Sustainable Web Design with Colleen Keith
What is Sustainable Web Design?
Whether we think about it or not, every time we use our phones, computers, or the internet, we are using electricity and energy. We might not be able to see the carbon emissions we create from using the Internet, like you can with the exhaust from a car, so we don’t realize how big of an impact it makes.
But if the Internet was a country, it’d be the seventh largest polluter to greenhouse gasses in the world (Sustainable Web Manifesto)! And now that the world has become even more digitized due to COVID-19, we are causing even greater emissions without realizing it.
Sustainable web design is a relatively new movement seeking to clean up our carbon footprint by creating efficient websites. Colleen Keith, a Vancouver-based sustainable web designer, focuses on creating efficient web sites and offsetting the digital work she does.
Sustainable web design is good for both the planet and for site users. When web sites run more efficiently and use less electricity, users have a better experience navigating your web site when it doesn’t take forever to load. Plus, they’ll actually save on electricity bills!
“The internet uses electricity and electricity creation produces carbon emissions. So the less electricity that we use for our web sites, the better we're being to the planet and also to our users. Because…we can lower their electricity bill by having a better performing web site,” said Colleen Keith on an episode of Honey Pot Digital.
How Do I Get Started with Sustainable Web Design?
Creating a sustainable web site can feel like a daunting task if you don’t know where to start. When Colleen works with clients, her overarching question is: how minimal can you keep your web site? Do you need all of those images? All those fonts? All that text?
Colleen says if you’re only doing one thing to make your web site run more efficiently, make your images smaller! You can compress your images using a web site like tinypng.com.
Other tips from Colleen:
Delete old content. It’s taking up space on the server.
When it is possible, try to utilize static text and static images. They take up less space than carousels and animations.
Try not to host videos on your web site. Embed a link to YouTube or Vimeo instead.
Darker colors use less energy on a web site.
The fewer plugins you use, the better off you are.
What Else Can I Do?
Other than ensuring your web site is running efficiently, there are other ways to give back to the planet through your digital business. Colleen believes sustainability should be a goal for all digital businesses.
Colleen plants 20 trees per client per year with One Tree Planted to offset her carbon emissions based on how many customers she has.
She also donates 0.5% of her revenue from Stripe payments to carbon removal projects through Stripe Climate.
Where to Find More Information
If you’re interested in learning more about sustainable web design, head to Colleen’s web site, https://colleenkeith.com
She also recommends the book Sustainable Web Design by Tom Greenwood
Learn more about sustainable web design strategies on https://sustainablewebdesign.org
You can also read and sign the Sustainable Web Manifesto
Find out how green your website is! Plug in your URL to https://www.websitecarbon.com
Check your site speed and learn ways to improve it with https://gtmetrix.com
We hope this article increases awareness of sustainable web design (we certainly weren’t aware until seeing Colleen share about it!) and get excited about the steps we can all begin taking to make the online world a kinder place.
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