In our research report “Sustainable Intent, Unsustainable Web: Why the Gap?”, a deep dive into the carbon emissions of purpose led organisations in UK, 84% of the sites we measured were hosted on renewable energy. Yet 64% of these websites had emissions over the global average, scoring an “F” on Digital Beacon’s website sustainability test, with one site emitting nearly 20x more than the average site. So why is there such a gap between organisations’ hosting setup and their websites’ emissions?
Green hosting on the rise
Just 27% of survey respondents in our report noted that they use a green host, much lower than the number identified during our testing.
There are two ways to interpret this, a) that it’s encouraging that hosting providers are offering greener hosting solutions as standard, with subscribers potentially unaware of the added benefit or b) website creators view green hosting as ticking the sustainability box, without consideration of the other elements that can have an impact.
Hosting contributes approximately 15% of a website’s carbon footprint, and so while a green hosting provider is a no-brainer, it mustn’t be the only digital sustainability consideration when building a website. What’s more, with end-user devices and data transmission networks often rely on fossil fuels, the energy used to load and interact with a site isn’t always green, regardless of hosting configurations.
Page size is key
Instead of focusing just on hosting, limiting the size of your webpages is the number one factor that can affect the carbon emissions of your website.
Streamlined digital experiences, with optimised images, code and scripts, will deliver smaller page sizes, with the additional benefit of loading faster and improving user experience for site visitors.
Some emissions are baked in, but everyone can make improvements
Several of the key drivers for your website emissions are baked in at the design stage. A site which focuses on videos and large images, rather than smaller vector graphics and thumbnails, will always have greater emissions.
The idea of making wholesale changes is often out of reach for purpose-led organisations, with budgetary pressures and a lack of technical support often cited as barriers.
But every site can still do more to reduce emissions, even with limited budget and basic web management skills. One of our recent Website Sustainability Audits showed how compressing a single image in the footer of the website could save nearly 500kb, a reduction in page size by approximately 20%.
In summary
While green hosting plays an important part in reducing the carbon emissions of your website, it should be combined with sustainable design principles to ensure your website limits its environmental impact as much as possible.
Curious about your digital emissions or looking to improve your website? Book a call with our team to see how we can help.
I'm a multi-disciplinary designer, with many years of experience designing graphics with impact and seamless user experiences. I started my career designing consumer products, but have since worked on a diverse range of projects from leading brand refresh projects for charities like Sculpt, Jamma and TUSP, sustainable and user-friendly website re-designs for CTRF, Climate Change Coaches and Mokoro to large internal communication projects for WWF and Oxford HR. I'm passionate about the use of design as a tool for positive social change, and with particular interest in projects tackling racial inequality and children’s social care. Recently I was appointed as a Trustee for the new charity Board Racial Diversity UK, working to improve representation within the UK charity sector.
