So the story goes as follows: while discussing the upcoming version of our website, we talked about the need to assess sustainability on our website, specifically its carbon rating. This conversation took place around two months ago, and one decision we made was to test the waters with the old version (the one you’re still seeing at the time of this article’s publication).
If you’re a regular visitor, you probably have noticed some visual changes here and there, mostly on our homepage, but also on some of the article pages. Those changes weren’t random. They centered around three principles: SEO improvements, website speed, and sustainability.
We’re happy to say we succeeded in the first two, but were waiting for the sustainability report. And today, we’re happy and proud to announce we’ve achieved an A+ rating (the highest) with 91%. But guess what? 91% is not enough; we need to do more, so we now know what to do and have learned some new insights as we face our upcoming UI design.
Why are sustainability and carbon rating important?
As a UX company (yes, we’ll always be a UX company at heart), we must follow the principles and guidelines of UX. Just as there are rules for accessibility such as WebAIM, there’s another set of guidelines at the Sustainable Web Design Community Group. Part of these principles and guidelines can be found in the Sustainable Web Manifesto, which mentions six principles of sustainability:
- Clean
- Efficient
- Open
- Honest
- Regenerative
- Resilient
So this became kind of a mantra for us, and we focused on a more sustainable, ecological, and environmentally friendly user experience. And what better place to start than our own website?
And let’s be clear: we’re fully aware that carbon rating isn’t the only variable to measure. But in order to get to that rating, we had to perform a series of tasks that provided this great result.
I won’t lie to you: we’re not specialists in sustainability. We’re very well informed and still learning, just not experts. As in “we wouldn’t offer a sustainability assessment” to a client. We probably never will. But we’re at a point where we can tell other companies, “OK, you can do better in this or that area, perhaps get a professional assessment.” And we’re really happy that we got to that point in such a short amount of time.
We plan to write some guides and articles on the subject, so stay connected!
Key Points from Sustainability: We Got a Great A+ Carbon Rating with 91%
Don’t want to read everything? Here are the takeaways!
Context
- Website redesign discussion included SEO, speed, and sustainability.
- Visual changes tested on current site.
Results
- Achieved A+ carbon rating with 91%.
- Improvements successful in SEO and speed; sustainability still ongoing.
Principles
- Guided by Sustainable Web Manifesto: Clean, Efficient, Open, Honest, Regenerative, Resilient.
- Aim: sustainable, ecological, user-friendly experience.
Insights
- Not sustainability experts, but informed enough to suggest improvements.
- Future plans: publish guides and articles on sustainable web practices.