MEK explain how they designed their website to reduce its CO2 emissions and energy consumption

This is a guest article by Melbourne-based purpose-driven design studio MEK. Every website on the internet is hosted on a server, and most of the world’s servers are powered by fossil fuels. MEK’s website has been specifically designed to reduce the CO2 emissions and energy consumption associated with accessing and viewing our content. In an industry first, we documented exactly how we approached and solved this challenge so we can inspire fellow designers, agencies and other industries to do the same. This open-source case study also serves as a roadmap to help designers, studios and agencies create low-emission websites as a new service to offer clients looking to reduce their impact. Because if the internet was a country it would be the world’s fourth largest polluter. We need to do better. Recently we went to trivia night and one of the questions was “what has a bigger carbon footprint: sending 100 emails or driving 1km in a car?”