Hello fellow humans and welcome to issue 5 of Beneath the Surface where we explore the world of sustainable web design and come together to untangle the green web.
đ¤ We need to talk about AIâŚ
AI. The cutting-edge technology thatâs transforming everything from customer service, content creation and even climate modelling. Itâs seemingly everywhere at the moment, in every facet of our lives, alternately helping us be more productive, more efficient, more effective, more inclusive. The list goes on…
With tools that can translate languages in real-time, auto-generate captions to support accessibility, and diagnose diseases so treatment can be given earlier than ever, ostensibly, and paradoxically, AI (supposedly) offers us a way to connect and exist better as humans.
But thereâs a hidden cost that few people seem to want to talk about. The environment.
Can AI revolutionise the world without harming the planet?
As AI development has intensified over recent years, so the energy, water and raw materials required to train and power the systems behind it have skyrocketed.
And the more powerful AI becomes â the more we train it to do and the more integral it becomes to our lives â the more disastrous the impact on the environment.
The folk behind the tools arenât being particularly open about the emissions â unsurprisingly. What we do know, however, isnât good. Like the fact that the training of ChatGPT-3 emitted as much CO2 as 550 roundtrip flights between New York and San Francisco. And that training ChatGPT-4 â which is far more powerful than its earlier iteration ever was â resulted in water usage at Microsoftâs Iowa data centres tripling, in the midst of a three-year drought in the area.
The ethical business dilemma
Here at Root, we believe that, in the right hands and with the right priorities, AI has the potential be a powerful ally in the fight to protect the climate. Currently this is not the case.
Therefore as businesses, we need to be mindful about how and when we use it. And we need to be conscious that even the smallest task we outsource to AI will have an environmental impact above and beyond the energy it uses.
Itâs a conversation we need to have out in the open, of course. And the earlier we can start talking honestly about the impact, the better.
For more, head over to our blog: The environmental impact of AI
đ Choosing a sustainable web host
Website hosting might not be the most exciting of subjects, but itâs an important one when it comes to digital sustainability. Because itâs not just about finding a company that can keep your business website online â good hosting can make a huge difference to your websiteâs environmental impact.
Finding a quality hosting provider is one of the easiest ways to make one of the biggest reductions in your websiteâs carbon emissions. Furthermore, if your hosting provider uses green or renewable energy to power its servers, thatâs a huge environmental win for your website. But there are other, less obvious ways hosting can help you reduce the environmental impact of your website.
A good hosting provider will help keep your websiteâs emissions low by:
- Ensuring it loads fast to keep energy consumption to a minimum, while also improving user experience
- Using compression and caching to further speed up page-load times
- Using server-level security so you donât need to install energy-guzzling third-party tools
- Using local data centres and Content Delivery Networks to reduce the distance the data that makes up your website needs to travel
- Automating backups and plugin updates to reduce the need for lengthy manual updates
For more on what to look for in a web hosting provider, as well as recommendations for our favourite (UK-based) hosting companies, check out our article Green web hosting guide for ethical businesses
đ Unearthed
~ Digital sustainability news, insights and tips from around the web.
Do websites need to be online 24/7?
This fascinating blog from sustainable web champions Wholegrain Digital questions whether websites need to be “on” all the time. Most B2B â and many B2C â businesses see less website traffic outside of operating hours, as customers and clients take time off. So could we give our websites time off, too?
Arguably, showing a simpler version of a website in the evenings and over the weekends would save energy, but it might also have a positive impact on the business ownerâs mental health if it encourages them to fully switch off. Itâs an intriguing question, and a thought-provoking article.
Measuring your websiteâs carbon output with CO2.js
Visualising the hidden carbon emissions of digital products is incredibly difficult. Thankfully, the sustainable web developer Fershad Irani has developed the brilliant CO2.js script for the Green Web Foundation, giving developers access to richer information about the estimated carbon emissions of their software.
The API can be used for reporting, carbon budgeting or even showing a simpler version of your website based on intensity of the local power grid.
Which image format is most energy efficient?
When it comes to the web, itâs generally considered that the smaller the file size, the less energy it uses. In fact, we wrote a whole blog post on optimising images explaining why this is true. But is it really the case that smaller images are less energy intensive? Or is format as important as size when it comes to determining energy use?
Michael Andersen of Sustainable WWW has conducted an experiment on low-carbon image formats to see how modern image formats such as WEBP and AVIF perform compared to old-school jpgs and gifs, and the results are interesting.
𪴠Grow your knowledge
~ You ask the questions, we find the answers! This month, Cerys asksâŚ
âIâm a web developer in a large company and Iâm struggling to convince my managers to implement low-carbon techniques. Any advice?â
Oh yes, weâve been here! It can still feel quite difficult trying to convince managers and clients to embrace low-carbon web techniques, especially when itâs nigh-on impossible to help them visualise the impact of these types of improvement.
Of course, we know low-carbon web design isnât just good for the planet â itâs good for customers, and good for business too. And if your managers donât want to talk climate, they will almost certainly be interested in the money side of things.
So perhaps try explaining the business case.
A fast-loading website not only uses less energy, itâs better for SEO and keeps your visitors (and prospective customers) happy, which leads to better conversion rates. To support this argument, you could try keeping a log of analytics data that shows the difference in visitor behaviour after a small change is implemented.
If you are ultimately over-ruled, you could still have an impact by simply implementing changes in as efficient a way as possible.
While it can be frustrating trying to educate others around the multi-faceted benefits of low-carbon web design, we try to follow the mantra: âProgress, not perfection.â If a site receives a lot of traffic, making even small performance improvements can add up to some considerable CO2 reductions. Donât be disheartened!
For more information, visit our helpful website optimisation guides showing your how to optimise the various components of a web page.
âď¸ Other news
- In September, Paul will be attending the Green IO Conference in London. Massive thanks to GaĂŤl Duez for the invite! If youâre coming along, please do say hello!
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We are currently taking bookings for web development projects starting in the Autumn.
- And if you thought this was the best newsletter ever written and you’d like some support with your copywriting, Becky is currently taking bookings for projects starting in October.
đ Thank you for reading
This issue of Beneath the Surface was written by Paul Jardine and Becky Thorn. Weâll see you for issue 6 in September! âď¸