The Benefits of Sustainable Website Design

Digital Emissions

I will admit, the first time I heard the term ‘sustainable web design’ I threw my eyes up to heaven. My ignorance led me to the assumption that this was just another phrase coined by some hipster designer who was jumping on the sustainability bandwagon! How wrong I was.

The internet and digital technology have an environmental impact that is comparable to that of the aviation industry, this makes the digital sector one of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions. The main culprit is electricity consumption which is estimated to account for approximately 7% of global energy use, with projections suggesting it could rise by over 60% by 2030.

How can a website be green?

Building a sustainable website involves minimising its environmental impact while enhancing its functionality, user experience and accessibility.

You’d be surprised how good design and development practices can make a difference to your website or apps associated carbon emissions. Sustainable design also can help provide a better user experience for a wider audience. This will not only save you money but help increase conversions and your bottom line.

Here are just some of the key sustainability principles and strategies to follow when designing and building a website or app:

Sustainable Design

Good design will save energy while providing a better user experience.

• Design for longevity: Avoid style trends by creating a timeless, scalable design to reduce the need for frequent redesigns and redevelopment.
• User Experience: Research-based UX will help users achieve their goals faster. Shorter user sessions mean lower energy consumption for both the user’s device and the servers processing requests, benefitting both the user and the environment.
• Accessibility: A universal design strategy that focuses on accessibility and simplicity will create an efficient, user-friendly experience that minimises energy resources.
• Dark Mode: Add the option of a dark mode to help reduce energy consumption on OLED screens.
• Mobile first: A mobile-first approach will help create efficient, lightweight sustainable websites that are optimised for mobile devices, consuming less data and energy.

Content Sustainability

Optimising content will help users get around your website more efficiently while using less energy for data transfer and processing.

• Minimise Content Bloat: Regularly audit and remove redundant or outdated content. A cleaner, more focused site means fewer resources are needed for data storage and faster user navigation.
• Text over Media: Where appropriate, use text instead of resource-heavy media such as videos or large images.
• Optimise media: For essential media, use formats that are more efficient in terms of quality-to-file-size ratio (e.g., SVG for vector graphics, WebP for images).
• SEO: Optimisation for SEO can not only improve your visibility in search engines but also make sure that only relevant traffic ends up on your website. If you sell sunglasses online, why waste energy and resources with users who are looking for yoga classes?

Optimising code for Energy Efficiency

Digital products consume energy through hosting servers that require power for operation and cooling, data transmission over networks and user devices that consume energy to access and display the website or software.

Using best practice and sustainable web development techniques will not only help save energy but provide better performance and user experience.

• Minimise Resources: Optimise code to ensure the website or software loads faster and consumes less energy. Headless websites and lightweight apps with fewer assets (images, videos, scripts) reduce the strain on servers and users’ devices.
• Lazy Loading: Implement lazy loading to ensure that images and media are only loaded when needed, reducing unnecessary data transfer.
• Efficient Coding: Use clean, minimal code without unnecessary libraries, plugins or 3rd party services, this will consume less server power and result in faster load times.
• Smaller File Sizes: Compress images, videos, and other media to reduce file sizes and, consequently, reduce data transfer.
• Caching: Use browser caching and content delivery networks (CDNs) to reduce the load on servers and minimise data transfer by serving content from a location closest to the user.
• Minimised HTTP Requests: Reducing the number of HTTP requests through strategies such as combining CSS and JavaScript files, as well as utilising sprites for images, can cut down on data usage.
• Avoid Excessive Animations: Overuse of animations, especially those rendered via JavaScript or CSS, increases processing load, using more energy.

Green Hosting

Many hosting services now prioritise sustainability by powering their data centres with wind, solar, or hydroelectric energy.

• Renewables: Choose hosting providers that run on renewable energy or offset their carbon emissions, preferably the former.
• Modern Hardware: Opt for servers that are energy-efficient utilising cutting-edge hardware (SSD Drives) and efficient processors
• Cloud: Use cloud solutions that dynamically scale resources based on traffic, avoiding wasteful energy consumption during off-peak times.

Combining these strategies and others can lead to overall energy savings of 50-80% depending on how aggressively optimisations are applied. For high-traffic websites, these savings can be significant over time, reducing not only energy consumption but also carbon emissions and costs associated with web hosting and user interactions.

If you would like to talk to us about how we can help you create a more sustainable and accessible website with higher conversions, get in touch.