Optimizing your web performance also means reducing your digital carbon footprint. By reducing your page load times, you’re one step closer to a more responsible site (and web). In this article, we share three (+1 bonus) positive impacts of webperf on your online carbon footprint!
To begin with, let’s take stock of digital’s impact on the environment.
This illustration is taken from an infographic produced in collaboration with GreenMetrics, experts in eco-design and digital carbon footprint measurement. To see all the key figures, click on the image!
Less infrastructure-related pollution
Infrastructures are one of the main sources of web pollution. Data centers require energy to operate and host websites. In particular, they consume a lot of electricity to power servers, cool equipment and guarantee network connectivity…
This illustration is taken from an infographic produced in collaboration with GreenMetrics, experts in eco-design and digital carbon footprint measurement. To download the entire infographic, click on the image!
What’s more, like all equipment and hardware, web infrastructures also need to be changed and renewed to keep pace with growing technological needs! Disposing of servers or IT components can pose environmental problems (substances such as heavy metals, chemicals…).
In practice, terminals have the greatest impact on the environment, compared with network infrastructures and data centers. Mobile devices are changed on average every 3 to 4 years, and this programmed obsolescence is a real scourge, as it generates an immense amount of waste.
Also, when a website isn’t optimized for old or entry-level hardware, the CPU and battery are in overdrive. This slows down the site and makes for a frustrating experience for owners of less powerful smartphones – and before questioning the way the site is developed, the user will condemn his phone (or even his computer).
Front-end optimization, which aims to improve site display speed, has a favorable impact in terms of mobile usage. Indeed, as users tend to want to switch devices when they “slow down”, site optimization helps to limit this behavior.
What’s more, reducing your loading speed also reduces the pollution generated by your website.
Ensuring accessibility while reducing your carbon footprint
A faster website also means better accessibility on all mobile devices: not all your users necessarily have the latest phone. As a result, your visitors with older smartphones consume more data when browsing your pages, and even more so in less favorable browsing conditions (on the move, or in geographical areas with poor networks). By optimizing web performance, you can guarantee access to your site from a greater number of phone models. With the growing use of mobile devices, it’s in your interest to guarantee a good UX on this device: whether it’s entry-level or state-of-the-art.
To find out more about the links between eco-design and performance optimization, download our dedicated e-book. It’s the perfect e-book to help you understand the impact of your business on the web, get concrete figures in your head, and discover a checklist of 10 best practices for a high-performance, eco-designed site.