We’ve often heard that going green includes saving the trees, and through office initiatives include printing only when necessary and reducing paper usage programs. However, do you know that there is also a carbon footprint associated with the internet usage? The internet is both part of the solution and part of the problem as well.
To reduce carbon emissions associated with air travel, online meetings are more convenient and a preferred alternative to gather people from different locations for a discussion. The internet though, consumes large amounts of electricity from websites to cryptocurrencies, as well as its peripherals of data centres, telecom networks and the devices that we use daily. Would you like to take a guess on how many people are using the internet worldwide? It’s more than 4.7 billion people and carbon emissions from this sector have increased tremendously over the past two decades.
Estimates indicate that digital carbon emissions, which are directly linked to internet usage, are roughly equal to the CO2 emissions produced by the entire aviation industry. With a growing population increasing internet users and mass digital adoption by companies, it is crucial to have digital solutions that can mitigate the impacts of further anticipated increase in carbon emissions.
What can you do to reduce your digital carbon footprint, you might ask. Take a look at some pointers below for a greener web based on principles by the Sustainable Web Manifesto:
1. Clean: Digital services provided and used will be powered by renewable energy.
What you can do:
- Power digital infrastructure with renewable energy, such as switching to a green web host. The Green Web Foundation provides a helpful green hosting directory
Don’t:
- Ignore the environmental impact of your hosting choices
- Use energy-intensive services or technologies that are not powered by renewable source
2. Efficient: Digital products and services will use the least amount of energy and material resources possible.
What you can do:
- Reduce web page size by avoiding unnecessary images, animations or videos and compressing the images
- Improve performance and responsiveness of web page. Periodically check and implement continuous improvements
- Streamline and simplify user experience. Create lightweight experience by default
- Maintain efficiency & content of web page. Showing only current & relevant content to users
Don’t:
- Overload your website with unnecessary plugins or heavy graphics that slow down loading times
- Use excessive data collection that requires more server resources
3. Open: Digital products and services will be accessible, allow for the open exchange of information, and allow users to control their data.
What you can do:
- Open source. Know and understand how open information exchanges can bring positive impacts
- Data privacy checklist. Respect data privacy and have ownership in all digital communications, including having a data privacy policy
Don’t:
- Exclude certain user groups in website designs based on ability, location, or technological access
- Restrict users’ ability to manage their own data or limit their access to information about how their data is used
4. Honest: Digital products and services will not mislead or exploit users in their design or content.
What you can do:
- Ethical marketing. Prioritize truthful marketing communications, including having an ethical marketing policy
- Social digital responsibility. Combat fake news, protect privacy, promote honesty, and effectively moderate contents in all communication channels
Don’t:
- Use manipulative design elements or contents that may mislead users
- Ignore user’s feedback on company practices or dismiss their comments regarding their experience on digital platforms
5. Regenerative: Digital products and services will support an economy that nourishes people and the planet.
What you can do:
- Promote sustainable choices. Ethically promote sustainable behaviours, including opportunities to reduce packaging and supporting low-emissions shipping for products
- Integrate positive impact features. Incorporate features that contribute to ecological restoration or positive social impacts, such as partnerships with organizations that plant trees, restore habitats or support marginalised communities for every purchase/transaction made through the digital platform
Don’t:
- Engage in practices that harm the environment or undermine sustainability efforts
- Mislead users with false claims about sustainability without genuine and substantiated action
6. Resilient: Digital products and services will function in the times and places where people need them most.
What you can do:
- Cybersecurity. Periodically review for sufficient protection of digital assets from any compromise or fraud
- Develop robust infrastructure. Utilize scalable hosting solutions that can handle traffic spikes without compromising performance and dynamically adjust resources based on demand
Don’t:
- Create overly complex systems that may fail under stress or during outages
- Overlook preventive routine stress testing and maintenance checks that identify potential weaknesses in the system
Above are just some pointers to guide you to take action today. You can share these with your team and roll out a plan of implementation or for those with fewer resources, you can always just start with what’s viable and work your way along.
As the Malay saying goes “Sikit sikit, lama lama jadi bukit” (literal translation: Little by little, it will become a hill), so do our small actions add up in contribution to a more sustainable society. A little a day adds up a long way, why not get started today!
This Article was written by,
Dorea Kuek, Sustainability Officer
Sources:
Charlotte Freitag, Mike Berners-Lee, Kelly Widdicks, Bran Knowles, Gordon S. Blair, Adrian Friday, The real climate and transformative impact of ICT: A critique of estimates, trends, and regulations, Patterns, Volume 2, Issue 9, 2021, 100340, ISSN 2666-3899, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2021.100340.
Sustainable Web Manifesto. (2023, February 16). Sustainable Web Manifesto. https://www.sustainablewebmanifesto.com/
Greenie web. (n.d.). https://www.greenieweb.co/
Frick, T. (2024, September 6). Digital Sustainability: How to get started today. Mightybytes. https://www.mightybytes.com/blog/digital-sustainability/
Home – Sustainable Web design. (2024, January 19). Sustainable Web Design. https://sustainablewebdesign.org/
