Green is a Stunning Colour: Embracing Eco-Friendly Web Design

Green is a stunning colour: Embracing eco-friendly web design
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Green is a stunning colour: Embracing eco-friendly web design. Image: Csilla Slezsak

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Green is a stunning colour: Embracing eco-friendly web design

Have you ever heard that if you truly love two things, it’s best to combine them? By doing so, you can create something new and make the world a better place. The day I followed this wisdom changed my life and my business. It sounded crazy at first, but to this day I’m glad I started creating websites in a more sustainable way.

The Journey to Sustainable Web Design

My story, like many other entrepreneurs’, began in the office of a multinational company, where I went every single day feeling the emptiness, aimlessness, and burnout. The story continues with another familiar element: after losing someone dear to me, I realized that life is finite, and I had to immediately pursue what I truly wanted. This realization led me to start my own web design business. However, from the very beginning, I felt that web design alone would not be enough.

As a nature lover, a vegan, and someone who wanted to care about the environment, I was already aware of the internet’s impact on our planet. I wanted my work to resonate with my values and have a higher purpose. That’s when it occurred to me to find a way to do this with the smallest possible ecological footprint. Did I know anything about eco-friendly website design? No, so I learned about it. Was it a hard nut to crack? Absolutely! And so, Coconut Design was born.

csilla slezsak founder and lead deasiner of coconut design Green is a Stunning Colour: Embracing Eco-Friendly Web Design
Csilla Slezsak – Founder and lead designer of Coconut Design. Image: Csilla Slezsak

The Importance of Eco-Friendly Website Design

A website is a marketing tool, and as we know, the goal of marketing is to encourage consumption. And consumption is not really the best friend of Mother Earth, especially overconsumption. However, I also knew two things: online marketing was inevitable, and there would be more and more websites. Additionally, there are other people like me, small business owners, who want to make this planet a better place. This is why it became my goal to support those for whom environmental friendliness is important, and provide them with the most effective websites.

I learned that the internet is actually a polluter responsible for approximately 4% of greenhouse gas emissions. So, I tried to get all the information I could about sustainable websites and figure out how I could use it in my work while helping others. Fortunately, it turned out that regarding website design, most of the time what is good for the environment is good for the small- and mid-size businesses we work with: fast, easy-to-navigate, and continuously maintained websites with good UX, hosted by green providers.

In the last five years, we have helped over 50 businesses with custom website design and coding. We avoid canned solutions like page builders or off-the-shelf themes, which could make our work easier but result in heavier websites with a higher carbon footprint. Instead, we focus on creating lightweight, efficient websites from scratch. This approach not only reduces the environmental impact but also ensures better performance and user experience (UX).

Working alongside my partner, who has exceptional technical skills, allows me to focus on design and UX. He provides the technical background necessary to ensure the website’s performance is the best possible while maintaining the lowest carbon footprint. This collaboration enables us to deliver superior, eco-friendly websites that are both beautiful and highly functional.

Coconut Design green web design example Green is a Stunning Colour: Embracing Eco-Friendly Web Design
Eco-friendly web design can be good for the business while causing the less environmental impact possible. Image: Csilla Slezsak

Education and Community Building

Many people believe that sustainable web design is more expensive and has limitations, but the reality is quite different. These websites cost just as much as any high-quality, well-performing site that you would invest in for the next 2-4 years for your business. Moreover, custom website design offers greater flexibility and uniqueness. You’ll never hear “it’s impossible” from us – but we will let you know if something isn’t worth it.

Education is also a key part of our mission. We strive to dispel misconceptions and spread awareness about eco-friendly website design. Our blog contains over 80 posts, with the majority focusing on sustainability in web design. We share tips, best practices, and insights to help other businesses adopt greener practices and make informed decisions. Through our efforts, we aim to create a community of like-minded individuals who are passionate about making the internet a more sustainable space.

As more small businesses become open to sustainable web design practices, we feel motivated to build a community for these businesses. We aim to share our web design and SEO tips because the smoother the website experience, the better it is for both businesses and the environment. Additionally, we are working on broadening our educational activities on a new platform. We plan to share more of our knowledge on our YouTube channel, providing valuable insights and tutorials to a broader audience.

A Vision for the Future

Our goal is nothing less than to make quality, well-performing, low-carbon websites the new normal. Too ambitious? We don’t think so—there’s no such thing as too much ambition when it comes to taking care of our planet and helping people achieve their dreams!

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