Everyday Digital sustainability

My name is Chris. I am a PHP developer here at Studio 24 and a digital sustainability advocate. I’m also an invited expert with the W3C web sustainability interest group, and I’ve been passionate about digital sustainability for a number of years.

The presentation today will be focused on digital sustainability for websites, as the title suggests, as well as the wider impact that digital sustainability can have on how your organisation operates digitally.

The presentation will be about 15 minutes, maybe a little bit more, and so we’ll have some time for questions at the end. But please put your questions in the chat throughout and we’ll try to get through as many as we can.

Chris Butterworth, PHP Developer

Digital Sustainability

• 26 years of working on the web
• We build accessible websites and web apps
• Accessibility experts and advocates
• Clients from arts, education, charity and public sector organisations

Some of our clients W3C, The Fitzwilliam Museum, RNIB, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Don’t feel that you have to screenshot the presentation or screenshot anything. We’ll send you everything afterwards.

If you could put yourself on mute so that there’s no distractions in the background and also turn off your video unless you’re asking a question that would be great as well. I’ll explain why shortly.

• We’ll have a Q&A at the end of the presentation
• We’ll email the recording and resource list afterwards
• Please put yourself on mute and turn your video off

• Where that carbon footprint comes from
• What we can do to lower it
• Tools to help measure it
• What else can we do

Illustrated by an emoji of a green leaf

There has been some change in that and kind of more renewables are being used, but primarily we still use fossil fuels. For digital sustainability we can split this up into three very distinct areas.

• Servers (hosting)
• Network
• Devices

Think of all the content that your website displays and all the code needed for that website to run. That all needs to go somewhere. That all needs to be somewhere.

Hosting is responsible for roughly 10% of the overall carbon footprint, but can be difficult to accurately measure due to how the server is managed and sometimes because the data simply doesn’t exist.

• Where your website lives
• Responsible for data processing and storage
• Easy to reduce

Illustrated by an emoji of a robot face.

This is quite easy to estimate and can be more accurately measured with lots of additional data such as carbon intensity, and the time of the visit, as well as page size, which makes it very easy to reduce.

• Used to transmit data
• Easy to reduce

Illustrated with an emoji of a wifi connection signal.

• Sends requests and downloads content
• Impossible to measure

Illustrated with an emoji of a smartphone.

I’m also hoping that everybody is sat there now thinking what can I do.

If we look at the sources and start estimating our carbon footprint of any website, we start to see that page size is directly linked to emissions. And that’s where the focus of this webinar is and where a lot of the best practices that have been published lie as well.

Most of our clients here at Studio 24 are now hosted with Mythic Beasts, whose data centre is powered by renewable energy, making it an easy recommendation.

If, for any reason, they aren’t suitable, then others can be found using the Green Web Foundation’s hosting directory.

• Swap to a provider using renewable energy
• we use and recommend Mythic Beasts
• Others can be found using the Green Web Foundation hosting directory.

Illustrated with an emoji of a sun.

We’ll be staying on this little topic for a minute as there’s quite a lot to say.

• Lazy load
• Compress
• Modern formats
• Stylise
• Question

Illustrated by an emoji that’s a picture of a mountain range with fir trees and a lake.

There are a multitude of apps and plugins and websites that can help with this and can reduce file size by 90% with very little difference in quality.

This screenshot is from Squoosh, which is an online tool that helps you resize and compress images. And as you can see, resizing and compressing this image has reduced the file size by over 90%.

Squoosh can also convert images as well to more modern formats such as WEBP or AVIF, which can reduce file size by an extra 70% in some cases. Although a JPEG or PNG fallback should still be added, simply because browser support isn’t quite there yet.

For context, the average image is around 500 to 600 kilobytes in size.

Lastly, the biggest impact we can have is to simply remove them.

So, question whether they are important for the user to see. For example, you wouldn’t buy anything without seeing what it looks like. But is a stock image of a field or a factory or two people shaking hands, is that important for people to see?

Where they are used, they should never be autoplayed. This also aligns with accessibility guidelines too, where the
audio conflicts with screen readers as well as the impact on users with cognitive or other sensory sensitivities.

Where animated GIFs are used, they should be swapped for a video as they are much smaller now and handled in a different way.

But where video is embedded using an iframe they can be lazy loaded as well like images.

But please be wary of any additional cookies that are set and make sure the cookies are accepted first

• Do not autoplay videos
• EVER!
• Replace animated GIFs
• Lazy load iframes

Illustrated with an emoji of a camcorder.

Limiting their use to heading text only and simply using one typeface while using system fonts for body copy is one way to reduce them.

Another way to reduce them even further is to subset them. So by cutting down the characters that simply aren’t used from the file. If your website is multilingual and needs those additional characters, they can be handled by an additional file that is only then loaded when these characters are needed.

And this is something that we can advise on. Lastly, same with the other methods that we’ve talked about: question their use. If they don’t add a lot of value, don’t use them.

• Limit use
• Subset
• Question use

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So, animations can be an incredible tool when creating immersive online experiences, but they need to be proportionate and add value.

Learning more about your target users would massively help with this. As they use more energy on a device than static content, where they are used, a user should be able to control them to prevent any distraction or frustration while using your website or web application.

Animated GIFs should never be used.

Videos can be used where necessary and where the animation isn’t based on user interaction. But using front-end technologies allows us to control animations better and is recommended by us as well as other published guidelines.

• Limit use
• Question use
• Allow control where used

Illustrated with an emoji of a pencil.

This also massively helps with SEO as well when multiple pieces of content are competing for the same keywords.

• Reduces strain on server
• Can help with SEO

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Faster websites and faster pages rank higher in search engines and have higher conversion rates.

There are numerous articles on this which we can share afterwards if anybody’s interested.

There’s also a couple of humanitarian examples of this. One example that springs to mind straight away is what CNN did to their website during one of the big storms in the US, where they removed everything that wasn’t text. So no images, no JavaScript, no animations, basically just text.

So that even if you were on a very slow internet connection, you could still get access to up-to-date news.

This also touches on data poverty too, which is something that I’d like to talk about later or at a different time.

It’s worth noting as well that estimates are better than nothing at all as long as we’re transparent about what methodology was being used as they can still help you understand the next steps that should be used to reduce the impact.

• Beacon (Digitalbeacon.co)
• Ecograder (Ecograder.com)
• Website Carbon (Websitecarbon.com)

Illustrated with an emoji of a ruler.

If you’d like to go deeper and look at some of the other guidance that’s been published, these are the three best that we’ve found. There is a lot of overlap between these, but each one has its own different focus as well.

• Sustainable Web Design
• Green Software Foundation
• W3 Sustainable Web Guidelines

Obviously, we focused on environmental, as I think that’s one of the easiest ones to focus on.

Think of all those old emails, those old photos, those old documents saved to the cloud, those old social media posts and even old website content.

Another study conducted by Ovo Energy showed that if every Brit sent one less thank you email per day (at least we’re polite!) it would save nearly 16,500 tons of CO2.

Video calls, which we’ve all become accustomed to since the pandemic,  create a huge carbon footprint, too. Anywhere between 150 grams to a kilogram of CO2 per hour according to a study by Purview.

Luckily, turning off your video can reduce the impact by a massive 96%. And this is why I asked everybody to turn the cameras off at the beginning of the session.

Also, I can’t not use this as an opportunity to open the can of worms that is AI.

Numerous studies have already been published regarding its extremely high energy and water demand, creating a perfect storm of environmental issues when it comes to how the technology is managed.

When it comes to AI products and services, it’s worth trying to limit their use, and only use them when they can truly add value, or to find alternatives that don’t have as high of an impact.

My standpoint is that I’m not anti-AI, I’m anti-frivolous use. This point has been highlighted by recent trends, such as using AI to draw cartoon images of yourself or the craze from a few months ago on LinkedIn, where almost everybody wanted an action figure version of themselves.

Even OpenAI reported that ChatGPT was literally melting hardware because of the additional demand due to these trends.

These are a few of the links to some of the stuff that I’ve gone through.

I mean it’s been an absolute pleasure to give this webinar to introduce you to the idea of digital sustainability.

• Sustainable Web Design
• Green Software Patterns
• Web Sustainability Guidelines
• Beacon
• Stanford Magazine: Carbon and the cloud
• Ovo Energy: Think before your thank
• The Green Web Foundation
• Science Direct: The overlooked environmental footprint of increasing internet use

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Let’s build a better web, together.

Thank you very much Chris, that was really interesting and hugely informative. A lot of good detail there that I think we all need to take on board.

So Sustainable Tech 4 Good is an organisation that addresses digital inclusion through the sustainable reuse of surplus tech.

Quite a few words there. So digital inclusion is essentially digital poverty.

There are huge swaths of the population that do not have access to any tech whatsoever. As such they’re not able to go online: they might be housebound, can’t order their shopping, might be in mental health care, they can’t go outside, but they could get counselling online.

There’s lots and lots of reasons why we need to make tech available to everybody. We address that digital inclusion and that delta, that gap, by the reuse of surplus tech.

Join the sustainable digital inclusion revolution.

We founded Sustainable Tech 4 Good back in 2020. It was a lockdown project. We have a tech company, too – we started this through our tech company.

It was just something. Once we heard the stories and the need, the digital exclusion need, and the fact that surplus tech wasn’t addressing that, there was no way that we could stop doing once we started.

So, as I say, the inception we started in 2020 and this is our impact to date. So far we’ve helped – these stats are recorded every couple of months, so this was recorded back in February.

There’ll be more people helped and supported now and more kgs of waste saved – but up until the end of February, we’d help just over seven, or nearly seven and a half thousand individuals nationally.

And that will cover – there’s another slide which we’ll share, and I can show the demographics.

The kgs of waste we’ve saved over 12,000 kgs of waste. There’s water saved – litres of water saved.

Similar to Chris’ discussion, I think we’re probably unaware of just how much we use to manufacture new items.

And we’re not saying that you shouldn’t manufacture new because we understand there is  a need for new. All we’re saying is, look, let’s rather than put these devices in a landfill, let’s put them to good use.

Let’s save the environment, put them to good use and help people. They are our stats and we can share those on online. We can share those after the discussion later, and I think we can move to the next slide. Chris, thank you.

7,494 people helped to get access to laptops and other devices

12,066 kgs of electronic waste has been saved from landfill

2,106 devices currently being recommissioned in our warehouse

10.49 million litres of water saved

8.99 million kgs of earth’s resources saved

1,603,716 kgs of Co2 emissions saved.

So we do a lot in Cambridgeshire and the home counties. We also do  a lot of work up in the northwest, Manchester,
Liverpool and over the border into Scotland. We do quite a bit of work in Wales as well.

So, it’s national impact stats here. Disability,  devices to support disability. Education is a big one for us as well. We do a lot of homework clubs, a lot of schools we support. And these are families that simply cannot afford to buy tech for homework clubs and certainly for schools as well, they don’t have enough tech in the schools to support homework clubs and some young people.

Education, disadvantaged youth, we do a lot with the councils, with care leavers. It’s a big subject for us care leavers because once they’re out of that care there’s a big delta, there’s a gap there with care leavers, and the support that they get – they’re kind of left to their own devices.

Or there are lots of charities out there trying to support that, we support with devices to help them get online and get some sort of education if they haven’t actually achieved that, to help them get a foot on the ladder, to get a job.

Disadvantaged adults, disadvantaged youth, homelessness is again another big subject for us. So we support a lot of homelessness charities, prison services.

It’s just about getting people advice, getting them online, letting them feel worthy about themselves,  learning a course, keeping them included and not excluded.

Refugee support, that’s a big section for us. We worked very heavily at the earlier part of Sustainable Tech 4 Good with the councils across the country, with the Ukrainian refugees, asylum seekers.

It was a big subject at the time so there’s a lot of support went in that direction. If we can move on from there, thank  you Chris.

7,494 devices donated nationally

• Disability/health support: 283 devices
• Education (child): 2,067 devices
• Education (adult): 383 devices
• Disadvantaged youth: 815 devices
• Disadvantaged adults: 385 devices
• Homelessness: 830 devices
• Refugee support: 2731 devices

If there are any companies looking at this or listening to this, what we do is we make it completely transparent and completely easy for companies.

We have our own ST4G tech couriers so our guys are able to decommission servers or collect devices, whatever it is you need us to do.

We’ll attend your site, we collect the tech, it’s all safely collected,  packed, and protected. It’s brought back to our organisation, so it’s door-to-door because we’re aware that there’s data on devices.

We bring it back here, that’s tagged up,  we create an audit. We share the audit with you so you can see exactly what we’ve picked up. We do that within a week of the collection.

And then we securely erase all the devices. Devices holding data with SSDs and HDDs in there, we erase that
to the government standard. Then we give you a report on data security, data erasure by serial number.

So your data security is completely covered that should allay any fears with that.

We refurbish the devices. Once we’ve refurbished, we then speak with the organisation again and say, look,
we’re dealing with over 200 charities nationally, we would now like to donate some of your devices to those charities in need. And again, it covers a wide range of need. So, they have a choice of who they would like to support. Some companies actually are already supporting charities in their community and then we give devices to them to support those in need, whoever they’re working with at that time.

Once we’ve done that donation, we then look at the other part of the tech a completely cost-neutral solution. We go in,  collect the tech, provide the reporting, reporting secure data erase, sustainability reports, and once we’ve donated the devices we also give digital inclusion reports.

It gives feedback to the company on who they’ve helped, which we think is important.

It’s important for the company to show that they’ve been sustainable to their staff, or for themselves just to show that they’re being sustainable and responsible with their surplus tech.

But also that, actually, you know, let’s open the door and have a look at what’s actually going on out there. Your tech has been made sustainable, but it’s supported people who just do not have tech, and how much support have you given them and why has that been important.

And I think that’s a really important message that we feel that needs to be brought across. Often, we introduce companies to charities. It actually helps a good synergy between the two and the charities often get volunteers from the organisations that we’ve taken the tech from.

It’s a good feel-good solution all round. As it’s a cost-neutral solution, as I say, we donate some of that tech. The rest of the tech that we keep, we sell on our online store called Tech 4 Change.

So, it’s tech and then the number four, but we’ll put that in the group  message, Tech 4 Change. Now, on that site again, that tech has been refurbished, it’s sustainable, it’s very affordable.

So, once you go on, you can buy – it’s all tech, it’s devices to networking and server – when you purchase that tech, it shows you how much you as an individual have saved from landfill by buying sustainably. And what we also do to help you as an individual become digitally inclusive, once you’ve purchased, for every 10 items we sell on that site, we will donate a device to a partner charity. So, it encourages charities to keep on partnering and us helping more up and down the country.

But you, as an individual, have saved from landfill, you’ve been sustainable, it’s been affordable, and you’ve actually been able to support somebody who can’t afford to even buy an affordable device online.

Our solution is there to make organisations sustainable, responsible, and digitally inclusive. And the Tech 4 Change site is there to help us everyday people be sustainable and to support those who simply don’t have the tech, give them access to that. So that’s us.

That’s how we work. We’ve been around since 2020. We’re growing quickly. And we’re proud of the work that we do and we hope that anybody listening to this today would consider speaking to the  head of IT and if they have any surplus tech, you know, give us a shout because we’d love to love to support you. And in turn you’ll be supporting us and those in need. So thank you very much.

1. Devices securely collected
2. Devices audited and assessed
3. Devices have data securely erased
4. Devices repaired & refurbished of sent for recycling
5. Devices donated via Tech 4 Inclusion, sold via Tech 4 Change or returned to you for donation to your chosen cause.
6. You receive digital inclusion and sustainability reports and a data erasure certificate.