Updated November 2024.
Green Tech Radar
A guide to developing the Green Web and Sustainable Software. Read more on Design Mind.
As digital experts, we believe that we have a responsibility to ensure what we build has the smallest carbon footprint possible. That's why we developed this technology radar to explore, adopt, and recommend what we consider to be the current state-of-the-art in Green Web and Sustainable Software technologies and techniques.
This represents our current opinion. We acknowledge this is a beta, our clients often have existing infrastructure we need to support and so we don't yet always live up to the standard we set for ourselves. But we understand and are addressing the part we need to play in the energy and efficiency transition which all industries must go through to combat the climate crisis. Each edition of the radar is a sincere attempt at defining what we know is and will continue to be a rapidly evolving landscape.
Green Technology Radar
Architecture & Backend
1 Building MACH architecture 2 Limiting frequency and improving caching of network requests 3 Optimizing databases, queries and API responses 4 Decoupling the web experience layer 5 Triggering event-driven architecture 6 Evaluating SSGs as a low impact alternative to CMS products 7 Abstracting microservices 8 Offsetting worker processes 9 Strategically shaping demand 20 Building monolithic applications
Design & Frontend
10 Optimizing for SEO 11 Loading content on demand 12 Creating a mobile-first approach 13 Modernizing image formats 14 Modernizing font formats 15 Reduce page weight 16 Incorporating battery analysis 17 Setting performance budgets 18 Using Service Workers and creating Progressive Web Apps 19 Try small, domain-specific platform and service providers 21 Mitigating unnecessary code in CSS frameworks 26 Using GIFs for video media
Low-carbon Hosting
22 Using pre-compilation for improved performance and less processing time 23 Considering sustainable cloud providers 24 Geographically distributing resources with CDNs 25 Using serverless deployment 27 Locating cloud hosting in lower carbon regions 28 Using cloud PaaS providers to accelerate development 29 Shifting to smaller, green-focused hosting 30 Increasing compute utilization 32 Sticking with legacy architectures 33 Relying on fixed-capacity cloud services 34 Neglecting to upgrade tech stack support
Measurement & Tools
Adopt
Explore
Avoid
Phases of introducing new technology
Adopt
The tools and techniques in the Adopt ring are the ones that we either currently use or intend to use. We also recommend these to our clients.
Explore
The tools and techniques in the Explore ring are the ones we are researching and trying out, but we have yet to reach a decision to definitely adopt.
Avoid
The tools and techniques in the Avoid ring are the ones which we have decided are inefficient, wasteful, or tend to contribute to the use of energy generated from fossil fuels. We actively avoid these.