How to Design and Build More Sustainable Websites – Nick Lewis
summary
Glacier loss: 1.5 cubic kilometres of ice lost from 2017–2024 (about 590,000 Olympic pools) and the internet emits ~2–4% of global greenhouse gases, now rising with AI; concrete fixes include reducing node packages (example: 1,700+ installs trimmed), building locally instead of cloud IDEs, subsetting fonts and using system fonts, preferring WebP/AVIF and responsive images, and switching to renewable-hosted CDNs. Live work uses the electricitymaps API to deliver grid-aware sites (Branch Magazine example) and measurement via Software Carbon Intensity (SCI), co2.js and Firefox energy profiler.
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chapters (16)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:25Personal sustainability journey
- 4:20Internet carbon footprint
- 7:51Sustainable design mindset
- 11:40Sustainability as creative lens
- 13:25Optimizing tools and hardware
- 15:28Design systems efficiency
- 16:52Lower-carbon development
- 19:38AI’s sustainability role
- 21:03Energy-efficient UX design
- 23:29Greening hosting and energy
- 26:37Sustainability guidelines
- 27:19Grid-aware websites
- 30:53Measuring digital carbon
- 35:03Quick wins and green champion
- 36:28Closing and call to action
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