Posted by: Adam Weston
15 November 2022
After a few weeks of working with the Net Zero Now team and their platform, I am over the moon to say that GrowCreate is a Net Zero web agency.
We have been working with the climate action platform Net Zero Now to calculate its Greenhouse Gas emissions for 2020 and 2021. Although I initially thought I had a huge job ahead of me, it wasn't as difficult as I thought. The platform made the process very easy and after a discussion with my accounts team, I was able to extract the data I needed from Xero and a couple of other systems. The extra help I needed was provided by David Rothera from Net Zero Now team, who stepped in with guidance.
The platform created a reduction plan to cut emissions and compensate for any unavoidable emissions before setting a target date to become Net Zero. With two years of data and a tiny amount for offsetting we managed to reduce our emissions in 2021 and get certified to become Net Zero.
Net Zero is not enough!
It sounds like a Bond film and so it should! By focusing on Net Zero we have been actioning a longer-term strategy to become a Sustainable Web Design agency. We figured this would fit nicely with prospect and client goals for their own journeys to Net Zero. The challenge is how we integrate sustainable web design best practices into our design and development projects when digital teams value features over performance!
3 reasons why web performance optimisation is important for marketers
- Increased conversions
- Higher search engine rankings
- Lower hosting costs
Every second counts
Sounds like another Bond film, although I think it was a film about horses or even a game show! We know people hate to wait, so every fraction of a second counts. We consider scripts, fonts, and how we write code to reduce the CO₂ per page view.
That's right, for those that don't know, or haven't thought about it the internet consumes a lot of electricity. More than the UK on an annual basis. Carbon emissions are really high and improving the performance of your website can make a huge difference to your CO₂ per page view.
Measuring success is easy but allocating the budget means your efforts need to be quantified. The good news is that there are loads of stats available and here is one of the best.
If Amazon increased page load time by +100ms they lose 1% of sales
Many will know that Google made site speed a signal in their search ranking algorithm years ago, but many firms still prioritise features over performance. Maybe this is because the link between conversions, SEO, reduced hosting costs, and the environment don't tally.
If your website runs on one of our platforms and you want to reduce emissions for your web project, our team is available.
About Adam Weston
Adam is a founder of the GrowCreate Group of companies. Schedule your free strategy call and ask for Website Performance Optimisation. Email Adam at adam@growcreate.co.uk.