Green Web Design and Hosting

You recycle, you shop online instead of wasting gas going from store to store, you carpool, and you even telecommute.  You are saving the environment so much wear and tear that you should get a tax credit or something.  Before you congratulate yourself too much, though, take a minute to think about your web design.  What does green web design have to do with the environment?  Many people don’t realize that it has a lot to do with it.

How Can Web Design Be Green

Our online lives take up 868 billion kWh of electricity each year worldwide.  Over 22 billion of that is spent on email alone.  In 2007, almost ten percent of Americans’ total electric consumption was guzzled up by the internet.  This includes the equipment and infrastructure with which it operates.  We know that driving our cars adds to greenhouse emissions in the atmosphere, but who would have thought that checking your email or conducting a search would too?

But it doesn’t have to.  The internet is arguably the most important technological invention ever, and yet it has lagged behind in green technology until only recently when green web design and hosting were introduced.  How can web design be green?

Why Green Web Design?

It is about more than the final product.  Green web designers use technologies and equipment that are energy-efficient and produce far less waste than traditional products.  They create websites that are streamlined and easy to navigate so readers don’t waste time (and energy) fruitlessly searching for what they want.  Less carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous oxide are release into the atmosphere with green web design.  Choosing hosts that are green also effectively cuts emission of harmful toxins.

Every little bit counts.  When you recycle, when you carpool, and when you provide a green website for your customers, clients, and readers, it helps us inch one bit closer to a cleaner world.  We may as well start by cleaning up our virtual world.