green web workshop
with Bec thexton
We hosted our first online workshop recently, fittingly focused on how to reduce the massive environmental impacts of websites.
On July 27th, the brilliant UX strategist and product manager Bec Thexton taught participants sustainable web design and green engineering practices.
Small business owners and web designers dialled in from Australia, Europe and the UK to learn how to become pioneers of this increasingly critical field.
The first thing we explored was why businesses need to improve their websites and how they interact online.
The issue
Given that the average website now produces 2g of CO2 for every single page load, green web design really has become the next frontier for sustainable businesses.
This is because websites - and the internet overall - require massive amounts of energy, water, and land clearing. Most of these environmentally exhaustive inputs are used to power, cool down, and create new data centres – needed to enable every click, scroll and interaction online.
The resultant outputs are huge, with the internet’s annual emissions equalling the aviation industry. While there’s been a social crack down on flying, there hasn’t been the equivalent for the internet. This is partly due to the net seeming intangible through language like ‘in the cloud’ and ‘virtual reality’, in addition to the infrastructure that supports it being hidden.
Part of the solution
The intangibility of the digital world doesn’t align with the values we should be implementing in our online businesses. Rather than chasing eyeballs and sales, we need to be creating quality experiences, communities and services.
This opportunity we have to create a new standard of being online was a big part of Bec’s workshop, showing how we can reduce data use while creating sustainable experiences and embody authentic values.
Alongside green website back-end set-up and front-end design, Bec taught the importance of ethical ecommerce and everyday advocacy in the digital world. Lessons essential for all producers, consumers, and community members.
The future
In just one and a half hours, workshop participants gained an overview of green web design, and walked away with their own website strategy and checklist. But this is just one part of the enormous puzzle needed to make the web sustainable.
Rapid growth of digital development means environmental impacts will become far more severe over the next decade. We need policies, infrastructure and education to scale to ensure the environmental degradation caused by the internet is curbed and stays within our climate change, sustainable development and biodiversity goals.
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About the teacher
Bec Thexton has had an impressive career in Product Design and Management.
Over the last decade she has grown her passion for experiences that solve complex problems, sustainable digital strategy, and authentic product leadership.
Her side gig is Thoughtful Web, where she creates future-fit websites for purpose-led brands.
