The internet has a huge carbon footprint as servers at data centres need constant powering and cooling. Annually, the internet produces the same amount of carbon as Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangladesh, The Philippines, Sri Lanka and Mongolia combined, and digital consumption has overtaken the airline industry in terms of CO2 emissions.
Despite the impact of digital products on the environment, digital is hugely overlooked and underestimated within wider sustainability strategies. The Gov.uk website has a collection of resources surrounding climate change and the environment for local authorities, with documents relating to air quality, net-zero, waste and more, but none of these resources focus on the impact of digital products and services.
The lack of awareness surrounding the implications of digital on the environment means that local government bodies' sustainability credentials may not match up with wider physical commitments, but this needs to change. A single email can emit 10g of carbon, increasing to 50g if sent with an attachment. Hundreds, if not thousands, of emails, are likely to be sent and received within a single organisation each day. This is just one element to consider when thinking about our daily technology usage and its sustainability.
Although the internet and devices' high energy seems inevitable at the moment, there are steps councils can take to reduce their digital carbon footprint and turn the tide. First, it is crucial to benchmark and audit current practices before identifying areas for improvement.
Audit current impact of digital
Taking stock of how an organisation currently uses digital products and services not only highlights what can be improved but also allows public sector bodies to report progress to the public and stakeholders.
Benchmarking should consider how digital data is used and stored – for example, do emails have a retention policy or are there cloud servers full of documents that are now surplus to requirement? Storing unnecessary data is a key carbon emitter and something that can be cleared out over time if good habits are instilled, such as deleting all emails over two or three years old and checking for duplicate files each time a folder is opened.
Websites are another element that needs to be considered to minimise environmental impact. The more complex a webpage is, the more polluting it has the potential to be. For example, large images, videos and certain colours can put more strain on the bandwidth, therefore using more energy and emitting more carbon. Webpage carbon output can be measured using an online Website Carbon Calculator and this should be done at the outset of a sustainability journey as it will reveal how energy-intensive the site is and identify whether it is being hosted sustainably. But even then the true footprint of a websites creation and usage needs to be considered.
Servers and hosting
The amount of energy needed to keep servers running can be huge, and the carbon footprint of which cannot be easily offset all together. One of the easiest, and most impactful ways for an organisation to minimise its impact, is to aim for green-powered data centres.
The environmental impact of powering and cooling data centres is becoming more recognised and major hosts have adapted to this over the years. Microsoft, Google and Amazon all claim to use at least 50% renewable energy to power servers, so there are reliable options for local authorities looking to improve their credentials.
Hosting services should have sustainability statements and to ensure their legitimacy, digital teams need to check whether their existing or prospective host has meaningful statements of green energy in both data centres and other buildings and wider policies in energy efficiency, electronic waste and travel. These should be tangible, measurable and free of vague or unsubstantiated statements.
Another decision for organisations to consider is if they use a dedicated or cloud server. Cloud-based servers are the eco-friendlier option, as well as more cost-effective, but may not be appropriate in every case.
The Green Web Foundation has a directory of sustainable hosts, which is a good place to look if an existing host isn’t committed to being green.
Technical fixes
If local authorities can design and build their digital services in a way that stops servers from working so hard, the amount of energy used will significantly decrease, and it is possible to do this without impacting the overall user experience.
Simplifying and optimising code will reduce loading times and using Content Delivery Networks (CDN’s) to cache and delivers copies of stored pages or resources rather than having to download them from the originating server each time. Another way of reducing bandwidth strain is optimising the website to require fewer or bundled requests.
Content optimisations
If content is easily accessible and understandable on a website, less time will be spent finding and viewing it, reducing carbon emissions. Streamlined user experience, clear and concise information and improved search engine optimisation will allow local authorities to achieve this. This will bring secondary benefits of making the website more visible and easy to use. Digital teams should also be mindful of their use of images and videos on websites as these are top polluters.
Conclusion
Public bodies need to lead by example in the fight against climate change, but not paying attention to digital sustainability can hamper otherwise solid sustainability strategies. However, there is a current lack of environmental responsibility accreditations or central government advice that recognsie digital as a key player in terms of sustainability, and this needs to be addressed to raise awareness within digital teams.
Giving decarbonisation a greater place in environment, social and governance statements will align the two strands and help local governments make meaningful impacts on their carbon footprints.
Simon Wissink is account director at Nexer Digital
