Defining sustainability and systems-thinking
The term sustainability can be found everywhere in everyday life and is used in many different contexts. Be it in marketing, to present a product or service as environmentally friendly, or in the demands of environmental activists who want to save the world from the climate crisis. But what does sustainability even mean exactly? The most frequently cited definition was published by the Brundtland Commission in 1987 in „Our Common Future“ and reads:
“Sustainable development meets the need of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need.”
In my opinion, this is a good definition to work with because it is formulated in such a way that it is generally applicable to everything. The International Institute for Sustainable Development notes the following to the definition by the Brundtland Commission:
“All definitions of sustainability development require that we see the world as a system – a system that connects space; and a system that connects time. When you think of the world as a system over space, you grow to understand that air pollution from North America affects air quality in Asia […]. And when you think of the world as a system over time, you start to realize that [… ] the economic policies we endorse today will have an impact on urban poverty when our children are adults.”
This note describes the systems-thinking approach, which is already adopted by many sustainability professionals in different disciplines. I think systems-thinking could help in achieving digital sustainability. If you want to know more about systems-thinking and how you can combine it with design thinking, check out this article by Santhosh Gandhi: How does systems-thinking help design thinking.1
The Web’s evolution and the impact of page weight, load times, and the hidden costs of sustainability
In 1994, the internet boasted a mere 3,000 websites. Fast forward to 2019, and that number skyrocketed to an estimated 1.7 billion websites. During the period spanning 2003 to 2019, the average size of a webpage expanded significantly from around 100 KB to approximately 4 MB (1MB = 1000 KB). The average load time for a webpage on mobile was 4,3 seconds in 2013. By October 2019, the loading time for a webpage reached an average of 10,3 seconds on desktops and 27,3 seconds on mobile devices. And people absolutely hate slow web pages. In 2018, Google research found that 53% of mobile site visitors left a page that took longer than 3 seconds to load. Further emphasizing the impatience of users, a 2015 study uncovered correlations between webpage loading times and user engagement. A site loading in 3 seconds experienced 22% fewer page views, a 50% higher bounce rate, and 22% fewer conversions compared to a site loading in 1 second. The disparity widened for sites taking 5 seconds to load, with a 35% reduction in page views, a 105% higher bounce rate, and 38% fewer conversions.
Mainly images and videos are to blame for this skyrocketing of webpage weight and load time. Even though it’s said that a picture paints a thousand words, it still weighs more and requires more energy than text. 1000 words of text weighs about 6 KB and a well optimized picture takes 40 KB but a poorly optimized images can weigh several megabytes. A 30-seconds video, on the other hand, could easily weigh 3 MB. So text is the most environmentally friendly way to communicate on the Internet.
But it’s not simply about page weight. For example, third-party websites or apps are just like a type of Trojan Horse. You think you’re accessing one website or app, but then all the third-parties start accessing you and start feeding you content or demanding to be fed (mostly personal) data. As an example, The New York Times has 64 third-party software on their website. Ultimately by accessing their webpage, you access or give access to 64 additional webpages.
There is also a tremendous amount of out of data content and poorly written, out of data code. For example, by cleaning up its JavaScript code, Wikipedia estimated that they saved 4.3 terabytes a day of data bandwidth for the visitors. In the end, there is an awful load of more to consider when thinking about sustainability on the Internet.2
Conclusion
As far as the conclusion is concerned, I would like to provide a summary of key aspects in bullet points:
- Consider adopting a systems-thinking approach for digital sustainability.
- Be mindful of the environmental impact of webpage weight and load times.
- Optimize images, videos, and code for efficiency to reduce data usage.
- Evaluate and minimize the use of third-party elements to enhance user privacy.
- Regularly update and clean up code to improve overall website performance and sustainability.
