How local authorities can align their digital sustainability credentials with existing physical sustainability philosophy

Simon Wissink, account director at Nexer Digital

Environmental sustainability has become a widely discussed topic and is frequently included in many agendas, whether it be public discourse, business strategy, or more political sources, such as local government. There is now a greater expectation for everyone to do their part in environmental conservation, as well as a desire for transparency of contributions made.

Many authorities are meeting this expectation, with pledges and policies aimed at reducing carbon footprint whenever possible. While steps are being taken to reduce physical impacts on the environment, such as investment in renewable energy, recycling initiatives and more, digital impact is rarely considered. With net zero goals becoming more essential than ever, local authorities must evaluate the environmental impact of their digital strategies.

The Gov.uk website has a collection of resources surrounding climate change and the environment for local authorities, with documents relating to air quality, net-zero, waste and more, but none of these resources specifically focus on the impact of digital products and services. There is an opportunity to consider the environmental impact of digital products and services, so that their true cost can be assessed and therefore improved.

The Internet emits an enormous amount of CO2 due to the sheer amount of energy needed to power, and cool down data centres. For scale, the internet generates more carbon emissions than Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangladesh, The Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Mongolia combined, and carbon output from digital consumption surpassing that of global airlines.

The lack of awareness surrounding the implications of digital on the environment means that local government bodies’ sustainability credentials may not match up with wider physical commitments, but this needs to change. A single email can emit 10g of carbon, increasing to 50g if sent with an attachment. Hundreds, if not thousands, of emails, are likely to be sent and received within a single organisation each day. This is just one element to consider when thinking about our daily technology usage and its sustainability.

Although the internet and devices’ high energy seems inevitable at the moment, there are steps councils can take to reduce their digital carbon footprint, and turn the tide. First, it is crucial to benchmark and audit current practices before identifying areas for improvement.

Audit the current impact of digital

The first step to decreasing digital carbon footprint is understanding ‘where we’re at’. Websites can be serious offenders for carbon output, mainly due to the large amount of data needed to load images, videos, and even certain colours every time a page is accessed by a user. For local government websites, that likely receive a lot of online traffic, if websites aren’t configured to serve content in a sustainable way, the impact can be huge.

In order to get a better idea of how carbon-intensive a homepage is, a Website Carbon Calculator can be used. This reveals how energy-intensive a webpage is and whether it is hosted using green energy and gives a starting benchmark to measure improvements against. Taking stock of how an organisation currently uses digital products and services not only highlights what can be improved but also allows public sector bodies to make improvements and report progress to the public and stakeholders.

Initial evaluations should also consider how digital data is used and stored. For example, organisations should consider whether or not emails have a retention policy and if unneeded files are regularly cleared out. Holding unnecessary data is a key carbon emitter, so it is good practice to minimise hoarding any redundant files or emails.

Servers and hosting

The amount of energy needed to keep servers running can be huge, and the carbon footprint of which cannot be easily offset all together. One of the easiest, and most impactful ways for an organisation to minimise its impact, is to aim for green-powered data centres.

Data centres, where servers that host websites are housed, are power-hungry facilities. As with commercial or residential buildings, data centres can use either fossil fuel or renewable energy and to keep carbon footprint to a minimum, organisations need to be looking for a host with green-powered servers. Google, Microsoft and Amazon are making progress with this, with servers powered by at least 50% renewable energy. Switching to data centres using sustainable energy sources is a recommended move for organisations that want to reduce carbon footprint.

Furthermore, moving away from dedicated servers to cloud-based ones is much more energy-efficient and is also often a more cost-effective option for consideration for local governments.

Hosting services should have sustainability statements and to ensure their legitimacy and digital teams need to check whether their existing or prospective host has meaningful statements of green energy in both data centres and other buildings, as well as wider policies in energy efficiency, electronic waste and travel. These should be tangible, measurable and free of vague or unsubstantiated statements. The supply chain for websites then becomes more transparent, and can then contribute towards overall sustainability commitments.

The Green Web Foundation has a directory of sustainable hosts, which is a good place to look if an existing host isn’t committed to being green.

Optimisation

Websites can use energy every time they’re loaded by a visitor and the more complicated the page is, the more energy intensive it is. Overuse of large images, autoplaying videos and poor optimisation can all have negative impacts.

Therefore it’s in the best interest of local authorities to ensure their webpages are optimised, not just from an enviro-friendly standpoint, but from a user-friendly one too. As public bodies, local government websites are required to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) but ensuring that content is architected in a way that enables users to find information quickly and digest it easily decreases the time spent on each webpage and supports better digital sustainability. Digital teams should also be mindful of their use of images and videos on websites as these are top polluters.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is another great method of optimisation, as it limits the amount of time a user spends searching for the pages they need, and limits repeat search engine searches which emit carbon each time.

By technically optimising websites, local authorities can stop servers from working so hard to keep them running effectively. This will then reduce the amount of energy used without impacting the overall user experience.

Reducing and minimising code can reduce loading times and caching delivers copies of stored pages or resources rather than having to download them from the originating server each time, this is also known as a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and will reduce the enerfy intensivity of websites. Another way of reducing bandwidth strain is optimising the website to require fewer or bundled requests.

Conclusion

Public bodies need to lead by example in the fight against climate change, but not paying attention to digital sustainability can hamper otherwise solid sustainability strategies. However, there is a current lack of environmental responsibility accreditations and central government resources that recognsie digital as a key player in terms of sustainability, and this needs to be addressed to raise awareness within digital teams.

Giving decarbonisation a greater place in environment, social and governance statements will align the two strands and help local governments make meaningful impacts on their carbon footprints.