How to Create Climate Neutral Software?
Climate neutrality means that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced as much as possible and compensated for any remaining emissions. In other words, climate neutral software aims to create applications and websites that emit the least amount of greenhouse gases and compensate for the remainder of the environmental impact caused by them.
Many tech companies and developers are making climate-neutral software their top priority to reduce carbon emissions and create a healthier and greener industry. You can learn more about it in this article, which will be useful when creating websites or applications that play a significant part in our daily lives.
Top 7 Ways to Reduce Your Software’s Carbon Footprint
With the climate change crisis, developers and the industry as a whole started taking initiatives to reduce the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. By focusing on the efficiency and performance of the apps or websites you create, you can reduce the amount of carbon accumulating in the atmosphere. Here are seven ways you can make it happen.
- Boost Your Software’s Performance
- Shift Your Software to the Cloud
- Reduce the File Size
- Switch to A More Effective Programming Language
- Employ Green Hosting Services
- User-friendly PWA Cache Files
- Establish A Sustainable SEO Strategy
1. Boost Your Software’s Performance
Optimising the performance or efficiency of your digital products is one of the main aspects you can take care of to reduce emissions. The environmental footprint can be decreased over time by lowering energy consumption through performance, server, or data transmission optimisation. If you can do it, you can create sustainable software.
Furthermore, focusing on the efficiency and productivity of websites and applications not only reduces CO2 emissions but also provides a high-quality user experience. Here are some tips on how you can improve your software’s performance:
- If you use an accelerated mobile page framework, your website’s content will load more quickly on mobile devices because there will not be any extra code or large files.
- Reduce the number of plugins on your website and use performance tests to determine which ones are no longer required, are causing your website to load slowly, or can be removed.
- Reduce the number of redirects or remove them entirely by identifying them with scanning tools (such as the Screaming Frog tool) and leaving only the necessary ones.
- Reduce the server response time, as it has the biggest influence on how long your page loads.
2. Shift Your Software to the Cloud
Cloud computing, or moving your software to the cloud, is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint. You can save up to 30% of your overall infrastructure costs even with a partial migration to the cloud and reduce up to 84% of your carbon emissions. Also, by using cloud computing, you can use resources only when needed, resulting in lower power consumption.
3. Reduce the File Size
Another option is to reduce the file size by removing unnecessary animations or outdated code from your web or app development. WebP images are one of the most optimal file formats. It reduces the images by about 26% compared to PNG files and by about 30% compared to JPEG files. In general, the heavier your files, the more data will be transferred, and the more electricity will be consumed, which leads to loads of emissions.
4. Switch to A More Effective Programming Language
There are many efficient programming languages available. And each of them differs in terms of the amount of energy consumed. So, if you are a developer, you choose more energy-efficient languages for green software development. There are notable differences in the energy consumption of the 27 languages, according to numerous research studies that have been conducted.
- For instance, Javascript consumes about seven times as much energy as PHP.
- As a web language, Javascript performs fairly well.
- C or C++ are among the most effective programming languages.
5. Employ Green Hosting Services
Another crucial decision is choosing a renewable energy-driven web hosting service to reduce your carbon footprint. It has a tremendous impact on energy efficiency and website performance. Green hosting services can contribute to a sustainable environment through renewable energy or carbon offsets. You know that renewable energy comes from natural resources that replenish themselves naturally. So using them does not require burning fossil fuels and provides efficient and clean energy.
6. User-friendly PWA Cache Files
You should have heard about PWAs, or Progressive Web Apps, which are designed to run on any platform, whether a desktop or mobile device. This type of app allows the user to cache files on their device. As a result, the amount of data loaded rapidly decreases, reducing carbon emissions. It is very beneficial to the users and helps create a sustainable environment.
7. Establish A Sustainable SEO Strategy
The last piece of advice is to use a sustainable SEO approach when developing climate neutral software. Despite appearances, it will have a significant environmental impact and contribute significantly to carbon reduction. Users spend less energy searching for the information they need when they use a more precise internet search to find pages and content that meet their needs and answer their questions.
A lot of organisations are starting down the road to zero carbon emissions. You’ve read about the various ways you can create climate neutral software. But it is important to measure and evaluate your current position before making such plans. You will be better able to identify situations where energy-efficient technologies will be more effective and where greener energy sources can be helpful.
After that, what you should do is optimise the energy consumption and improve the efficiency of the software using the methods mentioned above. The transformation will not happen right away, but it will be worthwhile in the end.
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Hi, my name is Rahil. I work at YUHIRO Global and I help web agencies and software companies from Europe to build developer teams in India.