Climate change. You only have to look at natural phenomena like typhoon Mangkhut in Hong Kong this past summer to see that the climate is changing. Even court recently ruled that our government should do more to combat climate change. More and more companies are trying to become greener and more energy-neutral. But what we often forget is that the websites we create and use are stored on servers that need energy to operate. Here we will explain how you can help make your website carbon neutral.
Calculate your carbon footprint
‘’How many CO₂ emissions do I have now?’’ That is a question we get from many customers. That is why we always start with measuring the carbon footprint. You can calculate your own carbon footprint easily at a variety of places online or you can use the tool on our own website to calculate your carbon footprint.
Your website carbon neutral
The disadvantage of calculators is that they do not include factors such as your website. Do you wonder why not? Honestly, because operating an individual website does not emit much CO₂. With shared hosting such as that offered by Mijndomein, your website is stored on a server with other sites. The servers are used as optimally as possible, so that as little energy as possible is needed. If you convert it to euros, it may cost a few euros a year. While the carbon footprint created by one website may not seem too bad, if you add all multiple small websites together the carbon footprint becomes much larger. Mijndomein already runs about 150,000 websites, and soon the carbon emissions caused by the internet will probably be worse than those caused by flying in an aeroplane.
What can you do to emit less CO₂?
The best way to make your website carbon neutral is to emit less CO₂. That is by far the best way to combat climate change. You can think of:
Tip 1: Switch to green energy.
Tip 2: Reduce the size of your website
The bigger your website is, the more MBs have to load, the more energy it costs, and therefore the more CO₂ emissions are created. See if you can reduce the size of your website. Maybe you can use another template or go through the website and eliminate pages. Also, you can use online tools like TinyPNG to make sure that the images you use are as small as possible.
Tip 3: Turn off your computer
Do not leave your computer (and other devices) on standby. Turn them off completely if you do not use them for long periods of time.
Tip 4: Turn off your screen
If you do not use your screen, set a screen saver that goes on after a certain number of minutes.
Even if you are taking steps to reduce your emissions, residual emissions often remain because you want to keep driving and your website has to stay online. That means you always keep emitting CO₂. There is a solution for the remaining emissions: you can compensate for your unavoidable emissions so that you can become completely carbon neutral.
Compensate for your CO₂ emissions and fight poverty
Once you calculate your remaining CO₂ emissions, you can buy carbon credits. By purchasing those credits, you are contributing to improving the climate and the lives of people in developing countries. Every measurably verified reduction of 1 ton of CO₂ in the atmosphere yields 1 CO₂ credit. At FairClimateFund, we help people in developing countries cook cleaner. We do this in a Fairtrade manner whereby the proceeds from the sale of the carbon credits are 100% for the benefit of the project itself, which is rare in the carbon market. Working with FairClimateFund to purchase carbon credits is a fair way to compensate for your CO₂ emissions.
Together we invest in better cookstoves in India
If you have a website at Mijndomein, then I have good news. Mijndomein makes your website carbon neutral. So you do not have to worry about how green your website is. With the support of Mijndomein, FairClimateFund gives more efficient cookstoves to many households in India. These cookstoves are better to cook with and they also reduce CO₂ emissions. Mijndomein compensates not only for its websites, but also for private lease cars for example.