Sustainable Web Design

Have you thought about the carbon footprint of your website?

Sustainability is one of No Lesser Panda’s key values. Did you know that if the internet was a country it would be ranked as the world’s sixth largest emitter of carbon dioxide? A study by Boston Consulting Group has estimated that internet is responsible for approximately a billion tons of CO2 per year, that puts it between Japan and Germany on the global list and puts it CO2 emmissions at nearly double that of the aviation industry. Not only that but emmisions associated with the internet are expected to grow in coming years by as much as 60%.

So what can you do help? There are some useful steps that you can take to reduce the carbon footprint of your website and online business; and if reducing your carbon footprint is not incentive enough then the good news is that many of these steps will help boost your internet search rankings!

Need help with any of the terminology in these articles? Check out the Website Terminology page for definitions of many key terms.

Optimising Your Website

Precise figures are difficult to calculate but it has been estimated that an email with a 1MB attachment can generate up to 19g of CO2, that’s the equivalent of making 3 cups of tea! The same amount of data sent over mobile networks produces even more CO2, so in terms of reducing your carbon footprint it is essential that your website is optimised.

The good news is that optimised websites are better for your customers, better for your search rankings and better for the environment! Modern web design techniques help choose the size of images sent to website visitors so that they will still get clear, high quality images but without having to download enormous files, this makes page load time faster. This simultaneously reduces bounce rates and the carbon footprint of your website.

Other opportunities for reducing the carbon footprint of your website is responsive design and efficient use of the cache system. No Lesser Panda includes all of these features in new build website as standard, but they can also be implemented on existing websites as well without causing service disruption!

Another great step could be changing your web hosting provider, several companies now offer web hosting that is either carbon offset or is guaranteed to be completely powered by renewable energy.

Finally go easy on the email attachments, always make sure to optimise any documents or images that you attach to emails before you send them and consider if it is really necessary to hit that “Reply All” button. For more email tips check out this article on reducing the carbon footprint of your emails.

Sustainability Tools

Ever wondered what the carbon footprint of your online conference calls is? Would an in person meeting make more sense than a conference call? You can use this calculator from No Lesser Panda to see how much carbon your call outputs and compare it to the distance travelled in a car.

Check out the Conference Call Carbon Calculator.

How can No Lesser Panda help?

If you are thinking about getting a new website built or you would like a review of your existing website then why not get in touch to find out how No Lesser Panda can help you make the greenest possible choice. You can drop me a message via the contact form or send me an email through [email protected] for a free, no obligation consultation.

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