{"id":99,"date":"2026-09-16T18:24:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T17:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/?p=99"},"modified":"2026-09-16T18:29:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T17:29:30","slug":"5-ways-to-make-your-webpages-more-sustainable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/2026\/09\/16\/5-ways-to-make-your-webpages-more-sustainable\/","title":{"rendered":"5 ways to make your webpages more sustainable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want to learn how you can make a positive impact as a web editor? Check out our 5 practical ways to reduce unnecessary resource use and support a more efficient user journey.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

5 ways to make your webpages more sustainable<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Delete outdated content: <\/span><\/b>And also<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>set up regular reviews to remove content and pages that no longer serve a purpose. Use the<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>web sustainability content checklist<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to help you review your content.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Optimise content:<\/span><\/b> Keep pages short and purposeful with concise text. You can read the writing for the web guide here:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Writing for the web.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Optimise images: <\/span><\/b>Use lighter image formats like JPG rather than PNG and reduce file size as much as possible. A good size to aim for is around 300KB, and no larger than 2MB. <\/span>You can use a free, open-source software like\u00a0<\/span>BeFunky<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to convert or scale your\u00a0images.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Avoid auto-playing videos:<\/span><\/b> Giving users the ability to choose when to play a video helps ensure meaningful engagement, and also reduces the energy needed to run the page. You can read further guidance on embedding videos on the <\/span>Creating accessible video and audio webpage.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Improve <\/span><\/b>navigation so information is easier to find: <\/span><\/b>This should result in fewer clicks (fewer emissions from page loads) and less time searching (less energy consumed by the user’s device). For example, you can learn more about <\/span>adding accessible links<\/span><\/a> to ensure your links help <\/span>guide the user to where they want to go. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    You can identify areas for improvement by using a tool such as <\/span>Website Carbon<\/span><\/a> or <\/span>Ecograder<\/span><\/a> which can provide a sustainability rating for each webpage. After making improvements, you can then retest the page and report on the carbon emissions saved per page load. \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    For further guidance you can read the full <\/span>Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG)<\/span><\/a> developed by Centre for Environmental Policy students and the digital team, adapted from the <\/span>World Wide Web Consortium\u2019s (W3C) WSG<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Yunxi Shen, MSc Environmental Technology, one of the students that worked on the project, shares the importance of sustainable web design: \u2018<\/span>Improving the sustainability of our web content not only reduces unnecessary energy use and emissions, but also has several co-benefits, such as improving user-experience, accessibility, and site performance. While the carbon footprint of individual webpages may seem small, this compounds across Imperial\u2019s entire digital estate and the page views it serves<\/span><\/i>.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    This set of guidelines also forms part of <\/span>Imperial\u2019s sustainable communications guidelines<\/span><\/a>, and is part of Imperial\u2019s wider strategy and ongoing efforts to address the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Sustainable Imperial case study<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

    This year the Sustainable Imperial website was redesigned to align with the new <\/span>Sustainable Imperial Strategy 2026-2031<\/span><\/a> and demonstrate application of the WSG. Using page load emissions ratings from the Website Carbon tool, the team calculated that the maximum emissions per page load for the Sustainable Imperial website was previously 1.03 g CO<\/span>2<\/span> and after applying WSG all pages are now under 0.3 g CO<\/span>2<\/span>, a 70% difference. The <\/span>estimated yearly carbon saving from the website changes is <\/span>8.18kg CO<\/span>2<\/span>, which is as<\/span> much CO<\/span>2<\/span> as boiling water for 1109 cups of tea!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Have a go at applying <\/span>WSG<\/span><\/a> to your pages and see how much you can save!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Want to learn how you can make a positive impact as a web editor? Check out our 5 practical ways to reduce unnecessary resource use and support a more efficient user journey.\u00a0\u00a0 5 ways to make your webpages more sustainable\u00a0 Delete outdated content: And also\u00a0set up regular reviews to remove content and pages that no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1949,"featured_media":100,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1949"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions\/104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.imperial.ac.uk\/sustainable-imperial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}