What is an Eco-Friendly Website? Why Do You Need One? [With free assessment]

Your website is more than likely essential to your business. It’s where customers flock to you in droves, keeps users up to date with company news and creates a steady stream of purchases.

But here’s the thing that might shock you. The same website doing all that good for your business is also doing a lot of bad to the planet. The tech needed to keep your site up and running accounts for nearly 4% of global CO2 emissions.

And with consumers increasingly opting for businesses with greener approaches, an eco-friendly website makes a lot of sense in the current climate. Below, we’ll run through what an eco-friendly website looks like, the damage that yours might be doing, and how you can make the switch to greener pastures with a little help from BANC.

What is an Eco-Friendly Website?

An eco-friendly website is a website that’s been optimised so its processes and functions serve to reduce carbon emissions around the world. Everything from its design and development to its hosting and SEO tactics, have been held up to the light to see how they can be executed more sustainably.

How Websites Impact the Environment

There’s no shortage of worrying looking numbers where the internet and the environment meet. Not to be bleak, but here are some of the key stats that emphasise how much damage websites can do to the world:

• Back in 2019, it was reported that the internet’s annual carbon footprint was 830 million tons – that’s the same as the aviation industry!
• The average website creates 1.76g of carbon every time a single page is viewed
• The data centres needed for internet use are expected to consume 20% of the world’s electricity in 2025

The Importance of Sustainability in Business

As well as reducing their contributions to the numbers above, businesses increasing their sustainability efforts can benefit in all sorts of different ways, including:

• Attracting more customers: Greener businesses have a competitive advantage over those shunning sustainability. As consumer awareness of the climate crisis increases, it’s these greener businesses that are going to be the more attractive option. Better yet, these consumers are usually loyal to a brand they feel a kinship with, rewarding your efforts with long-term custom well into the future.

• Attracting and retaining employees: The same goes for potential candidates. A company with strong sustainability practices goes a long way for like-minded people, who’ll be proud to stick with a company that shares the same values.

• Improved compliance: With Government measures in place to reduce waste and carbon emissions, non-compliance could result in fines. And there’s going to be some damage to the reputation of any business that’s behind the times in this way.

• Increased investment: A progressive, proactive approach to sustainability could help make potential investors take note – they could even be the driving financial force behind plans you’ve yet to put into motion. Either way, showing your involvement in sustainability is definitely a good look. 

• Avoid greenwashing claims: The increase in the awareness of sustainability means that greenwashing is on the rise too. What is greenwashing? It’s when brands and business make misleading claims about their products or services’ sustainability, distracting from the good intentions and actions of legitimately green businesses. With a green website, you’ll be able to legitimately wear your eco-credentials on your sleeve, without leading any of your customers astray.
  
• Cost savings: A green website is an energy efficient one, something that’ll help you save money in the long term by reducing waste, and slashing your hosting and operating costs.

How to get an Eco-Friendly Website

When your business has so many different responsibilities to attend to, it can be hard to find the time and resource needed to turn your energy-guzzling website into a green machine.

So what can you do? Our new Eco Audit product takes care of a lot of the work for you. We’ve teamed up with the Eco-Friendly Web Alliance (EFWA) so that we can help businesses like yours let their websites emit less than 1g of carbon for every page load.

We’ll submit your website to the EFWA (for free), and then investigate the areas that aren’t as green as they could be.

Our teams will then action the changes needed, and you’ll be fully accredited by the EFWA for your new-found eco-friendly website. And thanks to full training on green best practices and ongoing monitoring, our team will make you hold onto your accreditation year after year. We’ll even identify further opportunities to enhance compliance even further.

Contact Us for a Free Assessment

Ready to get started with that eco-friendly website? Get in touch with us below and we’ll assess the sustainability of your website for free!

Need help with in-depth, innovative solutions to your digital marketing issues? We’d love to hear from you! Head here for more info or give us a call on 0345 459 0558 – one of our experts will get back to you to discuss your pain points further as soon as they can.