This is an automatic English translation of the Dutch original.
Does an Eco Mode on your website make sense?
The climate measures promised so far will lead us towards a post-1.5° society. A further 42% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is needed to stay below the 1.5° ceiling according to the UN. Against the backdrop of these alarming figures, the growing climate impact of digital technologies is an increasing concern. Since Post-X Society has only just started, our web presence is still under development. Do we actually really need a website? We are not entirely convinced yet, since most websites are a kind of graveyard where long-gone projects lie buried. But let’s give the www the benefit of the doubt for now. And if we are going to build a website anyway, how can we use it to promote sustainable approaches? One idea that came out of a brainstorm is to put an ‘Eco Mode’ switch on our website.
Eco Mode: less data traffic
The primary function of the Eco Mode on our website is to trigger a conversation about digital sustainability. Second, all large media files are replaced by minimalist SVG vector images when you click it. If we implement this consistently across our website in the next version, it would reduce data traffic and therefore energy use. We are still working out whether this is significant, and which terms or metrics to use to express it.
Our current sustainable design choices
Besides Eco Mode, our website is already designed with a number of sustainable principles in mind:
- No Database: Our website works without a database, which minimises the energy needed for data processing.
- No Tracking: We respect privacy and do not track visitors, which again reduces unnecessary data processing and storage.
- Carbon-Neutral Hosting: We host our website with a carbon-neutral party, which is also a partner of the Green Web Foundation.
Next steps to promote eco-friendly websites
We have several improvements in mind:
- Implementing it on all pages: at the moment the switch is only offered on our home page
- Removing redundant CSS styles: we use extensive CSS libraries, but we could minimise the code and so eliminate excessive energy use.
- No Video Preloading: only load videos when needed.
- WordPress Plugin: We want to make Eco Mode available for WordPress by developing a plugin. Then other websites can easily implement the same environmentally friendly feature too.
Greenwashing
We know what greenwashing is, and we try to watch out for it. We understand that Eco Mode and our other sustainable choices are only part of a broader, more necessary approach to climate justice. An Eco Mode switch is only the beginning, because we are still far from 1.5°. We are not going to overstate the impact of Eco Mode, but use it to put eco-friendly design for the web on the map.
The Eco Mode switch also confronts visitors with the problem of digital environmental damage, and gives them the chance to make a choice. This fits with our aim of promoting technological citizenship: hopefully it will one day give us meaningful influence over the internet.