Digital Ecology

Almost 1.88 billion websites are currently available online, weighing approximately 2,205 KB each, and getting bigger and fatter each year. Implementation of online tracking technologies for advertising purposes, which is perceived as the essential component in the vast majority of digital products, accounts for 25% of online traffic (with 85,55% of Google‘s share). This trend appears to grow exponentially, as the number of performed online sessions and pervasive surveillance are still the most important metrics to measure success performance nowadays. This has brought us to the point in which we allowed the Internet and its physical infrastructure to consume 3,8% of global electricity resources. Doesn’t look like much? The whole African continent’s demand for energy reached 3,4% in 2019.

We approached Adaversum with a slightly different philosophy and put the environment’s safety and your well-being as the purpose we had in mind while establishing this unique digital ecosystem. As digital designers, it is our responsibility to share best practices that bring into light conscious manners in digital product development and raise awareness about the role of sustainable digitization in the protection of natural resources.

Below you can dive deeper into our modes of operations, which aim to decrease carbon emissions associated with Adaversum. Hope you will find them insightful.

Green at the heart

Green Data Center is the first and essential condition in a transition toward fossil-free internet. Hosting with renewable energy can reduce a typical website’s carbon impact by an average of 9%.

If your website is carbon-fed, consider switching. There are already 403 green hosting companies (and still counting) claimed in the Green Web Foundation directory; choose which one is the most suitable for you.

Clear website structure & no data waste

We do care about your attention, so the website’s structure is not disturbed by any unnecessary content. Information architecture is simple and functional. The homepage is optimized to 207 KB, which yields 0.5 seconds in Adaversum’s speed index.

Data transfer transparency

You will never be overloaded by Adaversum content. Each media asset is downloaded upon request, and you are informed of the amount of data generated within the action.

Fall in love in Times New Roman (again!)

When it comes to the decision-making regards fonts, from the environmental perspective, it’s always the best option to choose styles that are pre-installed with your operating system; they are safe for HTML and CSS. You can check the compatibility of the most common styles here.

Making a conscious decision and avoiding solution such as Google Fonts (which collects your personal data and share with other third parties when you’re visiting a website with their font implemented) cut the unnecessary request to the server and amount of generated data, which at the end result in a reduction of energy consumption.

Sun or the Moon?

Did you know that Dark Mode can significantly help reduce the battery drain on devices with OLED screens? According to the investigation that took place in 2018, this simple decision can cut your’s battery drain by 1.8% to 23.5%. It’s up to you which side you choose.

Media compression

The explosion of available bandwidth has weaned us off from taking care of proper compression and downsizing digital assets. This has led to the belief that content-rich and heavy websites are acceptable standards in general.

Establishing the mysterious world of Adaversum to the wider audience, with care for their data transfer and devices exhausting, was simply impossible without the proper content compression. Our higher breakpoint arrays the width of uploaded media to the maximum acceptable resolution. This knowledge enables us to avoid uploading videos in their original format and gain savings in transferred data. For video compression, we were using HandBrake, an open-source video transcoder, with preset: 720p30 and encoder: H264 (x264).

Save for later

If you wish to interact with the Adaversum’s sweetness in a higher resolution, you can always request a transfer to be sent directly to your mailbox.

Send the inquiry to mail@adasokol.com

Carbon conscious analytics

We have set our sights on Cabin, a privacy-first, carbon-conscious web analytics solution. It’s lightweight and compliant with all known privacy laws. Cabin is a great alternative to Google Analytics, its script sends very few data points, and they use their own custom software designed to be extremely CPU and memory friendly.

Credits

Ada Sokół – Art Direction

Monika Wątroba – Management

Ernesta Malina / tausendsassa.io – Development

Zofka Kofta – Design

Joanna Murzyn / Digital Ecology Institute – Digital Sustainability & Experience Design