(Draft) Sustainability and Performance (and possibly User Experience)

When people talk about building a great website, these goals almost always come up:

• a smooth user experience that encourages conversions
• accessibility
• fast, reliable performance

The good news is we can add sustainability to the list without compromising the others - Adam Wright (measurable.energy)

Performance is already a constant concern for developers, whether it’s speeding up slow apps, fixing laggy databases, etc. A site built with sustainability in mind also prioritises efficiency from the start to reduce energy consumption (currently the main source of CO2 emission). Some sustainable practice includes removing unused code, reducing resource-heavy elements, resulting in lightweight apps. This leads to faster load times.

The connection between performance and sustainability isn’t just theory. The University of Edinburgh, for example, reduced their homepage from 7 MB to just 1 MB, cutting its estimated annual CO2 footprint from 15 tonnes to 2 tonnes. That single change also made the site faster without compromising on functionality or branding. Read more here.

Lightweight apps also offer smoother navigation, and fewer barriers for people on slower connections or older devices. Eventually, we’re not just building sustainable, performant apps, we’re making them more accessible at the same time.

Regarding UX benefits, sustainable apps focus on essential content and cleaner layouts that guide users towards their goals without distractions. In everyday terms: it looks great, it works well, and it’s easier to use.

In short, sustainability is not a separate goal.