Sustainable Web Development: How Coding Style Impacts the Planet
We don’t have to be frequent flyers to leave an ecological footprint.
Our Ecological Footprint ✈️💻
Carbon dioxide emissions pollute the air where it aggravates climate change, and the same also happens when we are using the internet. Video streaming and conferencing, gaming, and mining of cryptocurrencies only represent the tip of the iceberg.
How Our Coding Style Impacts the Planet
Badly written websites contribute to the destruction of the environment as well, by consuming unnecessary amounts of energy for servers, transmission infrastructure, and for display and update on the client-side, that is, in your browser on your desktop computer or on your smartphone.
Measuring Sustainability
We have already been able to estimate the speed and usability (web vitals) and accessibility of websites. In a similar way, online tools like Website Carbon Calculator and Ecograder try to measure, or rather estimate, how well a website performs with regard to sustainability.
Sustainable Web Development
Sustainable web development aims to minimize energy consumption by prioritizing minimalism, optimization, and choosing eco-friendly service providers (Green IT). As a signatory of the Sustainable Web Manifesto, I have committed myself to try to adhere to these principles whenever possible.
Further Reading
Web Sustainability: What is it and how to approach it (by Ricardo Moreira).
This article has originally been posted in German and in English in my blog Open-Mind-Culture in May 2021.
