Consciously Creating Online
Is your website and your Substack site as green as it can be?
Earlier this month I attended a webinar hosted by the Digital Culture Network focussed on how to make our Websites more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
I’ve been consciously taking small steps to improve our carbon footprint as a family since 2017. Climate Change feels huge and my part in it all is to be as creatively conscious as I can. Here are some things that help me to feel like I’m at least trying to make the world a better place for the kids…
avoiding unnecessary commercialism and the traps around it
not commuting to work
thinking about the food we eat and grow
pausing when the kids need/ ask for things/ clothes/ shoes - I love Vinted here in the UK
avoiding consuming news - I’ll write another time on why this helps me to be more environmentally conscious.
unlocking funds to help us with our bio diversity project The Soil Web
unsubscribing to all brand/ necessary emails and keeping my inbox tidy…
take picnics when we’re on family days out and my own coffee.
avoid single use plastics
in event organisation I ask the question about sustainability- our local venues are actually really brilliant in this area.
plant trees and plants - both literally and online. I use ecosia for searching (as well as google).
There are lots of things we can still do - I’d love to invest in solar panels as we are slightly off grid when it comes to our heating sources and we are limited with clean options.
I have “green hosting ambition” which is really around my own education and ensuring I’m doing as much as I can to reduce my carbon footprint as an online creator. Climate Change can feel huge especially when you realise a lot of folks just aren’t really listening but personally I’ve found the small steps are very empowering.
Tom Greenwood, an expert in the environmental impact of web design shared with us;
The internet is equal to aviation in terms of carbon emissions and is the largest machine human’s have ever created!
If you are curious and want to check how environmentally friendly your website is try;
Websitecarbon.com
Ecograder.com
I ran my website and my Substack through the first link and they said;
Yay! So that means the big computer rooms that power Substack and my website built via podia are powered by green energy.
For Substack they said…
For both my sites they said in excess of 10k views a year means;
So still some work to do to stop wasting unnecessary energy then… 🥴 🤓
So what can you do here and now and moving forward to make your website/ Substack more green…?
Some top tips
For your website - switch to ethical/ green hosting - Green hosts recommended; Crystal Hosting, Positive Internet or check if your website already is green hosted…
Make sure images are sized at the right size for web. You can shrink them with this tool. I use screen shots a lot as it’s fast and they are automatically small.
Keep video short and don’t use autoplay on video. Well done
for not having our videos play automatically.Use a darker background and lighter fonts in your design of webpages… *sneaks off to change my Substack design from white background… 🤫*
Clean up/ out your media library on your website and in other online places… if you don’t need it don’t save it.
Use lighter and standardised fonts - more fancy and darker/ bolder fonts take longer to load using more energy…
More tools and tricks to make your website more green
https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/website-energy-efficiency/
https://digitalculturenetwork.org.uk/knowledge/10-ways-to-make-your-website-more-sustainable
Here’s Tom’s book if you want to geek out some more…
If you work in arts, culture or heritage in the UK you can contact the digital culture network for more support and one to one tutorials to help develop your digital skills for creating art/ creating online
.
I hope that’s been useful? Let me know how you’re feeling about going green online in the comments.
I was pretty mind-blown at what I learnt in a very short space of time. Now to the actions!
Claire x
What an incredibly timely and over-looked topic I think!
This is so interesting! Will definitely be using some of these tips to make my online presence a bit greener. Thank you!