
Environment-friendly Web Designing

Environmentally-friendly website designing
When you are concerned about the environment together with your business, this might not be surprising news for you that your website might do more harm to the environment than you can imagine. Developing an eco-friendly website design makes a massive difference to the carbon footprint. There are many ways in which websites consume energy. All visitors coming to the website are consuming energyto read the content. The hosting provider runs the servers 24/7, and they have to be powered. If you have spent time maintaining and editing the website, you must have spent energy. The web design agency also adds to the carbon footprint because they work on the site.
Here are certain steps you can take to decrease the carbon footprint:

1. Select eco-friendly web hosting providers
All websites need hosting over a server. As you are a consumer, you have practically no input on how a hosting provider works. But you can select the right host for your site. You can find many great "green" website hosting providers across the web that help create eco-friendly website design. Some providers use wind energy for powering their hosting services. When you select an eco-friendly web hosting provider or offset the hosting provider's carbon footprint, it is a terrific way of moving toward an eco-friendly website design. Azure and AWS (twoleading cloud providers) are transitioning to renewable energy in the next 5 – 10 years.

2. Select an eco-friendly web design agency
The most important step you can take towards creating an eco-friendly website design is by working with an eco-friendly web design agency such as Semantic. When you are working together with Semantic, you can be sure that they are an agency that understands your green requirements and objectives. Semantic is always looking to reduce its carbon footprint as it is a way of improving a vital aspect of its operations.

3. Website optimization
Everybody is aware of the impact efficiency has on energy bills. Lighting, domestic appliances, and cars alike, efficient products use lesser energy and decrease the carbon footprint. This same thing applies to the website, and it is a documented fact. When you optimise your site for speed and responsiveness, it significantly decreases the time required for loading every page. The optimized images will use less energy while downloading. Improvement in navigation helps visitors with the target they have in mind by clicking through fewer pages. If you can remove any older and outdated content, resources and empty the recycle bin in your CMS. It decreases the strain on the servers and will increase the website's speed.

4. Measure the carbon emissions
For reducing the carbon emissions generated from a site, you need first to know how much. There are tools available online that allow you to find out CO2 emissions for every page view. When you are aware of the traffic volumes, you can find out about the annual CO2 emissions and energy consumption. Using these tools, you can also check your competitors' performance in terms of carbon emissions.

5. Minimize the data transfer
After you have become aware of the carbon emissions generated by your company website and how they measure up with other websites, you will have to find ways of reducing them. The key is data transfer. It is straightforward. The more data your website sends back and forth, the greater the website energy consumption and higher CO2 emissions. There are many ways of tackling this problem. First, find out the ways of reducing the page weight. Secondly, try to reduce unnecessary traffic to the site. It may sound crazy, but you want the right kind of traffic, right? People often land on a page that is not relevant to their search, and they navigate away from the page immediately. It increases the bounce rate of your website.

Running an eco-friendly website
- Select an eco-friendly web hosting provider.
- Stay with simpler designs.
- Choose green energy to power the work environment.
- Educate everyone concerned about the carbon footprint.
- Keep in mind to make the content printer-friendly.
- Decrease the site loading speed to make your website faster.

Semantic environmental policies
- Work from home alternative for the employees.
- Carbon offsetting. More than 100 tons of carbon per year are removed due to company initiatives.
- Semantic sponsors planting more than 1500 trees every year.
Conclusion