When we write an e-mail, make a video call or chat we perform actions that have now become part of our daily routine. But these are not actions without social costs. The Internet consumes like a nation, the fourth largest in the World after China, the United States and India. The Web has made our lives easier but at the same time it has brought additional environmental costs that are very high.
Every search we do on the Internet puts up to 2 grams of CO2 into the atmosphere.. American and Italian studies have determined that one server can produce up to 5 tons of carbon dioxide. The energy consumption of a data center is equivalent to 1 percent of global energy demand. Data centers that host websites sit alongside the clouds we use every day in this consumption. Messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram are capable of producing 50 grams of CO2. By sending 20 messages a day for a year we get the same consumption as cars that have traveled 1,000 kilometers.
Virtuous behaviors
From 2018 to 2020. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google emitted more tons of CO2 than the Czech Republic. Moving in the opposite direction and investing in renewable energy has become mandatory. When we create a site and publish it on the Internet, it needs to be fast and efficient to make sure it consumes less. We need to reduce the amount of resources used and make sure that the files that we employ are actually needed, eliminating unnecessary ones, and optimizing images by reducing their weight (this can be done without compromising quality).
Having a site that gets straight to the point and allows for user friendly navigation is critical. It has also become important from the perspective of SEO positioning. Eco-sustainability is connected with usability and positioning through content made easy to find, improved information architecture, and optimization of Core Web Vitals.
Investing in renewable energy while lowering environmental costs
Many hosting giants are using the green route as a standard business proposition around the world. Yet, in Italy there is not yet a number of service providers with these characteristics, as opposed to, for example, Holland and Germany. Foundations such as The Green Web Foundation is used as a reliable source as to whether our site is using fossil or renewable energy.
As a real commitment to this issue, No Digital Brain is committed to using only green hosting for clients who want to decide to entrust us with their sites. How much does it cost? Nothing. The hosting service is given free to all customers who purchase any WordPress support and maintenance package. As green hosts we seek to promote the environmentally sustainable digitization. This is possible not only by using renewable energy sources, using raw materials that have a low environmental impact and taking advantage of circular economy principles. But also through worthy initiatives. Each site we take care of will further offset CO2 emissions through a new tree planted on Treedom and been entrusted to the client, who can monitor its growth and progress on a dedicated web page.
