{"id":1561,"date":"2020-04-01T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/?post_type=journal-article&p=1561"},"modified":"2022-05-12T17:35:17","modified_gmt":"2022-05-12T22:35:17","slug":"the-pedagogy-of-sustainable-web-design","status":"publish","type":"journal-article","link":"https:\/\/ic4ml.org\/pt-pt\/journal-article\/the-pedagogy-of-sustainable-web-design\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pedagogy of Sustainable Web Design"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Abstract<\/strong>: As education increasingly emphasizes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), many media educators may choose to promote skills-based technology curricula as a substitute for critical forms of media literacy. This poses a challenge for media educators who are trying to incorporate environmental issues into their pedagogical practice. As a website designer, I have wondered how my work contributes to the climate crisis, and more important, if there’s anything I can do to reduce the carbon footprint of the websites I create. What I’ve learned not only shows me how I can create more eco-friendly websites, it also suggests how educators can encourage students to investigate the environmental impact of new media technology while they learn technological skills. Since media production is an important component of teaching media, media educators often create their own web-based projects or assign them to their students. These can become ecomedia literacy projects by 1) investigating the environmental impact of websites, 2) using critical media literacy skills to verify environmental claims made by tech companies, and 3) learning and implementing best practices of sustainable web design to minimize the carbon emissions associated with student and faculty websites. At the very least, students can be challenged to evaluate the environmental footprint of their web-based projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keywords<\/strong>: carbon footprint, internet, data centers, green webhosting, sustainable web design<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download full article pdf >><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Like many people, I spend a lot of time on the internet.  But as a website designer, it\u2019s my job to encourage other people to spend time on the internet (or at least, on my clients\u2019 websites).  I\u2019ve begun to wonder how my work contributes to the climate crisis, and more importantly, if there\u2019s anything I can do to reduce the carbon footprint of the websites I create.  What I\u2019ve learned not only shows me how I can create more eco-friendly websites, it also suggests how educators can encourage students to investigate the environmental impact of new media technology while they learn technological skills. As formal education increasingly emphasizes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), many media educators may choose to promote skills-based technology curricula as a substitute for critical media literacy. The proliferation of digital media production tools \u2013 accessible online, easy to use, packed with features and often free \u2013 creates a powerful temptation to see media education simply as training in digital media production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I worked some years ago as a media literacy educator, I always advocated teaching media production skills \u2013 writing<\/em> media \u2013 as an essential component of media literacy education, and I often struggled with colleagues more interested in teaching media analysis and evaluation \u2013 reading<\/em> media.  But the growing fascination with teaching digital media production skills seems to have swung the pendulum in the other direction, and an uncritical embrace of online technologies leaves little room for critical investigation of sources and consequences. In particular, it poses a challenge for media educators who are trying to incorporate environmental issues into their pedagogical practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the dawn of the Internet Era, many of its evangelists promised substantial benefits to the natural environment. Imagine how much paper it will save!  Imagine how much travel it will make unnecessary! And in fact, some of these promises have come true.  As email, social media and online publishing have risen, the so-called \u201cdead tree media\u201d \u2013 traditional mail, newspapers, magazines, and books \u2013 are seemingly headed for extinction, undoubtedly saving huge numbers of trees from the paper mill. Videoconferencing, messaging and other online collaboration tools have similarly reduced the need for cross-country business trips and the carbon emissions they generate. But these environmental savings must be measured against the environmental costs of new media technologies, including the exposure of workers and the environment to toxic metals in mining, manufacturing, and disposal of billions of electronic devices each year (Green Chemistry vs Toxic Technology: The Problem with Electronics, n.d.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further, the carbon footprint of the internet is growing rapidly.  Every part of the internet runs on electrical energy, from the devices used for access (computers, tablets, mobile phones, game consoles, TVs, etc.) to the servers holding the applications and data we use, and all of the routers, switches and other equipment in between. The information and communications technology (ICT) ecosystem as a whole, which includes mobile-phone networks and television, currently produces more than 2% of global carbon emissions \u2013 roughly equal to the aviation industry\u2019s carbon emissions from fuel (Jones, 2018).  Educators who assign web-based projects can thus challenge students to evaluate the environmental footprint of their own projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Carbon Footprint of Data Centers<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Measuring the carbon footprint of the internet is very complicated, but the largest single source of carbon emissions is data centers, the facilities containing the routers, switches, servers, and other equipment that store and serve online applications and data to end users. Total data center storage capacity worldwide is currently around 2 trillion gigabytes (Global data center storage capacity 2016-2021). Keeping these data centers running consumes 1 to 2% of the world\u2019s electricity (Jones, 2018; Andrae & Edler, 2015). The carbon footprint of internet data centers is currently around 500 megatons of CO2 equivalent per year (Belkhir, 2019) \u2013 more than what is produced by the 210 million people in Brazil (Muntean et al., 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internet traffic to and from data centers is growing by an astounding 25% per year (Andrae & Edler, 2015). The total electricity demand of data centers, however, has remained relatively flat over the past five years, as gigantic \u201chyperscale\u201d data centers run by Amazon, Google, Facebook and others have pulled business from smaller, less-efficient data centers, including in-house corporate and institutional facilities. While this trend raises other issues (such as, do we really want a handful of giant corporations to handle all the world\u2019s data?) it has allowed the data center sector to enjoy exponential growth without a parallel increase in electricity demand (Jones, 2018). However, at some point both technological efficiency and corporate consolidation will yield diminishing returns. Forecasting models predict that the burgeoning information and communications technology sector will consume 8 to 20% of global electricity by 2035, with data centers responsible for a third of that amount (Jones, 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reducing the carbon footprint of data centers is thus dependent on conversion to renewable energy sources. If data centers are powered by non-renewable energy sources (principally coal), explosive growth in the sector will produce staggering levels of CO2 emissions. If, on the other hand, data centers are powered by 100% renewable energy, their investments could accelerate the transition to a renewably powered global economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, the corporate record is mixed. Greenpeace\u2019s #ClickClean campaign provides a scorecard and applies public pressure on the worst offenders. Some of the largest operators of data centers, like Google, Facebook, and Apple have made public commitments to use 100% renewable energy, and they have made significant progress toward that goal. Other household names like Netflix, HBO, and Twitter have not made commitments to use renewables, and they receive failing grades from Greenpeace (Greenpeace, 2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Green Webhosting<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Large data centers also lease space to hosting providers, companies like GoDaddy, BlueHost and HostGator that provide server space and support for both large and small websites.  Of the top 20 webhosts globally (Global Web Hosting Market Share October 2019), only two \u2013 1&1 Ionos and Hetzner Online AG, both based in Europe \u2013 use 100% renewable energy (The Green Web Foundation, Directory, n.d.). The Green Web Foundation\u2019s mission is to expand that number by increasing transparency. Media educators and students who maintain personal or professional websites can enter their URL into the Green Web Foundation\u2019s Green Web Check tool and find out if the webhost uses 100% renewable energy (The Green Web Foundation, Is your website hosted green?<\/em>, n.d.)  If not, website owners are encouraged to share the results on social media to nudge the hosting provider to clean up its act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have used the Green Web Foundation\u2019s directory to find green webhosts for my clients\u2019 sites, and my own.  But what exactly is a \u201cgreen webhost\u201d?  A recent experience provides an illustration of the kinds of questions that educators could ask. When a client requested green hosting for a new website I was developing for him, I recommended DreamHost. I had opened my own DreamHost account several years ago, impressed by the company\u2019s commitment to reducing their environmental impact. A page on DreamHost\u2019s website described their green initiatives, including LEED Platinum facilities, data centers that partnered with clean wind programs, and purchases of carbon credits to offset 100% of the company\u2019s electricity use.  Because DreamHost was listed in the Green Web Foundation\u2019s directory, I could display a \u201cgreen hosted\u201d badge on my client\u2019s new website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I was surprised when a few months after launching my client\u2019s site I found that the badge, complete with a green smiley-face, had been replaced by a grey sad-face badge signifying \u201cnot hosted green.\u201d What had happened? The Green Web Foundation told me that they no longer considered DreamHost a green webhost because they no longer purchased green energy. But when I visited DreamHost\u2019s \u201cGreen Hosting\u201d page again I found the same eco-friendly language: \u201cWe\u2019re making a conscious effort to reduce our impact on the environment, with optimized facilities and policies that put respect for natural resources at the core of what we do\u201d (Green Hosting from DreamHost, n.d.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I put on my media literacy thinking cap and looked closer.  I noticed that the commitment to purchase carbon credits was gone, replaced by a statement that DreamHost\u2019s data centers are \u201cpowered by grids that obtain electricity from many renewable sources.\u201d This sounds good, but most major electrical grids in the United States obtain at least some energy from renewable sources, so practically any<\/em> data center in the US can make this claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I contacted DreamHost and learned that the company now leases space from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world\u2019s largest cloud computing company. This is a good example of the widespread migration from in-house data centers to hyperscale centers. Greenpeace has charged AWS with having a deceptive posture on renewables. For example, it says that while Amazon Web Services is committed to using 100% renewable energy, it has greatly expanded its data center in Northern Virginia even though the local electric utility has not been able to provide any additional renewable energy (Hill, 2019).  I confirmed that the data center in this dispute is used by DreamHost, so perhaps my client\u2019s site is hosted there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe stopped purchasing carbon credits,\u201d the DreamHost representative explained to me, \u201cwhen we realized that we could do a lot to be a more environmentally-friendly organization without necessarily being carbon-neutral.\u201d That sounded like PR-speak. True, using power-efficient processors and installing recycling bins in every office, as DreamHost reports, will help a company be more environmentally friendly, but if the company is not carbon-neutral and isn\u2019t powered by renewable energy, can it really claim to be a \u201cgreen host\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an excellent example of how media literacy skills can be integrated into coursework on new technologies.  Whether students are investigating the economic, social and cultural impacts of new technology, or learning how to use digital technology tools in hands-on skills-based courses, they can be encouraged to look more closely at the environmental impact of digital technology and the sustainability claims of providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sustainable Web Design<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Using a webhost powered by 100% renewable energy is one important factor in website sustainability, but it\u2019s not the only one. An emerging concept is sustainable web design. The idea is that good design can reduce the amount of data traveling between the user and the webhost, and thus reduce carbon emissions throughout the system, from the data center to the office computer or mobile phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the average size of a webpage is 3.48MB, which is more than 24 times the size it was in 2003 (Manoverboard Inc., n.d.). As the speed of internet connections has increased, web designers have been able to use more data-intensive content, like full-screen photos and streaming video.  But more data served means more electrical energy used, and more carbon emissions generated. Each site may generate only 1 or 2 grams of CO2 every time a user visits, but with 200 million active websites on the internet and the busiest sites getting hundreds of millions of hits per month, the carbon emissions add up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond choosing a green webhost, specialists have outlined three other strategies for reducing the carbon emissions associated with a website (MightyBytes, Inc., n.d.):<\/p>\n\n\n\n