Green Websites, a Creative Excercise

The Question

You must have heard of Green Cars etc etc, have you heard of Green Website? I am sure everyone would have heard about green cars, which is atmosphere friendly etc but have you heard or aware of website which is atmosphere friendly, just trying to find if there is something like that which exist and how is it atmosphere friendly?¹

Our Answer

Our immediate thoughts bent more towards what one could do from the server side moreso than the user side, for example:

Internally (Energy used on the website’s end):

• serve less information: smaller pages, more compact or simple designs, less data transmitted means less energy used/required
• require less server side processes: design databases to minimize queries (one should be doing that already), serve cached rather than dynamic content (where possible), avoid flashy graphics, images, etc.
• simplify navigation or have a good search function to reduce the data stream
• designing with dark colours instead of bright or light colours reduces the amount of energy required to view ones website on a monitor. Over at Blackle² there is a good description of this.

Externally(Energy used by the website user)

• block javascript, images, advertisments, etc etc
• use stylish or other client side css managers to change the colour scheme of frequently visited websites

An interesting question nonetheless!

Do you have any recommendations for making a website “environmentally friendly”?

¹ Linkedin: Market Research and Definition

² Blackle