If the internet was a country, would be the 4th largest polluter. [1]
Creative workers account for 3.8% of the European Union's workforce, working across 1.2 million businesses in industries such as advertising, design, publishing, music, photography, and music. [2]
Information and communication technology (ICT) is responsible for 5-9% of global electricity. [3][4]
If the average digital designer produces 1.36kG Co2 per day, that equates to 319kg per year. That's roughly the equivalent of that same designer taking a one-way flight from Amsterdam to Lisbon (338kg). [5]
Compressing or rendering at lower resolutions during a WIP review or concepting phase has the potential to save 54.6kg CO2 per person, per year. [6]
One average email. [6]
One text message. [6]
One KM in average car. [6]
The size of the average web page increased at least threefold from 2010 to 2018. [7]
The aesthetic principle discussed above is confirmed in a large number of design institutions As identities change and norms are challenged, institutionalized practices in the discipline of design history today are being questioned. [8]
We cannot articulate a new theory of form without also embodying in it new practices of perceiving, nor can we find conceptual support for new (artistic) expressions in form-acts where these new expressions we are searching for do not clearly emerge. [8]
Designers struggling to reconcile a commitment to sustainability with the demands of their chosen profession. [8]
To 'do design' differently, we need to take into account a range of issues involved. [8]
The main issue facing sustainability in web development is the choice of hosting, as green hosting services tend to be more expensive than mainstream options. [8]
There is a lack of public understanding and awareness of climate change and sustainability as a whole, and this is a significant barrier to implementing sustainable practices. [8]
Small positive changes in development workflow, like switching to greener hosting services, can have a positive impact on the environment. Communication and education with clients are key to implementing sustainable practices in web development. [8]
Website design choices such as visual complexity and heavy images can increase the energy consumption of a website, and minimalistic designs with text-heavy content may be more sustainable. [8]
Sustainability in web development is a process that requires ongoing learning and adaptation, developer should stay informed about best practices and continue to make changes to their workflow for greener website development. [8]
Enter a new era of digital ethics: one focused on tech sustainability, and the realization that digital activities have a real carbon cost. Increasingly, workers in the creative and digital sectors are becoming more selective of the clients they work with (especially the industries they operate in), the types of projects they take on, and the impact their work has on the planet. [8]
Stay sustainable
read more, offline.
This project aims to raise awareness about sustainability in the digital realm through a manifesto that highlights ten impacts of our footprint and proposes ten ways to address them. By doing so, it aims to demonstrate that our actions in any design project have repercussions.
Those who are interested in exploring the subject further and acquiring additional tools can delve deeper by downloading the guide.
This longer reading material is made available offline, reducing the energy consumption associated with web browsing.
↳ DOWNLOAD GUIDE
Digital sustainable
development.
"To 'do design' differently, we need to take into account a range of issues involved. (...) Societal and environmental challenges imply that design practice must change, but it is perhaps less obvious to what extent such change must also come at the level of foundational aesthetic concepts. (...) we cannot articulate a new theory of form without also embodying in it new practices of perceiving, nor can we find conceptual support for new (artistic) expressions in form-acts where these new expressions we are searching for do not clearly emerge. This has critical implications for how design can respond to the call for sustainable development.” [9]
If the internet were a country, it would be the fourth largest polluter in the world, among China, the United States, India, Russia, and Japan; according to 2020 data from the European Union's Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), which counts anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollution on Earth. Faced with this environmental impact, communication designers find it difficult to reconcile their commitment to sustainability and the demands of their profession.
Rethink, Refuse, Reduce seeks to raise designers awareness of digital sustainability through an online manifesto that provides access to a printable publication. The project website introduces 10 ecological impacts of design production and presents 10 ways to minimize or avoid them. The publication, in turn, appears as a way to minimize the energy consumption of the online component, providing additional guidance for sustainable design, or how to adapt design practice to reduce its ecological footprint, namely by combining print and digital media.
This goal is to highlight ways to “rethink” modes of action and production in design, to “reject” poorly sustainable practices, and to “reduce” the environmental impact of design, aiming at a sustainable practice.
This project was developed by Jéssica Caldeira
as part of the coursework for the classes Project II and Laboratory II,
within the Master's program in Communication Design at FBAUL,
during the academic year 2022/2023.
All textual contents based on the following references:
[1] Freitag et al., European Union's Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), TC's total emissions from a 2021 compared with fossil CO2 emissions by country, 2020.
[2] European Commission, Data on the cultural sector, 2023, https://culture.ec.europa.eu/policies/selected-themes/data-on-the-cultural-sector
[3] European Commission, 2022 Strategic Foresight Report, 2022, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52022DC0289&qid=1658824364827
[4] Charlotte Freitag et al.; The real climate and transformative impact of ICT: A critique of estimates, trends, and regulations; 2021, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666389921001884
[5] Sustainable Digital Design, The State Of Sustainable Digital Design, 2022, https://co2.myclimate.org/en/flight_calculators/new
[6] Are We Europe, 2023, https://climateissue.areweeurope.com/4/
[7] Solar Low-Tech Magazine, Offline Reading, 2021, https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/offline-reading/
[8] Web Development While Bearing The Planet In Mind by Andrea Facheris.
[9] Ramia Mazé, Share This Book, Critical perspectives and dialogues about design and sustainability, 2013
Every year, this website emits 485,55kg CO2, that's like charging your phone 59,191 times.
To reduce the ecological footprint, the following basic principles were used:
https://beta.backspace.eco
Dark mode: Low-light backgrounds. Using lighter colors in smaller highlights to achieve effective and fluid contrast reading, avoiding whites and blues which are the most energy wasting spectrums.
Font:System fonts were used - Trebuchet MS - require less energy to charge because they are already installed in the computers.
Images: It is free of animated images. There are no logos, icons or other decorative elements. All uploaded resources, including fonts and logos, are an additional demand on the server, requiring storage space and energy usage.
Offline contents: The main contents are offered offline, as an e-book, to be read on screen without using the internet, or with the possibility of home printing, in one color. Preferably on recycled paper or with a responsible production certificate.
Simple navigation: A simple navigation reduces the number of user clicks. The goal is to make the website clear and easy to navigate, so that the user doesn't have to go through so many pages to get what he or she needs.