It wasn’t just about updating the design—it was about ensuring our website aligned with our core values: being eco-led, user-led, and client-led (us being the client, achieving that one was easy!).

We needed to rethink everything, from content and structure to how we use images and animations.

The result? A website that reflects our commitment to the principles we advocate for in our work: sustainability, usability, and accessibility; and built using the same techniques we apply to client projects.

How our website reflects our values

Reducing our digital footprint (being eco-led)

Why we want to be eco-led.

After seeing the impact of global change in New Zealand and around the Pacific, many businesses, like ours, and individuals are taking steps to reduce their environmental impact, but many haven’t thought about the environmental impact of their digital marketing – and a website is often the main asset they have.

We think about the ecological impact of every design and code decision when we build websites – from elements like content, images and animation, to our plugin and hosting choices.

How we did this on our own website.

When we tested our old WordPress website homepage using the Website Carbon Rating System (a Sustainable Web Design collaboration initiative), the results were sobering. It achieved a Carbon rating of D, meaning it was dirtier than 54% of all web pages globally:

So, to make our own website more eco-conscious, we

• worked with a copywriter (Katrina Pace at Collected Copy) to refine and optimise our content,
• redesigned the site, being conscious of the impact each decision could have on efficiency,
• streamlined our code and theme,
• optimised all images and animations,
• were ruthlessly selective in our plugin choices
• and removed unnecessary elements to reduce energy consumption.

The results speak for themselves: our website homepage now achieves a Carbon rating of A+, meaning it’s now cleaner than 92% of all web pages globally.

Some might ask, why does this matter? (We’ve covered this in more detail in this blog about whether building eco-conscious websites really makes a difference.) Put simply, a website with a lower carbon footprint is not only better for the environment, but also faster and more efficient.

A lighter, well-optimised site means better performance, and that directly benefits both users and search rankings.

This shift aligns with our eco-led approach, ensuring our digital footprint is as light as possible without compromising on functionality or design.

Now our website (still built in WordPress) is a good example of sustainable web design.

Designing for accessibility and ease of use (being user-led)

Why we want to be user-led.

We want everyone who visits your website to have a positive experience, so we keep them in front of our minds as we design. A good experience means that your potential customers or clients are more likely to interact with you and help you grow your business.

We strive to make our designs consciously inclusive of those who interact with them, whether through language, accessibility, or functionality.

How we did this on our own website.

Website accessibility isn’t just about ticking boxes—it’s about ensuring a seamless experience for people with diverse needs. Therefore we’ve been investing time in improving our understanding of accessibility and how our website might be used by users with diverse ways of interacting with online content.

A big thanks to Planit, who we consulted with at the beginning of this year and who helped us learn a great deal about best practices for making websites more inclusive.

We’ve made improvements across multiple areas, including:

• Thoughtful colour combinations for readability
• Improved code structure for screen readers
• Clear labeling and strict use of heading hierarchies for better navigation

This was a significant shift for Imelda as a designer, but one of the big things we’ve learned is that accessibility should never be an afterthought or tacked on to the end of a project. It needs to be integrated into the design process from the beginning if it’s going to be effective.

By prioritising usability, we’ve stayed true to our user-led value. Our new site is easier to navigate, loads faster, and provides a better overall experience for everyone.

So, what do you think of our new website?

We really want to hear from you. How easy is our new website to use? Have we missed anything? Is there something you think we’ve done particularly well?

Your feedback helps us improve—so let us know your thoughts!

And if you want the same for your website, check out what we can offer you.

The post Why we updated our website appeared first on Two Sparrows.

But all these positive actions have a cumulative effect if they’re picked up by many and repeated consistently.

With that said, let’s pick up why building eco-conscious websites matter, how we do this at Two Sparrows, and end on a high with a real-life example of these principles in action.

“We have a responsibility to stop this madness”*

* Danny Van Kooten

Maya Angelou wrote: “We need much less than we think we need.” This sentiment holds as true for websites as it does for clothes, cars, furniture, and living space.

Websites are becoming super-sized (the average website quadrupled in size between 2010 and 2020) wolfing through more power, water, and physical space than ever before.

In a 2020 blog, Danny van Kooten states:

“According to httparchive.org, the average website on desktop is about four times as large as in 2010. On mobile, where data transfer is way more expensive in terms of energy usage, the numbers look even worse: from 200 kB up to a whopping 1.9 MB!”

It can be easy to shrug off the physical impact of these decisions. Later in the same blog, Danny helpfully points out the CO2 comparisons, making it harder to ignore the scale of the challenge and opportunity:

“Shaving off a single kilobyte in a file that is being loaded on 2 million websites reduces CO2 emissions by an estimated 2950 kg per month…the same amount of CO2 saved each month as:

• Five flights from Amsterdam to New York. (679 kg CO2 per flight)
• Eating 118 kg of beef (25 kg CO2 per kg of beef)”

How do we build websites with a lighter carbon footprint?

The good news is we don’t have to guess how to build and design more energy-efficient websites. There are many who have already laid out the guidelines – ranging from colour choices to animation, text and responsive design – of note, ‘Sustainable Web Design’ by Tom Greenwood and Hanna Jansson’s Figma SCOPES resource are good places to start.

As well as being inspired by these guidelines, below are five key areas we focus on with each website build.

1. Be a responsible host

Many of our websites are hosted with New Zealand company SiteHost, whose data centre is based in Auckland. Eventually, ALL our websites will be hosted here. We love their environmentally friendly approach to their infrastructure:

“Our roof is covered in solar panels, which are a big part of our energy mix. On a sunny summer’s day our 142kWp system is big enough for us to run almost entirely off-grid. On top of that, our solar installation offsets around 24,000 tonnes of carbon each year.”

2. Pay attention to detail

We know plenty of tips and tricks to shave off load size of website assets, like images and code. It’s the attention to detail that can add up to make a difference. And you don’t have to compromise on functionality. In fact, you’ll more likely experience an uptick in performance.

3. Lighter means zippier too

Lighter websites mean faster loading speeds, which is a big positive for your visitors too. They won’t need to wait as long for the website to load, they can charge their device less frequently, and they’ll navigate your website much more comfortably and smoothly.

4. Clear words. Logical flow

Strategic copywriting plays a big role in building a carbon-conscious website. We don’t agree with landing pages that go on for miles. Websites with concise text, clear page titles, headings, and subheadings guide your clients through, and eliminate any confusion on where they need to go to get what they want.

Finding information faster has several benefits including:

• Less time clicking through multiple pages
• Less resources required to serve up each page they visit
• Less power consumed on devices
• Plus, you’re more likely to engage your site visitors, seeing an increase in leads, enquiries and bookings.

5. Is this a want or a need?

It helps to be able to distinguish between a want or need. If your website performs well and meets your objectives, adding extras or customising certain features could be more of a pain than a plus.

From analytics to site generation, Two Sparrows are led by the overall decision-making ethos of: “Whenever you are adding to a website, ask yourself: is this necessary? If not, consider leaving it out.” – Danny van Kooten. We balance this with our client’s preferences, but aim to push as much as possible the “less is more” approach.

Our commitment to building all our websites from here using conscious decisions means we can reduce the carbon footprint of each.

If more and more website development agencies across Aotearoa and the world join the Sustainable Web Movement, we will see how big the impact could be on positive environmental change.

It all adds up. This is why it matters. And it’s something we can control, continuously improve on, and routinely measure which gives us optimism and momentum – we don’t always get the same visibility with our other decisions to be kinder to the planet.

Imagine what could happen if eco-conscious website development became the standard for the entire industry!

Our real-life examples

We’ve recently completed our first website built with a focus on being eco-conscious. Take a look at jondunning.com – we’ll go into more detail in another post about what we did with this one, so stay tuned. And over the coming few months we’ll be taking a look at our own website – where can we make it more eco-efficient? Watch this space.

Contact us if you’d like to talk about your website, and how we can improve it’s carbon footprint. And if you are needing a fresh new website, talk to us now to ensure it’s built from the get-go with the above principles in mind.

This article was written with the help of copywriter & editor, Katie Rickson.

The post Does building eco-conscious websites really make a difference? appeared first on Two Sparrows.

If you know me, you’ll probably know I come from Pākehā and Niuean lineage. The greeting above is “hello” in Vagahau Niue (the Niuean language) – I’m not fluent (yet)… but I’m learning.

My dad was from the village of Tuapa in Niue and this small island nation is very close to my heart. As such, I feel deeply connected to the impact of climate change on Pacific Island nations and the growing threat of displaced peoples and climate change refugees. Seeing the impact of climate change in the Pacific, and beyond, motivates me to play my part. It’s a key driver behind one of Two Sparrows’ top four values: To be eco-led – leaning into clean and green with all our design + code decisions.

Looking at the challenge of climate change, this blog argues why being eco-led matters more than ever.

Climate change: Four things we know

1. Climate change is real.
2. If the Internet was a country, it would be the fourth largest polluter.
3. Climate anxiety or eco-anxiety is real and growing – especially among our young people.
4. We can make a difference and have a responsibility to do so.

Climate change is real – Tuvalu’s story

Did you know Tuvalu is the world’s first country to become fully digitised?

In a matter of decades, rising sea levels – caused by climate change – will swallow the island nation. Because of this reality Tuvalu is migrating everything online. “Recreating its land, archiving its culture, and digitising its government” so it “can exist as a nation even after its land is no more.”

As forward-thinking as this project is, it’s a tragic wake-up call and challenge to look at our personal and business practices in light of climate change. Tuvalu has nowhere else to go but online, or they risk losing their connection to their land, culture, and self-determination forever.

But we still have a window to make a difference.

So, what can we do in the face of this overwhelming scenario?

We can make space.

In other words, other countries, including Aotearoa New Zealand, have a responsibility to free up digital “land” or resources for nations like Tuvalu, who have no choice but to go partially or completely digital.

“If the Internet was a country, it would be the 4th largest polluter.”

So much of what keeps the Internet running is hidden from us – the end-users. Even the word “cloud” suggests information happily floating around, not tied to one spot, or stored in physical assets. This way of thinking can make us complacent about the impact of our digital assets (including our website), data centres, cryptocurrency, information storage, hosting, or even spending hours on social media.

But when you consider the water and electricity used to keep data centres and telecommunication networks running – not to mention the energy used to power our devices – you start to grasp the scale of the challenge, and how the Internet needs extreme amounts of water, electricity, and land to keep going (and expanding at astronomical rates).

Used thoughtfully, the Internet can be part of the solution, as the need for paper and postage reduces, but it would be naïve of us not to see it as a climate change contributor, too.

Like we reduce, reuse, and recycle our physical resources, we need to start paying attention to our online decisions. How we use the cloud, how we store information, how much data we need, and the processes that require energy, contribute to our digital footprint.

What’s climate or eco-anxiety?

Climate or eco-anxiety is worrying about the impact of global warming on our homes, countries, and way of life. Our tamariki are especially vulnerable to climate anxiety because they often feel powerless to help.

As a mum to three boys (and mum-in-law to a daughter) I want to show the next generation we can – and should – make a difference. We can make change en masse and influence others to do better. Hope is not lost!

It starts by paying attention and being honest about the challenges ahead, not being complacent or despairing, but taking small daily actions to do better. As a business owner, I have hope that organisations can work together for good. I want to see our industry making sustainable digital decisions that become the norm, not the exception.

Change is possible. Let’s make it a reality together.

One tangible way Two Sparrows can commit to this is by making space digitally. We are committed to becoming a design agency that’s as sustainable, efficient, and environmentally friendly as possible. And we recognise this will take a lot of change, effort and intention.

We are therefore opening up all our decisions to the goal of being eco-led – from design and coding decisions, to the projects we take on (and don’t), to our processes, our choice of data servers, and how we manage and reduce physical waste and paper.

As we look at what it means to be eco-led, we will explore some of the practical solutions we use at Two Sparrows to reduce our digital footprint – and support our neighbours across the Pacific and beyond.

Want to learn more about climate change and how to be responsible digital citizens?

Read:
Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial by Peter Stott.
World Wide Waste: How digital is killing our planet – and what we can do about it by Gerry McGovern
‘Power Hungry’ by Paris Marx published in North & South magazine, April 2024 edition
Sustainable Web Design by Tom Greenwood

Subscribe to:
The Spinoff’s newsletter Future Proof on Substack.
Branch Magazine: A Just and Sustainable Internet for All

Visit:
www.sustainablewebmanifesto.com
www.tuvalu.tv

This article was written with the help of copywriter & editor, Katie Rickson.

The post The Pacific heritage that inspires Two Sparrows eco-led decisions appeared first on Two Sparrows.