When we think of our carbon footprint, we usually think of the obvious factors – travel, the food and clothes we buy, the energy we use in our homes. But we need to factor in our online activity too. Every interaction that takes place on the internet – from webpage views to messages sent – produces a carbon footprint. Although individually the quantities are tiny, the cumulative effect results in digital technologies being responsible for 4% (and climbing) of greenhouse gas emissions.

We were keen to make sure we were minimising Gibson Lamb’s online footprint and so did some digging into where our website is hosted. Turns out it was good news!

As of April 2021, all our hosting partner’s data centres are powered entirely by renewable energy with 100% coming from natural renewable sources such as solar, wind and hydro. Their servers are optimised for power usage, including, but not limited to, power efficient solid-state drives, low power memory modules and highly energy efficient CPU processors. Once no longer fit for purpose, all server hardware is sent to specialised computing recycling companies.

When looking for more information around this subject (ironically increasing my carbon footprint with each click), I came across the website carbon calculator. I plugged ours in and was pretty pleased with the result.

We’re trying to take a holistic approach to reducing the negative impact we have on the world and will continue to approach the question from a range of angles but for now at least our website’s not doing too badly.