Digital Eco-Design
Transform your website or application into an eco-responsible tool for a sustainable future.
2023-08-20
Digital Eco-Design
Between 3% and 4%: that's the share of greenhouse gas emissions generated by the global digital ecosystem. A figure that could double by 2025! Whether we're a company, a user, or a citizen, we all have a role to play in mitigating these negative effects.
It's in this context that eco-design emerges as a crucial solution. By seeking to minimize the negative impact of digital technology on the environment, eco-design also aims to maintain optimal user experience and ensure greater competitiveness. By exploring the synergies between sustainable development and technological innovation, we're able to shape a future where the digital revolution harmoniously coexists with the preservation of our planet.
01_Understanding Digital Eco-Design
Eco-design is an approach that aims to design products, services, or systems while minimizing their environmental impact throughout their lifecycle. In the digital context, the fundamental principles of eco-design are adapted to reduce the carbon footprint and resources associated with websites and applications. Here are the main Green IT-oriented best practices:
Minimization of energy consumption and resource optimization: by optimizing code and resources of websites and applications, avoiding unnecessary processes, using efficient caching techniques, and reducing file size to accelerate loading times.
Smart choice of servers and infrastructure: by selecting energy-efficient servers and using data centers powered by renewable energy sources. Server location can also play a role in minimizing data transmission distances.
Device durability: by designing interfaces that perform optimally on a variety of devices and screen sizes. This reduces the need for frequent device replacement, directly impacting resource demand for manufacturing and recycling.
User-centered design: Digital eco-design must not compromise user experience, quite the opposite! By focusing on simplicity, ergonomics, and functionality relevance, designers can encourage more efficient use and reduce unnecessary energy consumption while optimizing website or application resources.
Responsible data management: Responsible collection, storage, and processing of data are essential. Reducing the collection of unnecessary information, using efficient storage methods, and respecting user privacy are ways to mitigate environmental impact.
Around 800,000 websites are created daily, with 10 billion emails sent per hour worldwide. In the face of this digital frenzy, digital eco-design emerges as a necessity!
02_Where to Start? Analyze Your Environmental Footprint
How much does your website or application consume? Is your digital ecosystem more Green or polluting? Here are some tools and resources you can use to measure the environmental impact of your websites or applications:
I_ Popular Tools
Lighthouse (Google PageSpeed Insights): Lighthouse is a Google tool that assesses your website's performance, including indicators related to energy efficiency and resource consumption. Google PageSpeed Insights, based on Lighthouse, provides optimization suggestions to enhance performance and energy efficiency.
GTmetrix: GTmetrix evaluates your website's speed and performance while providing information about consumed resources and possible optimizations. This can help you identify areas that could be improved.
Website Carbon Calculator: This tool estimates the CO2 emissions generated by loading your website based on estimated energy consumption. It offers a simple and practical perspective on your site's carbon footprint.
EcoGrader: Assessing the environmental impact of your website, EcoGrader provides recommendations to reduce energy consumption, carbon emissions, and resource use.
II_ Manual Audit
To be carried out internally or by providers: A manual audit will allow you to consider all aspects of your digital ecosystem and is almost essential before redesigning or optimizing your tools. Here are the main steps:
Data Collection: Gather detailed information about all aspects of the website or application - development, hosting, usability, resources...
Server and Infrastructure Assessment: Identify the technical specifications of servers and data centers used to host the website or application.
Code and Development Analysis: Identify programming languages, libraries, frameworks, and coding practices used. Evaluate code energy efficiency during execution.
Estimation of Energy Consumption and CO2 Emissions: Calculate the amount of energy consumed by the website or application during use and convert this consumption into CO2 emissions.
Resource Use Analysis: Examine resource consumption such as bandwidth, memory, processor, databases, and storage space.
Data Collection Analysis: Evaluate the amount of data collected, stored, and processed by the website or application, as well as the relevance of each collected data.
User Experience Study: Analyze how user experience affects energy consumption, for example by examining resource-intensive interactions such as automatic video playback or infinite scrolling.
Comparison and Benchmarking: Compare results with industry standards or similar references.
Identification of Areas to Optimize: With all these analyses, potential optimization points and their impacts will be easily determined.
This way, you can prioritize improvements with the best [positive impact/implementation effort] ratio.
III_ Useful Resources
Sustainable Web Design Checklist: This site provides you with a checklist as well as practical advice for designing and developing eco-responsible websites. It covers various aspects, from image optimization to script management.
Green Web Foundation: This organization offers quality resources and information about the environmental impact of the Internet, as well as how to make your website more sustainable.
In France, three "anti-carbon" laws targeting digital have already come into effect on January 1, 2022 – a regulatory framework set to be strengthened from 2024 onwards.
03_Best Practices for Digital Eco-Design
Here are some concrete measures and best practices to implement in order to reduce the environmental footprint of your site while maintaining optimal user experience:
1. Image and Video Optimization: Reduce the size of images and videos using optimized formats and applying lossless compression.
2. Caching: Use caching techniques to temporarily store resources on users' devices, thus reducing the need to re-download them on each visit.
3. Code Minimization: Eliminate whitespace, unnecessary characters, and comments from code to reduce its size. Use lightweight libraries and frameworks only if necessary.
4. Script Limitation: Reduce the number of scripts used on a page and avoid loading unnecessary external scripts.
5. Clean Code: Follow Clean Code practices such as SOLID principles to optimize your code.
6. Reduction of HTTP Requests: Decrease the number of HTTP requests by combining CSS and JavaScript files, using image sprites, and avoiding unnecessary redirects.
7. Adaptive Design: Design interfaces that adapt to different screen sizes and devices to ensure optimal display on both desktop and mobile, preventing the browser from resizing them.
8. Choose Responsible Hosting: Choose a host that consumes only electricity from renewable sources and complies with ISO 14001 - Environmental Management & ISO 50001 - Energy Management standards.
9. Client-Side Energy Consumption: Minimize CPU usage and avoid energy-consuming elements like autoplay videos. Also, avoid encouraging excessive use (infinite scrolling, excessive notifications), and optimize the user journey.
10. Data Collection Reduction: Collect only necessary data and ensure compliance with data privacy standards.
And a Little Effort on Email Sensitization:
Encourage reducing non-essential emails, using targeted mailing lists instead of sending messages to all, and adopting organizational rules to prevent unnecessary responses. Delete unnecessary emails (spam, advertisements, etc.). Unsubscribe from newsletters you don't read. Avoid sending large attachments, use a file transfer tool instead. Opt for direct communication when appropriate and reconsider your content to consolidate all information in a single email.
Your use of emails, as well as that of your colleagues, will greatly improve!
04_The Benefits of Digital Eco-Design
Eco-design offers four major advantages for companies that choose to integrate sustainable practices into their digital approach:
Reduce Operational Costs by decreasing energy consumption, resource demand, and maintenance fees associated with digital infrastructures.
Enhance Company Reputation as a responsible environmental actor, which can strengthen trust among customers, partners, and investors.
Optimize User Experience by reducing unnecessary complexity and optimizing ergonomics. Eco-design often leads to more efficient, smoother, and more readable websites and applications, thereby improving user satisfaction and engagement.
Lastly, by anticipating future regulations on the environmental footprint of digital, companies can remain compliant with standards and minimize regulatory risks.
In summary, implementing these best practices to reduce your carbon footprint lowers your fixed costs and enhances your competitiveness by increasing your Return On Investment (ROI)!
05_In Conclusion
Don't hesitate to consider digital eco-design as a strategic opportunity for your company! By integrating sustainable practices in the design, development, and management of your websites and applications, you can not only reduce your environmental footprint but also benefit from economic advantages and stand out positively.
Today, a company that takes steps to reduce its environmental impact is more likely to inspire trust and strengthen its position in the market. Start exploring eco-design measures that fit your needs and goals now, and contribute to creating a more responsible and sustainable digital ecosystem.