With the internet growing every day, the digital world has a surprisingly heavy carbon footprint (the internet alone contributes to 4% of global emissions and is expected to double by 2025). So, every website, video stream, and social media scroll uses energy—most of it powered by non-renewable sources. This reality has driven us to think bigger about our environmental impact and what more we could do.
If you’ve had a scroll through our website, you’ve probably noticed that sustainability has been part of our DNA for a while. From green office renovations to renewable energy changes, we’re always looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint. Yet, ironically, we hadn’t built our website with the same commitment.
Until now.
Our hot team of coders reverse-engineered our website into a mean, lean and green machine that now ranks as 85% cleaner than all web pages globally. Pretty impressive right?
If your answer is no, then let’s talk through why we’re so excited about it and how we pulled it off.
It’s cool to care
There are two main reasons why we’re so proud of our carbon rating. Number one is that many people have the misconception that anything sustainable and green is lower quality, has zero character and is massively overpriced. But we beg to differ. We are very precious about our website and the way it looks, and we’ve had many disagreements over the years with our SEO guys telling them that we won’t implement their requests because it’ll ruin the punk rock vibe we have going on. And we weren’t going to start now. So, we took our sweet sweet time and made absolutely sure that the changes we made to our website looked as sleek as it was sustainable. We truly believe we have done just that, with plenty of features, pops of colour, imagery, and video – all the things that should technically make a website really dirty and heavy. Not that kind of dirty…
But let’s move on to the second reason.
It can be quite a challenge to retrofit a website that’s already been built. Reworking code to make something both sustainable and visually slick is no easy task. Often, a Frankenstein result is inevitable with this kind of backward engineering, and we’d typically recommend a fresh build. But, little by little, we went back through our work and managed to right our wrongs, all without compromising user experience or the distinctive look we’re known for.
But how did we pull it off?
-Re-write the code: Cutting out unnecessary code reduced our site’s weight, making it leaner and faster.
-Reduce image sizes: Compress and reformat images shaved down load times without losing quality.
-Prioritise user experience: We focused on sleek, straightforward navigation and intuitive design – good for users, great for efficiency.
-Switch to green hosting: Green hosting slashes emissions by 15% running on renewable energy, so even our visitors make a smaller footprint!
-Use a headless CMS: This setup reduces back-end bulk and lightens the load, creating a much faster, low-emission site.
By taking these steps, we’ve transformed our website into something we’re truly proud of – a site that’s not only beautiful and functional but also gentle on the planet. But we know our journey doesn’t stop here. As technology and sustainability evolve, so will our approach to building a greener digital world. By leading with purpose now, we’re preparing for a future where sustainability isn’t just a bonus – it’s the norm.
Even if you’re not fully aboard the sustainability train yet, the reality is that green web design will soon be essential. But if that doesn’t win you over, then the performance gains definitely should – think improved performance, enhanced accessibility, improved SEO and not to mention cost efficiency.
Ready to join us in creating a digital landscape that respects both the user and the planet? Check out our sustainable web design, we think they’re fab – and we know you will too.