Reducing our carbon footprint is a massive global effort—countries and individuals are coming together to reduce carbon emissions. Given the difficulty of the task, you might feel like your daily efforts are just a drop in the ocean. On the contrary, every effort counts—every recycled plastic item, every greener website, contributes to this global fight.
You read that right: a website must also be environmentally friendly. You might think that, as digital assets, websites leave no carbon footprint. However, websites consume large amounts of energy to load for users and appear in search results.
Here’s how your website impacts the environment and how to reduce its carbon footprint.
What is the impact of a website on the environment?
According to statistics, the average website produces 211 kg of CO2 emissions per year. This is equivalent to driving 1,055 km . And that’s just for one website.
According to StatsFind, there are currently over 2 billion websites in the world. This makes the internet the sixth largest consumer of electricity on the planet. Therefore, globally, it produces approximately 2% of global CO2 emissions per year, equivalent to the aviation industry .
4 Ways to Make Your Website Greener
Once you’ve calculated your website’s carbon footprint, you can take steps to reduce it even further. Take a look at the actions below and consider implementing the ones you haven’t already taken.
Choosing a Green Hosting Provider
Having a green hosting partner for your website is the first step towards an environmentally friendly website. If you haven’t chosen your web host yet, or if you’d like to check if yours offers green hosting services, simply visit their website and look for green practices and initiatives, such as using renewable energy sources (e.g., wind and solar power) to power their servers, recycling or reducing waste, and other similar environmental commitments.
Why is this so important? Here are some statistics that show how important your web host is in creating and maintaining an eco-friendly website.
The average website produces 4.61 grams of CO2 for every page view .
