectricity, you can reduce your digital product or service’s environmental impact by approximately 15%! And when you consider there are nearly 4 billion web pages on the internet, small savings can quickly add up.
Principle 02. Efficient
The second pillar of the manifesto states ‘products and services we provide will use the least amount of energy and material resources possible’.
Here we are talking about the efficiency of our user journeys, content and code.
As powerful devices and speedy connections have become the norm, we have been able to pay less attention to these things, but small segregated decisions can add up;
A designer’s decision to add lots of photos, a few animations and a new typeface
A developer chooses to copy and paste a full library of code when only a small part is required
A product owner asks for social media widgets to be added to increase social engagement
And before you know it, every small decision that added a second or two has contributed to a web page that is heavier than it needs to be and slow to load.
Simple actions such as optimising media files, taking advantage of system fonts, and being more mindful of the plug-ins or third-party frameworks we use, can dramatically improve the efficiency, usability and inclusivity of our web experiences.
What is the impact of designing ‘efficient’ products?
Fast and responsive websites that are accessible across different devices and in different bandwidth areas, keep users engaged and have higher conversions. Users expect speedy experiences, with 40% of people abandoning a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.
Removing unnecessary content also has benefits in terms of the cognitive load of users; Tom Greenwood captures the essence well in his book; Sustainable Web Design;
‘We need to stop using FOMO as the guiding principle of web design and embrace the idea that in a world of information overload, our users will thank us for cutting out the clutter’
Principle 03. Open
Here the manifesto explains ‘The products and services we provide will be accessible, allow for the open exchange of information, and allow users to control their data’.
A step beyond environmental benefits and focus on the social advantages, this pillar highlights that exclusionary and inequitable access to information and poor data security can harm people’s health, well-being, and financial security. By leveraging Web Content Accessibility standards, Designers can ensure that people with physical, cognitive, or circumstantial disabilities, can still find and interact with digital content, using platforms, devices, browsers, and assistive technologies that work for them.
In addition, we can also ensure accessibility in terms of how we track and collect data from our users, ensuring we are supporting them to make informed decisions and asking for consent in a manner that is specific, explicit, and unambiguous.
What is the impact of designing ‘open’ products?
When we consider WHO estimates globally, 1.3 billion people experience significant disability, inaccessible design excludes a lot of users! By designing inclusively with accessibility best practices, we reach a wider audience, we also benefit from improved web speed, performance, and usability.
In a similar vein, more mindful user-tracking and data-collection practices can also improve efficiency. For example, research suggests the majority (two-thirds) of data collected about our users goes unutilised! That is a lot of waste! Considerate and purposeful content strategy that challenges the norm of pervasive ‘just in case’ data harvesting, can dramatically reduce your website emissions and uphold user’s privacy.
In this post, I’ve focused on the first three principles of the Sustainable Web Manifesto to introduce how embracing Clean, Efficient, and Open practices in our work can reduce the digital footprint of our products, and enhance user experience and accessibility.
Whilst the journey towards a sustainable web is not fundamentally difficult, it does require a mindful, responsible, and holistic approach, in all aspects of digital product creation.
As digital professionals, we have the power to drive intentional change. So let’s make informed choices, advocate for sustainable practices, and build better experiences that serve people and the planet.
In my next post, I will cover the remaining 3 pillars of web sustainability, and be discussing actionable steps in future posts.