Fife charity becomes one of the first in Scotland to have an ‘eco-friendly’ website

The Ecology Centre, which has a five-acre site in Kinghorn, teamed up with the Eco-Friendly Web Alliance to ensure its website reduces the amount of CO2 emissions it generates.

The EFWA’s board of scientific advisers recommend that websites should not emit more than one gram of CO2 per page view.

They worked with the Ecology Centre to audit the website and ensure the page fell beneath that threshold.

In line with EFWA recommendations, the centre reduced its website page size and has optimised it further, a term called “eco optimisation”.

As part of the agreement, the EFWA will carry out regular audits to ensure it remains beneath the recommended one gram of CO2 per page view levels.

The Ecology Centre received an EFWA kitemark in recognition of the accreditation.

The EFWA argues that if even a fraction of the world’s websites changed to keep their page size low and optimised, potentially millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions could be prevented from entering the atmosphere.

Energy consumed by the internet includes data centres, electricity used by end-user devices like phones, computers and tablets and transmission networks.

Shane Herath, chairman of the Eco-Friendly Web Alliance, said: “By reducing the page size of a website, businesses, charities and other organisations can lessen the amount of energy consumed every time someone visits their website.

“That may sound like a small contribution, but there are nearly two billion websites in the world and if even a fraction of these optimised and reduced page size, we could prevent millions of tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere.

“We were delighted to work with the Ecology Centre, who can now demonstrate to other businesses and organisations in Fife and beyond that their website is one which is environmentally friendly.”

Errin Anderson, general manager of the Ecology Centre, said: “We’ve made a commitment to switch to green energy to power the website and take responsibility for website carbon emissions through carbon sequestration as part of the criteria.

“The EFWA is working with organisations around the world to help lead the way to a more sustainable digital world, and we are really proud to be part of that journey.”