why have an Eco Mode?

Current climate pledges will lead us to a post-1.5° society. A reduction of 42% in greenhouse gas emissions is needed to reach the 1.5° pathway according to the UN. In this light of these alarming figures, the carbon footprint of digital technologies is a growing concern. Since Post-X Society has just started as an organization, we are still developing our presence on the web. Do we really need a website? We are still not entirely convinced, since most websites are graveyards of long gone projects. But given the benefit of doubt, now that we are building a website what opportunities are there to promote sustainable web practices? One way that came out of a brainstorm is to feature an 'Eco Mode' toggle switch on our website.

Eco Mode: Towards Lower Data Transfer

The primary function of the current Eco Mode on our website is to trigger a conversation over digital sustainability. Second, when its activated, it replaces all large media elements with minimalist SVG vector images. If implemented consistently across our website in the next version, it would reduce data transfer and, consequently, energy consumption. We are still figuring out whether this is significant, and what terms or measure to use to express this.

Our Current Sustainable Design Choices

Beyond Eco Mode, our website is already designed with sustainable practices in mind:

• No Database Usage: Our website operates without a database, minimizing energy consumption typically required for data storage and retrieval.
• Privacy-First, No Tracking: We respect privacy and do not track visitors, reducing unnecessary data processing and storage.
• CO2 Neutral Hosting: We host our website on a CO2-neutral platform, which is a partner of the Green Web Foundation.

Next Steps to Promote Eco-Friendly Web Practices

We're planning several improvements:

• Implement on all pages: currently the toggle switch is only promoted on our home page
• Reducing Unused CSS Styles: we use CSS libraries, but we could streamline the coding to eliminate excess energy usage.
• Preventing Video Preloading: Only load videos only when needed.
• Creating a WordPress Plugin: We want to bring the Eco Mode to WordPress by developing a plugin that enables other websites to adopt the samen eco-friendly feature easily.

Reflecting on Greenwashing

We're cautious of the greenwashing trap. We understand that Eco Mode and our other sustainable practices are part of a larger, necessary conversation about environmental responsibility. Website owners should not stop there, we are still far from the 1.5° path. Our goal with the Eco Mode is also not to overstate the impact, but to use it to raise awareness, inspiring more eco-conscious design decisions.

The Eco Mode toggle is also confronting the website visitor with the issue of digital environmental impact and their ability to make a choice. This aligns with our goal to promote technological citizenship: hopefully one day we all feel and get meaningful agency over the means we use to connect over the internet.