Why you should think before you hit that shiny “Buy Now” button.
Welcome to the final Curiously Green of 2024!
Issue 59 is covered in virtual baubles, sparkly tinsel and smells like freshly baked mince pies. The meaning of the festive period has changed in recent years for me. Before joining Wholegrain I ran a small hospitality business in the Alps. Christmas became a time of year that I helped lots of other people enjoy. More importantly I couldn’t rely on giving presents to do this. A warm welcoming atmosphere, relaxation, comfort, great food and laughter became the gifts I gave.
This experience has shaped how our family passes the festive period today. We exchange gifts but graciously and not extravagantly. Time spent together in the outdoors as well as eating, drinking and being merry are the things that we spend the time getting right.
Decoupling pleasure from consumption is a challenge in the modern world. In the web design and maintenance industry, the period between Black Friday and the January sales marks a vitally important time. Consumption kicks into overdrive and the lines between love and stuff become blurred.
These themes are woven into this month’s email:
Ecosends’ report into Black Friday email marketing is an eye popping read. Buy Now! on Netflix looks at the UX of mass consumption as well as the supply chains and end of life of the items we consume. More positively, the shift from platforms like X to Bluesky illustrates (I think) the desire for more positive connection with people. We may just be getting tired of algorithms boosting consumer messages and negativity.
However you mark this time of year, I wish you a positive and joyful break, full of laughter and one mince pie too many.
Friends of Curiously Green, Ecosend dig into the environmental footprint of a small but important part of Black Friday, email marketing. They estimate that an additional 86.7billion are sent by business over the Black Friday weekend. Crikey. Check out the article and find tips on reducing the impact of your email marketing in the run up to Christmas and beyond.
Earlier this month Tom and members of the Sustainable Web Design team attended a call with the Government Digital Sustainability Alliance. The group, which is part of DEFRA in the UK aims to help businesses and governments work together to ensure that digital technology puts less pressure on the environment. It will be interesting to see what comes out of the group in 2025.
In November the 2024 edition of the Web Almanac was published and once again it included a chapter on web sustainability. Written by a who’s who of digital sustainability specialists, the chapter covers the latest data, methodology and practicalities for reducing the impact of the internet. Interestingly, this year’s chapter also includes some “meta considerations” on the energy required to collect the data used in the reports. It is always heartening to see digital sustainability experts looking inwards as well as at the larger picture. Bravo to the team for continuing to push the boundaries with the almanac.
Quote of the month
“Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more.”
To coincide with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Netflix released their documentary Buy Now! on how overconsumption and linear business models are harming the planet.
While the delivery can be a little clunky the overall message of the documentary is clear:
Overconsumption for the sake of profit is rife in the developed world
Planned obsolescence in tech and throw-away fashion encourages dangerous consumption
The developing world is drowning in waste from the developed world
Websites, digital platforms and highly effective UX all contribute to this problem
The opening portion of the film is of particular importance to web professionals. It charts the rise and rise of Amazon.com. Beginning with the early years of the site, it focusses on the work and activism of Maren Costa, Amazon’s first Principal User Experience Designer. Maren, along with a team of UX specialists and web developers worked to make remove as many barriers to purchase as possible. Pre e-commerce, consumers had to travel to stores, spend time browsing, trying on clothes, testing goods and discussing options with retailers which took time, patience and perhaps encouraged more reflection. With the advent of frictionless e-commerce, hyper optimised “Buy Now” buttons and other highly effective nudges to purchase many of these old barriers were removed. In the films view, this has helped the developed world to move blindly into damaging levels of consumption.
The execution of the film might not be to everyones taste but the footage of beaches clogged with polyester clothing in Ghana, dangerous e-waste “processing” in South East Asia and dishearteningly wasteful business practices from big brands certainly leave an impression. I’ve reflected on this and little more in a post here.
Overall this film is well worth watching before embarking on a Christmas shopping spree…
Wholegrain currently have an opportunity to join our open-minded and creatively-curious team, working together to deliver exciting, innovative, accessible, and sustainable websites. We are searching for a developer who can deliver, maintain, and improve world-leading sustainable WordPress websites for the mission aligned organisations we work with.
In order to reduce unconscious bias that we might feel when you can see someones age, name, location or gender for example we are moving to a skills based recruitment process where your work does the talking for you. You can find out more about our new recruitment process here or see the full job advert via the link below.
Shorter notes on the green web
We want to hear from you!
Don’t forget, we want to hear more from you, the Curiously Green community! If you’re heard or read something that may be of interest, please share any links, and your thoughts with us.
Even better, we’d love to know what you’re working on. If you have any case studies or projects you’d like to share, or new approaches you’ve tried that may be of interest, this is a great way to share with like minded folk so please head over to our submission form and tell us all about it!
Please also share your wins from 2024 and challenges for 2025 here –
We can’t wait to hear from more of you. 💚
News from the Curiously Green community (and beyond)
“The active migration away from social media networks that are owned, controlled by, and distorted by the richest men and most powerful companies in the world to a decentralised platform that is not owned and controlled by billionaires is one of the more hopeful things to happen in what has largely been a bleak year for the human internet.”
This resource from Carbon Aware Lists the cloud with the most environmentally zones to schedule/deploy workloads/servers to. It is updated with live grid data and would be of interest to sustainably minded IT professionals.
“Our internet has now become a wasteland of content that was created for one purpose only: garner as much “engagement” as possible in order to suck every last dollar out of the system.”
I really resonated with this article from Wholegrain alumni Caoilann. The title, Digital Litter, sums up much of the content created on the modern internet.
Finally this site from Gen AI Impact helps users understand the environmental impact of generative AI. If you’re looking to educate yourself on how, when and why to use LLMs and generative AI this site has interesting impact assessment methodologies and open-source tools for developers.
