There is no contesting that the internet has become a part of our everyday life. Some would argue that reading something online is greener than buying a book or magazine which contains the same information. In addition, reading your newspaper or academic journals online helps you save paper, ink and the physical shipping of the material. However, as has previously been highlighted, the internet uses a lot of energy in itself, and would surprisingly rank as the fifth largest carbon emitter in the world if it were a country [1].
Even if we were able to make websites completely carbon neutral there is still one element of the carbon equation that is very hard for the webmaster to control, and that is the amount of energy your visitors use by simply accessing your site and having their computers on. However, a number of non-profit organisations do exist whose aim is to offset your website’s carbon emissions by recording the number of visitors you receive each month and then offsetting the carbon emissions these visits cause through the purchase of carbon offsetting and renewable energy certificates. Typically, Green web-hosting involves several of the following elements: 1. Servers directly powered by renewable energy, 2. Energy use offset using a carbon credit 3. Energy use offset using a Renewable Energy Credit (REC), 4. Hosting servers optimized for energy efficiency 5. The company subscribes to environmentally friendly practices.
This article will provide an overview of some of the many organisations/organisations that exist for off-setting carbon and give additional tips on how to make your website green.
Carbon-Offsetting Tools
GreenScroll
GreenScroll is a Canadian non-profit organisation whose mission is to power the internet by green renewable energy. They do so by not only offsetting the non-renewable energy that your website host uses, but also the energy consumed by visitors who view your site. GreenScroll invests pledges from individuals and web-companies that have a web presence and invest them into green renewable energy. By July, 2011 GreenScroll reported that it had offset carbon emissions from over 800,000 websites. Furthermore, GreenScroll also aims to neutralise the energy used in sending and receiving e-mails, by offering individuals, who may not necessarily be website owners, to sign-up for an e-mail off-setting service [2].
CO2 Stats
Similar to the existence of a large range of “trust logos”, such as the Better Business Bureau icon, that verify that website you shop on are safe, reliable and free from viruses, CO2Stats adopts a comparable badge system that users can put on their website as a proof that their websites are carbon neutral. CO2Stats is the first-ever tool that allows bloggers and webmasters all over the world to monitor the carbon footprint of individual websites internationally, with the vision of making the internet carbon neutral [3]. Once you sign your site up to the CO2Stats site, the CO2Stats tool looks at where visitors are from, where servers are located and then cross-references the information with a database where it checks the power sources used. CO2Stats also examines how long visitors stay on your website and their screen size, allowing CO2Stats to measure the greenhouse gas emissions being created. Next, CO2Stats work with sites to reduce their energy usage, in part by making sites more efficient. More efficient sites also load more quickly, which provides the added benefit of helping to retain site visitors longer, which on some sites may also generate more money.
For the emissions that cannot be reduced, CO2Stats purchases Green-E Certified renewable energy credits (RECs) from organisations such as NativeEnergy. Another benefit to clients is that CO2Stats also allows them to post their carbon footprint live. Often the nature of going green is left vague and non-quantified, which leads to distrust and uncertainty about actual claims of carbon reductions and total neutrality. The badge, which you get when signing up, is a universally-recognised logo, which signals that your website is truly carbon neutral. The badge works with all types of sites [4] [5].
Brighter Planet
BrighterPlanet has launched a programme called the “350 lbs. Challenge” which is targeted at bloggers. Any blogger can sign up by placing a badge on their website. Once the blogger has notified the Brighter Planet Project about the intention of joining the Challenge, they will off-set 350 lbs. of CO2 on your behalf. The programme originally started off with aiming to get 350 blogs subscribed to them, but this goal was shattered within a month, and today over 1,600 blogs, have signed up which is equivalent to 12,500 lbs. of carbon that has been removed from the atmosphere [6].
Additional web-hosting tips
Load Time
The quicker your website loads, the less energy will be used up performing requests. Therefore, designing websites that are low on images and have reasonably simple layouts will typically load faster, thus saving energy and time for the end user.
A tool for the purpose of minimizing the amount of energy needed for loading images are “image crunching” services such as Yahoo’s SmushIt. These services reduce the overall the quality of an image so it looks just the same to your website but has a small file size, and hence loads more quickly. Those running blogs on WordPress can employ the free Wp ShushIt plugin, which will automatically run all the images on your site through the ShushIt service and then reinstall them on your site in their more compact faster-loading form.
Navigation made easier
Every time a page loads on your website, it uses energy. Therefore, the fewer clicks that are needed in order to find the information your visitors are looking for, the more eco-friendly it will be. Providing clear navigation such as a sitemap, an index or a search box will help your visitors access the information they desire more quickly, thus saving energy.
Promote Environmental Causes
You can place adverts on your website supporting green charities and organizations to help them spread the word and recruit donors. This can also be done by promoting organizations that promote green website hosting. Many charities offer banner adverts that you can place on your website.
Conclusion
The above-mentioned organizations and web-hosting tips are only a fraction of of all the possibilities out there to help off-set the carbon that your website generates. Whatever approach webmasters choose, their effort should be highly appreciated by visitors. The internet contributes to 2% of the total global carbon emissions. Signing-up to an online off-setting scheme is an easy way to help reduce this carbon footprint, while simultaneously promoting the importance of eco-friendly webhosting.
References
[1] http://www.energysavingwarehouse.co.uk/news/342/20/How-Green-is-the-Internet.html
[2] http://www.greenscroll.org/
[3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3314491/Students-try-to-make-internet-carbon-neutral.html
