Does your business website have a carbon footprint?

When we travel in a car or fly, we emit carbon emissions into the atmosphere, but did you know that having a website can also contribute to climate change? asks Ray Pastoors, founder of True Green.

If you run a purpose-led business or want to impact the world positively, consider your digital presence and how to minimise your carbon footprint.

The internet accounts for about 2-3% of global carbon emissions, similar to the aviation sector. However, unlike airlines with plans to reduce emissions and have carbon-zero ambitions, the internet gets less scrutiny.

The problem is that the World Wide Web, although less visible than the pollution from a car and plane, requires energy to keep things humming.

All the files, images, videos, and content we consume or upload to our website contribute to the use of more energy. These digital items may not seem tangible but must be stored somewhere physically to appear like magic on demand.

This impact is hidden from us in large datacentres, with hundreds and thousands of physical computers stacked together.

If you use an overseas provider for your website, more energy is required to transport the information using cables and satellites to reach its destination.

The primary footprint comes from electricity, as most of our power comes from fossil fuels. We use less renewable energy in Australia than in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

The electricity is required to power the web and contribute to carbon emissions every time a website is loaded, we stream or upload content to the web.

The average small business website contributes a whopping 211kg of C02 a year. That’s the equivalent of around 26,000 smartphones being charged.

There are more than 2.5 million small to medium-sized businesses in Australia, so it takes little time to see how this could add up.

In addition to the power impact, datacentres are responsible for water usage. A large datacentre can use between 3 and 18 million litres daily, as much as a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.

As a business owner, though, you can take steps to reduce your footprint whilst you balance everything else in your business. It could even lead to more revenue!

Save images and files for the web

It’s tempting to upload original or large files onto the web. By doing so, you use more energy and could also pay more for your web hosting.

Suppose you save images no larger than they are displayed (think nothing wider than 1400px in most cases). You can also compress the picture before you upload it using free tools like TINYPNG.com (they do JPEG formats, too).

The images will be quicker to load, resulting in a speedy website and supporting a higher conversion rate as fewer people bounce off your website.

Turn off auto-play on the video and reduce animation

Flash websites with moving objects were the rage, but users nowadays want to control what they watch or consume. Turning off auto-play and reducing the number of moving objects appearing on your website reduces the weight (and wait for users) on your pages and can also be great for accessibility reasons.

Using YouTube or other embedded video players can also help reduce load time and energy use.

Choose a green web hosting provider

 Providers like my business, True Green are helping to measure and reduce your carbon footprint on the web in meaningful ways.

You can get an annual carbon report card to see how much your website visitors contributed to your emissions and how accredited environmental projects and the planting of trees in Australia offset this.

Host your website in Australia

When you host locally, you’ll have less distance to travel to get your website loaded for your customers.

If you have a global presence, you can use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) like Cloudflare or Sucuri that will help to connect your website to the person’s nearest datacentre. These tools can also prevent bad traffic from coming to your website, which is unnecessary and a nuisance to your business.

Be mindful of your e-waste

Reduce, reuse and recycle your computer and technology goods. Often, these end up in landfills and can pose a risk to the environment when they leak into the ground and waterways. Officeworks and your local council offer collection boxes or points for these goods to avoid wasting them.

When more Australian businesses participate in these steps, Australia can further reduce or offset the amount of C02 they contribute.

And as a world that keeps moving to things digitally, that’s welcome news for a planet already facing challenges on the horizon.

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