The carbon footprint of the website

With Teinture Sauvage, I try to make dyeing as natural and ecological as possible. This desire and my convictions inform my entire dyeing process:

• that of the dye itself, by not using alum, for example,
• the resources required for dyeing: water and electricity.

The creation and existence of a website brought me face to face with my contradictions. But I’ve done my best to keep the site’s ecological footprint as small as possible.

The environmental impact of digital technology is now well established

We all know that Internet use has a major impact on the environment.

On the scale of this page, the little badge in the header shows us the ecological impact of its display.

On a global scale, a few figures, taken from a very enlightening infographic (link in french), albeit a little dated, make the head spin:

• the Internet’s footprint in 2015 corresponds to the annual production of 40 nuclear power plants,
• Every day, Google searches generate 7 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of 7 years’ heating for a three-bedroom apartment,
• in 2014, the footprint of e-mails sent corresponded to that of 3.1 million motorists.

Recently, the “Guide de l’Ademe sur la face cache du numérique” (link in french) explains that tne carbon footprint of digital is diveded between :

• the appliances we use (47% of these emissions)
• travel and data storage (53%).

With the creation and existence of a website, I contribute to 53% of digital greenhouse gases. Should I give up?

I’m seizing this opportunity to take my share of responsibility.

I acted in two ways:

• By choosing Planethoster, a French-Canadian hosting company committed to environmental responsibility. This commitment is validated by the independent Dutch organization, The Green Web Fundation.

• By creating this site (or asking for it to be created!) with only the necessary functionalities. As a result, I’ve dispensed with features that could have given the site a more dynamic design, enabled comments or allowed you to e-mail me directly via a contact form.

As you’ve probably noticed, photography is as much a passion as plants. So I couldn’t bring myself to reduce the number of photos on the site, both in the articles and on the gallery page. I’m comforted to read that videos account for the lion’s share of data flows that generate digital pollution.

Although there is room for improvement, this site has a small ecological footprint

Website Carbon Calculator calculates the ecological footprint of each web page. This site provides a small header badge indicating the amount of CO2 emitted by a single view of this page.

For teinturesauvage.fr, tests were carried out on April 16, 2023. They may vary slightly depending on the date on which they were produced. You can consult these results for :

• home page, 0.02 g CO2 per view
• the most polluting page, unsurprisingly the photo gallery , 0.07 g of CO2 per view
• the least polluting page, 0.01 g of CO2 per view.

These results are confirmed by Ecograder, another website that measures the ecological impact of a site.

We can always do better, but I’m pleased to note three things:

• on the one hand, the web pages tested emit an average of 0.5 g of CO2 (as at 16/04/2023), whereas the home page of this site produces 0.02 g, i.e. 25 times less.
• on the other hand, the site is one of the 2% least polluting
• finally, the site’s annual consumption in relation to current visitor numbers emits 2.62 kg of CO2. It is equivalent to the consumption of an electric vehicle travelling 44 km. Even if the site isn’t as user-friendly, it’s far less polluting than a trade show.

By minimizing the ecological footprint of this site, I feel I’m remaining demanding and consistent.