# This website is killing the planet

> The web is full of bullshit and it's killing the planet. Time to commit to making my website more ecofriendly.

> Last updated: 2020-07-13

For a while I’ve been intending to make my website more sustainable, but I succumbed, as I often do, to the human trait of sloth. But this morning after reading [Gerry McGovern’s post on webwaste](https://alistapart.com/article/webwaste/), I thought I’d procrastinated long enough.

So I ran a web page performance test and got some [grim results](https://www.webpagetest.org/result/200713_XX_e2daed33a24cd8a099d930fc373b1083/): my website takes over a minute to load on a Moto G4 on using 3G data networks. It’s just as bad [using a desktop PC in Nottingham on 1.5Mbps DSL](https://www.webpagetest.org/result/200713_6E_4e249b485a45882604420068caa21ae0/). My website is bloated with large images and a bunch of JavaScript, which means it’s eating up lots of energy transmitting those bits and bytes.

But how much energy? I used the [Website Carbon Calculator](https://www.websitecarbon.com) to find out. It turns out that

- 6.90g of CO2 is produced every time someone visits the homepage
- it emits the amount of carbon that 4 trees absorb in a year, and
- it uses enough electricity to drive an electric car 1,116km

Eugh. That’s disgusting. For each year my website has been online, I should have planted 4 trees just for the homepage alone. But, instead, my laziness has filled the atmosphere with more and more carbon.

I have to do something, this has gone on long enough, so I’m committing to some actions.

1.  I’ll move my site to a web hosting provider using renewable energy, one that’s listed on the [Green Web Foundation’s directory](https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/directory/). ✅
2.  I’ll compress and optimise the images on my site using [ImageOptim](https://imageoptim.com/mac). ✅
3.  I’ll get rid of [my energy-guzzling site theme](https://github.com/samesies/barber-jekyll) until I can introduce one that’s lightweight and accessible. ✅
4.  Going forward, my website will enshrine the principles of the [Sustainable Web Manifesto](https://www.sustainablewebmanifesto.com). 📝
5.  I’ll pay for some trees to be planted that’ll reduce the impact of my website’s carbon footprint going forward. ✅ [View the certificate 📜](https://treesforlife.org.uk/groves/249395/)

To show my commitment to being a good web citizen, I’ll add the [Website Carbon Badge](https://www.websitecarbon.com/badge/) to all pages ✅ and the [Green Web Foundation’s renewable hosting badge](https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/green-web-check/) ✅. Once I’ve improved things, I’ll add a [carbon.txt](https://carbontxt.org/) ✅.

One day I’ll actually get around to building a solar-powered battery bank and run my site off my home connection, but until then I’m taking small steps to remove, minimise and clean-up my presence on the web.

What’s the carbon footprint of your website? What steps will you take to reduce it?

## Further reading

- [Webwaste](https://alistapart.com/article/webwaste/)
- [The bullshit web](https://pxlnv.com/blog/bullshit-web/)
- [3 steps to creating zero carbon websites](https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/sustainable-web-design/)
- [How to build a low-tech website](https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/09/how-to-build-a-lowtech-website.html)
- [Greening Internet governance: environmental sustainability and digital transformation](https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/news/notes-for-greening-internet-governance-at-eurodig/)

It has been great to read everyone’s responses to this post, even those [questioning the merit of reducing carbon emissions on a personal website](https://buttondown.email/hillelwayne/archive/no-your-clean-code-wont-save-the-planet/). Here’s action others have decided to take on their own websites.

- [Trying To Go Green With Local Fonts](https://kevq.uk/how-local-fonts-can-save-the-environment/)
- [Please pardon the dust](https://so.nwalsh.com/2020/10/31-dust)
- [Is it morally wrong to write inefficient code?](https://tomgamon.com/posts/is-it-morally-wrong-to-write-inefficient-code/)