Corporate IT is coming under increased scrutiny as a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Some estimates suggest that data centres account for at least 2% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide – and this figure is set to treble within the next decade.
Calls for sustainable operations have helped to drive the adoption of cloud platforms and hosted services, allowing businesses to reduce the environmental impact of their on-premise data centres. And the corporate website is often one of the first assets to be moved off-site.
However, simply moving the physical location of your corporate website does nothing to shrink its actual carbon footprint – especially if you don’t specifically choose eco web hosting. The footprint is often much larger than people realise.
The good news is that a properly optimised website and green web hosting can dramatically reduce a site's carbon footprint. It will also improve your site's performance and save you money on hosting fees.
How much CO2 does a website produce?
We recently developed a new website for one of our clients and took the opportunity to assess its environmental impact. The existing site attracted a respectable 10,000 page views every month.
According to our site analytics, however, each webpage view produced an estimated 3.54g of carbon dioxide (CO2) – or 35.4kg over twelve months. It would take ten trees a whole year to absorb this amount of greenhouse gas. Notably, the site was not using green web hosting services in the UK.
How can we shrink the carbon footprint?
Fortunately, there are ways to substantially shrink the carbon footprint of any website.
First, the site was migrated to our eco web hosting service. Our carbon-neutral web hosting platform offsets all CO2 emissions created by the data centre, dramatically reducing the website’s environmental impact.
As part of our Statamic web hosting service, we then implemented a content distribution network to reduce the load on servers – both in our data centre and across the wider internet. We also used Minify to reduce image file sizes, removed unnecessary code and widgets and optimised the back-end database, reducing overall server load.
Doing so has also reduced the amount of energy required to serve web pages. And the less energy our servers use, the less greenhouse gases are produced in the web hosting process.
How big an improvement can be achieved?
So how much impact will these eco web hosting efforts have? Analysis of the all-new website showed that each page view now produces just 0.50g of CO2 – an 85% improvement. This means that moving forward, just three trees are needed to offset the greenhouse emissions.
Importantly, the site is running on completely renewable energy sources for completely carbon neutral web hosting. Monogram is committed to expanding our eco web hosting effects, investing in rewilding and tree planting programs to offset the carbon emissions that still (unavoidably) exist in our environmentally friendly web hosting service.
The website enhancements are not purely environmental either. Replacing the underlying hosting platform has significantly reduced page loading time and improved overall performance. Technology stack improvements were combined with on-page enhancements to further reduce bounce rates and increase conversions. The re-engineered website is now better for the environment – and the customer’s customers.
Eco web hosting doesn’t mean a second-class service
Helping to save the planet doesn’t mean sacrificing your core requirements. We guarantee 99% uptime and the same, if not faster, site speeds as your current provider.
Every Statamic web hosting package from Monogram includes an automatic site back-up and restore service, SSL certificates and 24/7 monitoring as standard. Fully scalable, our solutions grow as you do. You can expect:
Fast, robust and secure hosting built on market-leading technologies
Tuned to your requirements
Global Content Delivery Network (CDN) to accelerate performance
Human support (no call queues or annoying robots)
To maintain optimal performance we also offer custom maintenance packages which ensure your website is kept up to date, secure and performance tuned. These steps are essential for effective SEO, guarantees your users have the best experience possible and keeps your impact on the environment to a minimum.
Is eco web-hosting more expensive?
Would you be interested to learn how we can help you reduce the carbon footprint of your existing website? Often significant improvements can be achieved through relatively small changes. Our Eco Web Hosting packages can be customised to the specific needs of your business.
Making positive change isn’t always easy and can take time. But there’s never a been a better (or more important) time to start than now. Contact the Monogram team today to learn more about eco web hosting and how your business – and the planet – wins.