Hello and welcome to issue 6 of Beneath the Surface where we explore the world of sustainable web design and come together to untangle the green web.
A conference for responsible technologists
The Green IO sustainable tech conference took place in London in September and we were grateful to be in attendance for a day of thoughtful talks by leading sustainable tech minds from around Europe and beyond.
This issue we’re sharing our key takeaways and interesting links from some of the speakers.
Discussions on the environmental impact of AI continue
As expected there was lots of talk on AI including a fascinating panel debate featuring Anne Currie of the Green Software Foundation and Sandra Pallier of ClimateAction.Tech. The general consensus throughout the day suggested that whilst it’s slowly becoming more well known how damaging AI is for the environment people are probably going to use it anyway.
Whilst frustrating to hear, it’s sadly not surprising and we are inclined to agree. One speaker shared the quote “Does what we create justify what we destroy?” which resonated very much and we hope businesses actively consider this when deciding to develop new AI products.
You can read our own thoughts on The Environmental impact of AI over on the Root blog.
Yelling at the cloud
The other hot topic was (echo voice) The Cloud with several talks exploring the environmental impact of hosting digital products and the importance of running systems on a sustainable platform.
The challenge of acquiring sustainability data was also discussed with the recommendation that environmental impact reports should not only take into account the power usage/carbon generation, but also the water consumption (used by cooling towers at the datacenter) and minerals used to construct the server infrastructure. It is also estimated that server hardware makes up 3/4 of the carbon footprint of a digital product.
Further to this, an entertaining presentation by GreenOps expert Mark Butcher explained how the big tech cloud hosting providers are generally misleading in their sustainability claims. Microsoft’s claims to be carbon negative by 2030 despite their emissions rising by 30% over the past 3 years being particularly absurd.
You can check our own Recommendations for Sustainable Web Hosting.
A more sustainable and ethical web
Amongst the packed schedule, other highlights from the day included:
- Chris Adams of the Green Web Foundation shared their ongoing work to create more accessible and transparent reporting for digital products including their new Software Carbon Intensity Spec and their proposed convention for carbon.txt, a standardised file that contains all the environmental impact data for a website.
- UX designer Thorsten Jonas questioned whether designers are focussing too much on creating a positive user experience at the expense of other actors in the system (both human and non-human). For example, eCommerce services that default to a ‘post to nearest hub’ delivery option arguably provide a better outcome for the delivery driver and the environment compared to the convenience of delivering every parcel door to door.
- It was also promising to hear about the continued progress of the W3C‘s Web Sustainability Guidelines and their plans to make them an official spec similar to the WCAG Accessibility Guidelines.
We’d like to offer a big Thank You to Gaël Duez for the invite to the conference. If you’d like to view some of the talks online you can find the speaker videos on the Green IO YouTube channel and the slides on the Green IO website.
🍄 Unearthed
~ Digital sustainability news, insights and tips from around the web.
Join The Sustainable UX Network
The Sustainable UX Network is global community with a huge collection of free and paid sustainable UX and Design resources, as well as a newsletter, slack channel and podcast.
GitHub’s Green Software Directory
GitHub’s Green Software Directory is a simple and easy-to-use resource that developers can use to adopt green software tools. It features a considerable list of measurement, carbon efficiency and carbon awareness projects. Get those pulls requests in!
Are droughts and blackouts the cost of the datacenter industry?
Published less than a week after the conference discussed how AI and server farms guzzle energy and water this article in The Guardian is a timely reminder of the real world environmental impact of datacenters.
☀️ Other news
- Back at Root HQ, we recently launched phase 2 of the Museum Data Service website, integrating their new API allowing researchers to search over 3 million object records from museums all over the UK.
- We are also very proud to have developed a new low-carbon website in collaboration with Pine Design Studio for food redistribution charity FareShare to promote their Where’s the Food? manifesto.
- Bookings are now open for web development projects starting in the new year.
💚 Thank you for reading
This issue of Beneath the Surface was written by Paul Jardine. We’ll see you for issue 7 in November! ✌️