I know the title may seem a bit extreme. However, if you have a website then there is a pretty high chance that it is contributing to killing the planet. You see, many may not know this, but every time a website is visited, it generates CO2 emissions. The more images and resources the website has, the more emissions.
According to online carbon calculator Website Carbon, the average website produces 1.76g of CO2 for every page view; so a site with 100,000 page views per month emits 2,112kg of CO2 every year. The more complex a website is, the more energy it requires to load – and the greater its climate impact.
The good thing however, is that this can be reversed. If you have a website there are a few thngs you can do:
- Enter your website URL at websitecarbon.com to find out how much CO2 emissions your website is generating.
- If you get a green score, then this is good news! If you get a red score, be sure to check all the information from the results page.
- Take a look at your website. Do you have a lot of plugins which you don’t need and that you can remove? What size images do you have? You should only have images in places where you really need them, and even then should be no more than 250kb in size each. Also try to use an extension such as .webp. You can compress further by going to TinyPNG to reduce the file size further without losing quality.
- Sustainable Hosting – Is your provider offering sustainable hosting? The website carbon calculator will be able to tell you if you’re on sustainable hosting or not. If you are not, we recommend Krystal.
- Get the badge! – Website Carbon let you add a badge to your website, we highly suggest you do this. This makes it easier for you to keep track of how much carbon emissions your website is actively emitting.
- And finally – Do you plant trees? Ecologi is an easy way to help offset your carbon emissions by letting you grow your own virtual forest. By growing your own virtual forest, REAL trees are actually being planted in the real world.
We hope that we have managed to help you in reducing your website carbon emissions. And remember, we can only do this together! Let’s help bring down carbon emissions so that future generations can continue to enjoy our beautiful planet!
If you need further help to improve your website, or if you’re looking for a new website altogether, then please get in touch. I can help you get your website on track to be more sustainable or build a whole new one for you.