333 - How Your Web Design Business can "Go Green" with Adela Mei

This is probably ignorance on my part but my eyebrow always went crooked when I heard digital agencies, hosting companies, saas products, or any online entrepreneur talking about how they’re a “green” company.

It’s not like we’re a manufacturing company or chemical plant with waste and pollutants. We work on a computer at home…so how can we “go green?” Use less paper? Recycle old equipment? 

What else can we do?

Well, it turns out there are a lot of ways to contribute to sustainability and to do our part in protecting our environment even while working from home or in a coworking space as a web designer.

That’s why I’m excited to bring back onto the podcast Adela Mei, a trusted source for this topic because, while she’s a web designer and strategist, she came from a previous career in environmental work and saw much of what most of us don’t see first hand while working in the amazon.

From what we as web designers can do day to day to help contribute to sustainability, to the surprising toll data storage takes on the environment globally and more, I found this conversation very educational and eye opening.

And side note, if you heard the recent podcast on getting grant funding, one aspect to help your cause is to have green initiatives in your business (and on your website). So you could take what you learn in this convo and apply it to your green page if you’re looking for just one additional aspect to help you get grant funding in your business.

We cover:

• Going Green as a Web Designer
• Impacts of Green Web Design
• Personal and Business Environmental Responsibility
• Green Practices for Web Designers
• Going Green in Technology and Business
• Sustainability and Green Business Tips

If you have any other tips for “going green” as a web designer, feel free to drop us a comment at joshhall.co/333.

View all Web Design Business Podcasts with show notes and full transcriptions at: https://joshhall.co/podcast

Transcript

Adela Mei: 0:00

You know, I don't have a fleet of traffic. You know my emissions are low, my mileage is low, so I'm not really impacting. And then I started really getting into it, thinking well, ok, what is it that I do? Well, building websites, coaching on Zoom, workshops on Zoom, everything online and digital. Well, I'm using the Internet. Well, the Internet has a physical infrastructure and that we kind of don't start thinking about it until we do start thinking about it. Those infrastructures where the internet lives are huge, huge, huge data centers. And those data centers use power, they use electricity, they use energy, they're water cooled of them. And when I started really looking, you can just Google. You know world's data centers and you will see these huge, huge infrastructures. Google, for example, has its own huge infrastructures of servers.

Josh Hall: 0:58

So that, basically, if there was only one thing that we were impacting, Welcome to the Web Design Business Podcast, with your host, Josh Hall, helping you build a web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love. Hey, friends, so good to have you here for this episode of the podcast. I hope you are having a swell day, no matter where you are in the world. This is a bit of a different episode for the podcast, a bit of a different topic, I should say, because we're going to dive into this idea of going green, specifically as a web designer. Now, I have to be completely honest about this. I was quite ignorant about this topic, not out of any malicious intent, but I always kind of pictured companies that have green initiatives with companies that are like big manufacturers or have really clear environmental impact with pollution and stuff like that. But as I've come to find out, especially after having this conversation that you're about to hear, collectively, there are a lot of things we can do to both promote environmental sustainability and just good things, good principles to do as far as, uh, kind of clearing out some waste. That we're doing both digitally and like literally with our equipment and things like that too. So the reason I wanted to do this on the podcast is because I often see hosting companies and other agencies and SAS products say they have green initiatives. But I'm like, how? Like? If you're not, you know, dumping pollution into a river, what can we do to to be a green company? And that's exactly what we're going to dive into in this conversation, and I can't think of anybody else better to do this with than Adela May. She has been on the podcast a couple of times before. She's been a student of mine for a long time. She was a founding member of my community web designer pro and she actually has a background in as an environmentalist and she has seen some things in person when it comes to environmental impact that I've never seen and probably would never see living in Columbus Ohio. But she's actually spent time in some of these areas where this is a really big deal. And what's really cool about Adele's perspective on this is that she is an environmentalist who is also a web designer, so she's got a lot of tricks up her sleeves that we're going to dive into here in order to do our part and be in as green as possible with our web design business, even if we're working from home, from one computer. We're going to get into digital storage. We're going to get into just practical common sense things like using less paper recycling equipment. If we can just doing our part to be more sustainable and as a collective, I think that's pretty cool.

Josh Hall: 3:40

I actually learned a lot in this conversation and again, some of my ignorance was not malicious. I just didn't really think about all this. But when you think about millions of people doing things collectively, particularly when it comes to data storage, that actually translates to big impacts in the real world pretty quickly. So all that and more is covered in this one. Here's Adela. Let's talk about how we can be a green web design business and, side note, we recently, in episode 301, had a topic about getting grant funding for your web design business. If you have a green initiative, that is one extra step that puts you in the running to get some grant funding for your business. So I recommend it. Here's Adela, adela Well, adela, so good to see you again back on the podcast. Been a while since we caught up and we're going to dive into a topic that's very different for the podcast.

Adela Mei: 4:37

Green green web design.

Josh Hall: 4:38

So I actually would love to start off with your background, because I think that is really important for the foundation to this, because this topic, I mean, obviously it's very, it's very, um, personal to you you come from.

Adela Mei: 4:53

Well, yeah, just share us a bit about your background, which I'm sure will segue into why you're so passionate about this yeah, sure you know it's funny because the first podcast we did I was just coming out of being very absorbed in the environmental sector and that's how I ended up in web design and now I've come out of web design back into the environmental sector. So it's like this full circle journey, which is fantastic. So I was always brought up really connected with the environment, with nature. We were out all of the time. I mean, I'm Gen X, we didn't have a TV till, you know, I was over 10. So we were like, out with nature, we were out all of the time. I mean, I'm Gen X, we didn't have a TV till I was over 10. So we were out in nature.

Adela Mei: 5:30

And I don't know if you're a fan of David Attenborough, but over here I'm in the UK he was our idol. All his nature programs and everything he was doing. I was just obsessed. So I finally found my way back to university when I was 25. Actually, I had a misspent youth, as I think many of us did. I found ecology, ecology and conservation and it just grabbed me. It's the, you know, the study of the interconnectedness of all things, how everything works together in a system, how we're not separate, how literally everything affects everything else and I was just absolutely blown away by the subject. I ended up doing post-grad and then ended up out in the Amazon, and I think we might have mentioned this before. I was building websites on a laptop Dell Latitude literally in the Amazon jungle for my research for master's thesis, and we were using Frontpage in those days. I don't know if you ever had to do that.

Josh Hall: 6:33

I was right after I started in Dreamweaver, so I was like right after Frontpage, just a little bit before that.

Adela Mei: 6:38

So we're building these sites literally in these rainforest lodges and then going up to the town to upload the new content to the internet on dial up. I mean, oh it was, it was a time consuming, it really was I was going to say.

Josh Hall: 6:53

I feel like the wi-fi you know in those regions is probably terrible still today or non-existent. So back then I can only imagine I know.

Adela Mei: 7:00

I mean, I think a lot of it is satellites, you know, but even so. So I ended up in corporate when I dragged myself out of the rainforest after quite a few years actually of researching out there and what I mean. To be honest, some of the things I saw really broke my heart. Talking about saving the planet and sustainability, I witnessed, you know, clear felling of rainforest trading, endangered species, gold mining, like all the things you kind of see on the news but you can't really fathom until you really see it and it's something most people would never see.

Adela Mei: 7:38

I was very privileged, being a researcher, to access some really quite remote areas of, you know, the Amundsen Basin. So I came out to the UK thinking, ok, we do really need to do something. Now this was like 20 years ago, josh, 20 years I was still on this soapbox and then going through corporate, I was doing a lot of pollution kind of management for rivers. I was doing biodiversity work and I ended up very much in the world of environmental management systems, which sounds very complicated. It can be complicated, but really that's now what I'm doing with most of my clients to help them build sustainable business. So we build environmental management systems, which is a long, a long way to just say action plans and policies to help you green your business and be more sustainable. So, in a nutshell, that's that's really what I'm doing now.

Josh Hall: 8:38

So I have to address the question. That's probably the elephant in the room, and it's. It's not out of um anything against this, it's more of just ignorance. But I'm sure a lot of people wonder as a web designer, how am I, how am I affecting the environment if I'm just building websites on my laptop? So what's?

Adela Mei: 8:56

the uh, yeah, yeah again more about, of ignorance.

Josh Hall: 9:00

So what's, what's your take on that? And and, yeah, how are we as web designers? Uh, before we get into like the tactical tips on how to go green, yeah, what are your?

Adela Mei: 9:08

take on that and yeah how are we, as web designers, before we? We tend to be 100% digital, 100% online, running a home office. And I fell foul of this myself, thinking well, you know, I'm all right, I don't import, I don't drive everywhere, you know I don't have a fleet of traffic, you know, my emissions are low, my mileage is low, so I'm not really impacting. And then I started really getting into it, thinking, well, okay is low, so I'm not really impacting. And then I started really getting into it, thinking, well, okay, what is it that I do? Well, building websites, coaching on Zoom, workshops on Zoom, everything online and digital. Well, I'm using the internet.

Adela Mei: 9:58

Well, the internet has a physical infrastructure and that we kind of don't start thinking about it until we do start thinking about it, until we do start thinking about it. Those infrastructures where the internet lives are huge, huge, huge data centers. And those data centers use power, they use electricity, they use energy, they're water cooled most of them. And when I started really looking, you can just Google. You know world's data centers and you will see these huge, huge infrastructures. Google, for example, has its own huge infrastructures of servers, so that, basically, if there was only one thing that we were impacting, it would be through the data centers. They're using energy and of course, it's not like something at home.

Adela Mei: 10:47

Home you can turn it on or off on your switch. Servers have to run 24 7. The internet can't go to sleep for a little bit. You know, the whole world is now run on this 24 7 internet, data storage, communications, all of it. So we also need to have these backup generators, because we can't lose the internet. I mean, look what happened a few weeks ago when facebook went down. I think half the world had a breakdown and it was only for a few minutes, I believe yeah, I missed it.

Josh Hall: 11:21

I'd heard about it, but I'm not on socials too much, so it didn't impact me terribly.

Adela Mei: 11:26

And it caused this huge. You know, like people, people were really really freaking out. So I mean that really, and you know, in a nutshell, that is the main impact that that we have. As you know, web designers or anyone really who's running a mainly digital online business we, we sit in our home, we have the things we have. Of course, we're still using electricity in the home to power the computer, the modem, the router, and then we've got these nice big data centers chugging away keeping us all powered.

Josh Hall: 12:01

What's the alternative, though? To?

Adela Mei: 12:05

the internet. What's the?

Josh Hall: 12:06

alternative though, uh, what's the alternative to not working from home? I mean, I imagine, of all the industries, I would think that, uh, like you said, we're not in like transportation or, uh, you know, we're not, like, we don't like a factory by a river that we're dumping sludge into, like, when I think of, like you know, when I think of businesses uh causing environmental harm, immediately my mind goes to something like that. Not, you know me sitting at home on a laptop. So I mean, yeah, I mean kind of tongue-in-cheek, but like, what's the, what's the other alternative to the setup? Now?

Adela Mei: 12:38

this is how I look at it. I mean, the world is undergoing a digital transformation that is really very, very, very rapid, like the growth of the internet, the growth of, you know, the digital world. So that's not going anywhere. It's not about stopping using the internet or stopping being online and digital, but it's about sustainable growth with the digital transformation. So how do you do it sustainably? And then the other side is how actually you can use some of this tech to help with sustainability. So there's kind of two sides to the story with that.

Adela Mei: 13:16

So some of the tips that I have, just kind of pinpoint to say some of the tips that I have just kind of pinpoint. I've just found the 10 main ones, 10 areas that we do have an impact, and then just an action you can take to mitigate that, to help with that. And then it's really about just awareness and understanding what we're doing, what impact we're having. Like that's. The first step is understanding. Oh, actually my business does have an impact. I didn't think that it does. Okay, now let's look at the impact and then let's work out what we're going to do about it, and it's all one step at a time.

Josh Hall: 13:56

So, yeah, we'll dive into getting practical on this. And again, this is interesting to me because this is brand new territory for me. Again, when I think of any sort of environmental, financial, any sort of like governmental uh program or taxes or financial, whatever the amount of like junk paper, I get it's wild. I mean we're big on recycling but, uh, I imagine a practical thing would be probably less paper, like just less stuff in general. I mean, I guess you could take that into files and browser tabs, whatever apps. I mean, is the idea just almost getting back to more minimalistic routes, both digitally and in person? Is that kind of a one-on-one step to help?

Adela Mei: 14:57

I mean it is. I mean we could jump to the end. That, ultimately, is what we need to be doing. It's the kind of reduce, reuse, recycle kind of principle of you know not over-consuming. Like one of the biggest problems is over-consuming. I mean we kind of joked about it in the club AppSumo. You know being really addicted to just buying apps and apps and apps and having all this stuff, even digital, it's still data, which means it's still taking up space, so it's still having an impact. So it's a lot. I mean I'm into mindset and changing the way we see things.

Adela Mei: 15:33

So this is about not over-consuming, not doing all the things, just not putting everything up in the cloud. You know we think, oh, I'll keep my computer running fast by throwing all my files in the cloud. Well, that's still being stored somewhere and it's actually still having an impact. I had this idea it was a few weeks ago that like how's Google keeping up with all the websites being built and all the information? Google keeping up with all the websites being built and all the information? And our friend Michelle Bourbonnier we were talking about earlier, our SEO gal she actually sent a newsletter out saying that Google was struggling with keeping up with indexing websites because there's just so many being generated, ai being generated, and it's like oh my word, like we've gone a little bit over the other way now to just put so much content out on the on the internet. We think it's not having an impact on the planet, but it, but it is.

Josh Hall: 16:28

It's just filling up data centers and data centers it's actually a really good reminder that, even though something is online, it lives somewhere this is really good for me, just just as a just as a general principle to remember if everyone or anyone doesn't know, literally, yeah, a file, a website, anything online, an email, it lives somewhere. It's not just on the screen like it is stored somewhere so that is a really out of mind, isn't it?

Adela Mei: 16:57

we just think, oh, yeah, yeah, because we don't have our own?

Josh Hall: 17:00

yeah, because I don't need to to get more servers in my house. I don't even have a server in my house, unless you're a server, unless you have your own server. It's out of sight, out of mind. The one big problem here I don't know how the hell you're going to talk to people like this. But the thieves this and thieves this is very top of mind for me because I was just talking about this.

Josh Hall: 17:29

But the people who rip off courses, who rip off blogs and duplicate content they are massive culprits to any sort of data storage issues. Case in point when I was on Pat Flynn's podcast, I Googled it after it went live and there were probably 15 or 20 duplicate articles that were very similar on these janky sites that had and actually mentioned michelle. She was the one who showed me that they had duplicate sites that had versions of my name, but instead of josh hall, it was like josh corridor or weird names. So these sites are getting duplicated. So I mean all that to say like this is a huge problem with any sort of site that gains traction, and this could be with AI and chat GPT as well. The sheer fact of yeah, like I guess data centers expanding. I don't know personally what type of effect those have on the environment, I would imagine wouldn't, that be more on like.

Josh Hall: 18:18

Google? Wouldn't that be on, like Amazon Web Services or Google, or wherever these servers are stored, to have?

Adela Mei: 18:24

I mean, I think it's in multiple places, but I guess, like, what just came into my mind is that we need some sort of data police, you know, data regulation to just try and restrict that, because I can hear people thinking, well, you know, what's the point in me cleaning up my files?

Adela Mei: 18:40

I'm just one person and it's like a drop in the ocean compared to all of this, you know. But I think for me, you know, with all of this, I mean it's a huge subject, but with all of this, I do my part because I can and I think it's the moral and ethical thing to do, you know, to try and reduce my personal and business impact on the planet. And I try not to look too much at the bigger corporations and the things that are out of my control, because they, you know, they have their own regulations. They'll have to do their own, you know, data cleanup et cetera, but that's not really in my control. What I can do is try and set a really good example with how I do things and how I run my business, so I can sleep at night, you know, I can say look, I've done everything I can today. I've done my recycling, I'm good, you know, I've turned my computer off, you know. And then just one step at a time.

Josh Hall: 19:38

That's interesting. I mean it reminds me a lot of like littering. And we my family and I just went out for ice cream last night and, uh, my middle daughter, annie we were walking out and this car had pulled away and there was just like mcdonald's trash all over the parking, like they just totally just chucked it out the window. There was a freaking garbage can, like they could have just got out of the car and I told her I I was like that's, look what they did. It was like that is nasty and I was like that's called littering, we don't do that. And she's like, oh yeah, she came in. She's like, mommy, they littered all over the place.

Josh Hall: 20:11

The reason I mentioned that is just because it reminds me of that kind of thing. It's like most, most people in a community if collectively you don't litter, it's not a problem. It's when some personal responsibility isn't there, then it becomes a problem at large and at scale. So I could see that this is interesting, adele, because again, I appreciate your perspective on this, because you were in the heart of some real stuff that went on.

Josh Hall: 20:38

So, you actually saw things that, again, I wouldn't see in Columbus Ohio. It's not something I really think about, like, we know the stories, we know the documentaries and everything else, but it is hard to get a feel for any impact we're making when we're not seeing direct things right there.

Adela Mei: 20:55

So I do appreciate this principle. And talking about littering, I think we spoke before. I'm very much involved with sea turtle conservation and that's a big problem for all of the trash that gets washed up from the oceans that's just dumped, especially the plastic. So we've seen on the beaches, you know, you've got turtles up there laying their eggs, doing their thing and then you've just got just miles and miles and miles of trash that's been washed up and you see it and you're like, oh okay, this is real. You know, this is real. And some of it's dumped off ship, some of it's you know from the land, but when you see it like you can't unsee it. So it becomes more important here, you know reduce the use of plastic, make sure I'm recycling. We have in I'm. I'm in a small village. We go out litter picking. You know we keep stuff you know tidy around here. I mean I can dive into the 10 steps I found. Let's do that.

Josh Hall: 21:48

Yeah, I was just gonna say let's get practical, because I think forever this is a yeah right, this is a good foundation, though I'm glad we hit on some of this, because some of this already I was like I didn't even think about. I didn't really think about data centers, I didn't really think about all the websites, all the email, all the files, all the storage, all the stuff.

Josh Hall: 22:06

I mean, I think about my google drive. I guarantee I've got like 75 of video files and stuff in there that I could delete. I don't need to do that anyway. That's, that's interesting. So those are good principles, with the idea too. Before we dive into these practical tips, one thing I do want to say is I think we all need to collectively remember the internet is not old, like it's 30 years old. So, uh, yeah, imagine you know in three, two, three hundred years how much data is going to continue to accumulate, as we're all online nearly all the time now. So yeah to that foundation. I say, and again, I'm not that I'm skeptical, but I'm playing devil's advocate on some of this and like, what am I doing with my laptop, hoping that's harming something? But yeah, that's actually a really good, that's a really good point. So practically, yeah, what are some of these tips, adele? I mean, what are some things we can do?

Adela Mei: 22:56

initially, so I'm thinking specifically for, you know, web designers and the audience that would be watching this. So I mean I am. I pulled a little bit of data so the internet's carbon footprint. So what that means is you know the emissions and the impact that the internet globally is having. So it accounts for two to four percent of global emissions now. Now putting that in context Is that data centers.

Josh Hall: 23:22

That's just well, the internet's carbon footprint, so data centers, but I mean like what, but that would have to go through the data centers, right, that would be the output of the internet.

Adela Mei: 23:31

For comparison, that's equal or more to the entire aviation industry. So just to put it in context, I would sit here thinking, I'm all right, I'm not having an impact. Oh, look at that plane coming over from Bristol Airport. It's the planes, it's, they're the ones doing you know the damage, they're the ones with all the emissions. And then you think actually the internet is doing more damage, creating more emissions, than the entire aviation industry. So just for one um, you know a bit of data there. And the first thing really, and the most important thing, is for web designers to just look at their web hosting. So you said earlier, you know well what's the alternative. So there are web hosting companies who are green. So what makes them green? They run on 100 renewable energy. So that would be, solar wind, etc.

Adela Mei: 24:25

Um, google, actually I've I've put some links below for this google's actually running now on 100 renewable energy because they built, they've got like miles of solar panels up there, uh, powering all their servers, so they've actually gone. I think it was last year or the year before. They're now 100 like net zero, meaning they're not producing emissions. They are self, self-contained, sustainable.

Josh Hall: 24:48

So that would be the aim for bigger companies to do something like that are you proud of me, adela? Because I'm with site ground and they pride themselves on being. This is very timely. I literally just got an email with an update on their green policy good, like right before this so there's two main ones I've pulled up.

Adela Mei: 25:06

So I'm in the uk, so the company is a crystal with a k and I know a lot of your um. Your membership used them as well. They were. I've been them for years and years and years. They're UK based.

Adela Mei: 25:20

The guy made a commitment right off the bat to be net zero, meaning not have a negative impact on the planet. They've planted over a million trees. They're running on 100 percent renewable energy. You look at their website. It's basically this like green, futuristic vision that we all need the internet but we don't want to be impacting the planet. So for me they're like the star child of hosting.

Adela Mei: 25:49

The second one would be SiteGround and I did have a bit of a research through their sustainability and they, you know they're on board, they're getting there. They're a much bigger company than than crystal. Really they're the two main ones. Anything under the the um let's call them the bigger umbrella companies will not be running on 100 renewables. They will not have such a commitment to sustainability. So when I'm coaching my clients, the first thing I I say to them is well, it's a quick switch to go to Crystal or SiteGround. It's a quick win to say right, my website, my hosting, is powered by green energy and it's a nice tick on your action plan to say that you've done something. It's a small thing, but it's an easy thing to do.

Josh Hall: 26:35

Interesting.

Adela Mei: 26:39

The next thing would be data storage. So've you know we've touched on that. So, short of having you know, I don't suggest you have your own servers, but just thinking about um storage and your files, and I know, through uh, one of your courses you know you talk about cleaning up your files at the end of migrating a website and just you know getting stuff off the computer. Excuse me, you know you could put stuff on hard drives, um, but just being mindful when you're building, do you have to keep all of that? Can it be deleted? Can it be put on hard drives? Do you have to put it up into the cloud for storage? And we're paying for that storage most of the time, you know. Yeah, yeah, I thought I thought more of yeah, more of yeah.

Josh Hall: 27:22

I didn't even cross my mind that, look, I'm. How ahead of the curve am I? I was talking about green principles years ago. Um, yeah, I, I was more so like, yeah, like clear, clear your mental bandwidth. And, yeah, clear your computer from overheating, holding onto a bunch of files. But actually, yeah, it makes sense, it's just, it's just a bunch of extra stuff and clutter somebody. Actually I think I heard this on a podcast it's like if you live in a home year, like if you live in a home for years, you just accumulate stuff and your computer is the same way. And if you don't actively clean it and do a spring cleaning and clear out your, even your bookmarks, and clear out your files which this is a great reminder, we're talking in springtime, right now, to do that, like make that a practice.

Adela Mei: 28:07

Sorry, I don't want to derail us, but uh yeah, yeah, it's not in the process, of course it's. Yeah, housekeeping, so archiving and moving stuff off, especially videos, um collectively.

Josh Hall: 28:20

If millions of people were to remove a video or two from their computer, that's probably how many servers could that open up, kind of thing?

Adela Mei: 28:30

so I have a figure that I can't fathom in my mind. So 330 billion gigabytes of data is produced every day. 330 billion gigabytes of data every day. Half of that's video. Next is social media and then gaming. So those form the top 75% of data storage social media, gaming, video content.

Josh Hall: 28:56

I was initially thinking we can't be near what the gaming industry is. I mean, those are huge files.

Adela Mei: 29:04

We won't even go into it. It's streaming Right. So this one practical tips would be to avoid. You know, data hoarding basically is what it is App hoarding, and one thing I mean this is just what I personally use. There's tools you can have, like CleanMyMac, that you can go through your system. You can clean duplicate files, you know, clear your trash it will find, like your biggest files that you can then move off, or the files that you haven't opened for like over a year, over two years, and you can clear that off. So I'm sure there are a lot more, but clean my Mac's, just something that I've I've used for a long time and I like it.

Josh Hall: 29:49

I used to. I used to use that years ago and it kind of reminds me of like an iPhone. There's a reason it has storage settings and you clear your storage out of your up on your storage exactly because, that's true.

Josh Hall: 29:59

I mean, I guess that's why computers have a cap with how much storage is on there. But for most modern computers, like it's going to take a lot and unless you're doing video particularly, it's very unlikely that you're going to get up there with with just files and apps. But yeah, video. Video is a culprit for for storage, for sure.

Adela Mei: 30:18

I know very well and then remembering, if we're reducing the data storage, we reduce energy consumption and we reduce what we're paying out on our energy bills, you know, as a as another benefit. So the third thing really we've touched on as well as the equipment and hardware. This figure blew my mind so and I put the quotes of you know the the references where I got this from. So 40 million tons of electrical waste equipment electrical equipment waste is generated every year. 40 million tons, they've calculated. This means, to try and get our heads around it 800 laptops being thrown away every second. 800 laptops being thrown away every second. 800 laptops being thrown away every second, just to get an idea of the waste. And a lot of this is unfortunately dumped in landfill in developing countries, which is a whole nother story. So what we can do for that is only buy necessary equipment, recycle the old equipment, fix it if possible, and I know I was just gonna ask yeah, with that, can those be recycled?

Josh Hall: 31:25

old laptops, anything electrical some.

Adela Mei: 31:27

So apple and microsoft have recycle trade-in schemes. Um, one thing I actually did I needed a new. I wanted a new iphone. I went to trade in my old one and they were offering me such a low price I decided to keep it and repurpose it as a security camera rather than a phone. So I haven't thrown it away, I didn't trade it in, but I'm repurposing it to use it for something else because it still works fine. I saw a very interesting film about using or training AI robots basically in these huge recycle centers primarily for Apple devices, phones and tablets, and these bots basically will go in and strip all the devices down to their individual components and then separate them into the different precious metals and then those metals can then be reused in new products because Are these AI robots kicking off forest emissions in a computer?

Josh Hall: 32:32

That's my question with some of the tech.

Adela Mei: 32:34

Well, I think I could find a video when it went a lot into depth. The whole plant is probably powered by solar, 100% renewable. I mean this. We're talking about very advanced um um factories here yeah, yeah they build a few.

Josh Hall: 32:50

we don't live far from uh ohio state university and we're up there quite a bit with restaurants and stuff and yeah, they just have like a series of new buildings and they're all you can. They look like landing pads on every building Like it's all solar, all solar stuff, Right.

Adela Mei: 33:07

And the benefit of this. So for people to do it it would be very time consuming, labor intensive, very costly. It's those precious metals in all of our equipment that are mined, and mining is one of the most destructive activities on the planet often in developing countries. Again, we could have a whole podcast just talking about that. It's. It's quite an unpleasant subject. So instead of mining, we want to be pulling out those, those resources from the equipment that that we're not using anymore.

Adela Mei: 33:36

It can be reused, these metals and yeah, totally so there's, that's that side of things we can reduce, you know, anything going to landfill, reuse, repurpose, recycle as much as possible. Um, I mean I've got. I look around and think, well, I've got two macs, four keyboards, too many mice. I mean I have got a lot of kit just for one person and I think, okay, when I go to buy the next thing, I'm going to really ask myself, do I need that or do I just want it, especially with you know, I use mechanical keyboards, the ducky ones, the gaming ones. I mean you can get very addicted and buy a lot of those because they come in a lot of different colors with backlighting, and that you have to just check in and think, right, do I need that? Do I really need that, or do I just want it Cause I want to treat myself to a new gadget? So the next thing will be energy. Oh, and, no shame if you collect gadgets. No shame, just be mindful.

Josh Hall: 34:38

Well, it's also a good reminder to to recycle or repurpose if you can, versus just chuck things away.

Adela Mei: 34:46

Yeah, I mean, I was I I actually googled what can I do with my old iphone se? And then there was a whole load of stuff came up and someone said oh, you can set it up like this and have it as a security camera. I was like genius, brilliant. So energy usage would be the next one. So most of the energy that we use does come from fossil fuels. So when we talk about reducing emissions, what we're trying to do globally is reduce the amount of coal and gas that we're using. That's basically the aim of the game Reduce fossil fuel use, increase use of renewable energy. And so one thing we can do in the home or for listeners who've got an agency office or something, is to go on to green energy tariff with your electrical provider. So in the uk we actually only have one that's properly 100 renewable, so all their electric is generated from wind uh, wind, water or solar. Most of the other companies are not 100 green, but but kind of semi-green. So again, if you're thinking about low-hanging fruit, what you can do right now switch your hosting company to a green one, switch your electrical provider to a green one. Small wins, and it's not often more expensive. My green tariff actually is not more expensive than a standard electricity tariff. My tricky situation here because I'm very rural is my heating is run on oil. Like I have an oil tank outside that comes in a pipe for my heating and there actually isn't anything I can do about that right now. So that's always the balance with things my electric's green, but my heating absolutely is not.

Adela Mei: 36:42

So printing and paper usage and you mentioned paper before, so I know a lot of us are digital. We don't print. I like to print, I like to write on paper with a pen, old fashioned like that. But we can buy and I'm sure everyone knows this already. You can buy recycled paper. When you're finished with it you recycle it With printing. A lot of the inks now are biodegradable or you make sure that you recycle those cartridges. You send them back. So HP or Dell, they all take the cartridges back. They'll often give you a little paper envelope you can just send it back when it's empty and just checking that you know you're printing double-sided if it's just a draft thing and just being mindful. In my days of corporate I remember people running off hundreds and hundreds of copies of stuff on printers because they'd forgotten to turn something off. You know just the waste of it.

Josh Hall: 37:38

Yeah, I mean imagine before the internet. I know you know this is opening my eyes to the data center thing, but my gosh, can you imagine how much paper was through, you know, through 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, before the internet? My goodness.

Adela Mei: 37:52

And a lot of things now you can. You know 70s, 80s, before the internet, my goodness and a lot of things now you can. You know digitally sign, which is great, but a lot of companies and corporate was still, you know, still transitioning from using paper because you need that signature for you know, legal reasons, I mean. And the thing with reducing paper or is thinking paper comes. Well, most paper comes from trees not all paper now, but most paper comes from trees. So we want to be reducing deforestation. That's the aim of the game.

Josh Hall: 38:25

So looking at thinking about.

Adela Mei: 38:27

Most of most of us will be working from a home office and have maybe like a home kitchen, working from a home office and have maybe like a home kitchen. So I always imagine, if you're doing your accounts like we would often put things in there, you know allowance for home office. So thinking about and this is a whole nother conversation about food and tea and coffee and milk and sugar and where all of these products and foods come from, and milk and sugar and where all of these products and foods come from. But just in a nutshell, the main things we can do is look for organic and fair trade in whatever we're purchasing, and obviously this applies to personal family life as well.

Adela Mei: 39:08

This isn't just for work, but thinking about where is your coffee sourcing from? Where's your milk sourcing from? Where's your tea from? Where's your sugar? These are the real big ones that you want to be looking for fair trade, where workers are paid, a fair trade for. You know, like the tea growers in Sri Lanka, for example, coffee growers in Peru I think most people would have seen this in the store. There's a little organic, fair trade certification stamp on things. So small wins.

Josh Hall: 39:43

Probably addressing the obvious, but organic food is way more expensive. I imagine this is globally, but here there's a drastic difference, are you familiar with. Whole Foods. They have that in the UK.

Adela Mei: 39:54

We have something similar. Yeah, like we're not too far.

Josh Hall: 39:57

So, yeah, like Whole Foods. The joke with Whole Foods was and I heard the CEO talk about this on a podcast they used to nickname them Whole Paycheck, just because I mean, groceries are insanely expensive with inflation. Organic on top of that is almost two to three X on a lot of those, even like fruit, like we were looking at organic raspberries and the, I was like like three times more expensive. Same thing with hosting. I imagine like site ground is a little more premium hosting compared to some others.

Josh Hall: 40:24

All that to say, one of one of the tricky things about this is it sounds like in a lot of these areas to go green, aside from some of the basic stuff, that we can do with what we have and actually save money by reducing the amount of like storage we're using. I imagine the tricky part of this is like green stuff is expensive, like the good foods are expensive, the the good hosting is more expensive. Uh, I don't know if there's anything more to say about that, but I imagine that's one thing that's holding people back from this too. It's like, well, if I'm paying 100 bucks a month and hosting for all my clients, if I go up to $300 a month, I imagine that's a tricky part to this, I imagine in the environmental sector it's probably tricky as well.

Adela Mei: 41:02

It's a really, really tricky part. I mean, how I do it. I think, well, if I go out, do I need to buy that Starbucks coffee or Costa coffee? If I don't do that, I can afford to buy organic coffee at home. So, okay, I'm losing the social aspect, because going out and having a coffee with friends is a nice, positive thing to do, and we also need to be nice and positive as human beings. This isn't meant to be stressing us out even more, but it's always a balance with things.

Adela Mei: 41:32

That's what I always say to people. I will always have organic coffee because I'm a coffee head and I love drinking coffee. Don't take that away from me. So I will spend more money on organic coffee. And then when I go out, then that's my choice. Okay, am I going to buy that? It's not organic. The thing with food also it's really, it's really tricky. I personally don't buy everything organic, because let me give an example do I want to buy organic fruit that's been flown in from Europe, or do I want to buy local vegetables that were produced within like 10 miles of my house that are not organic? But they didn't come on a plane, you know, they weren't packaged in plastic. So you always just look at things and never that black and white with things. So I would choose locally produced food over organic imported food, just for an example.

Josh Hall: 42:24

Yeah, that's a good point, that's a good little practical tip. Yeah. Farmers markets, things like that.

Adela Mei: 42:29

Right, and I look now and think you know apples, oh well, my apples from England. Right, and I look now and think you know apples, all my apples from England. Okay, they're not organic. Well, they're probably not organic because over here we've got very, very strict rules to get organic certification on the soil. To be honest, those apples probably are organic, it's just that they haven't got their soil certification because it's so, you know, complicated. So I would rather have those apples than apples flown in from New Zealand. You know why would I do that when we have apples here? Just things like that.

Adela Mei: 43:03

And again, it's different for everyone, depending on what country you're in, where you live. You know where your local stores are, but for me it's very difficult to talk about greening your business without talking about actually greening your life. You know your lifestyle because it's you know it's connected, isn't it A quick one as well? To think about is, like your home office, what your cleaning products are. Most cleaning products end up down the toilet or down the sink. They will end up in the waterways, they'll end up in the rivers. And again, most people know this already. But that affects wildlife, it can kill wildlife, it has impacts on I mean it's making the water polluted.

Adela Mei: 43:41

Basically, I just discovered, literally last week, I use eco-friendly cleaning products Over here. We've got quite a few companies that do that, so they're biodegradable and they don't have harmful chemicals in them. But there's a company called Tosano who they're basically making. It's stabilized aqueous ozone. It's basically oxygenated water that you clean with and that's it. There's nothing else in it. So I fell on the floor when I saw that, thinking what like they've tested it will. It will kill germs, it will clean anything. I'm like why do we all not have this? Okay, it's really really expensive yeah, yeah.

Josh Hall: 44:28

Well, I'm sure when they came out with a bunch of cleaners you know when, uh, you know I don't know when most cleaners came out, but I'd imagine through the industrial age and then through like forties, fifties and sixties, when things were in products were at mass, I would imagine it was like what can we make that is going to get the biggest, the biggest reach. We yeah, mike, my wife is big into in that movement of some some different cleaners, mainly just for the aspect of like less toxins in the home. Cleaners mainly just for the aspect of like less toxins in the home. But that makes sense, that that would. If there's toxins in your stuff in your home, then, yeah, it makes sense that the toxins are going to be in the trash and then in the ground and the rivers where they go.

Adela Mei: 45:01

So yeah, exactly so. Next one is travel. So one of the biggest ways most companies reduce emissions and be more sustainable is reduced travel. Not always possible for us working mainly remotely. I don't travel isn't one of our biggies to, you know to really look at, but it's just been. Say you had an action plan for your business of what you were going to do you would put maybe you'd reduce your flying to clients. You know, there there will be some people who may fly to visit big clients. Do you need to do that four times a year? Can you reduce it to twice a year, or can you tie it in with another meeting, just being mindful of? Are you just traveling for the sake of it, or is it a really necessary journey?

Josh Hall: 45:49

My advice is for everyone to just have at least three kids like me, and then you. Traveling is not happening, barely at all. It takes too long to get everyone in the car it's just like I can't leave my wife to take care of everybody for several nights in a row, so we're just gonna do, yeah, we're gonna do, yeah, we're doing workshop yeah.

Adela Mei: 46:10

So I think for our you know our audience today, like travel isn't such a biggie. But I know, you know, I've spoken to clients who they would have traveled flying to visit clients. Now they just reduce it, reduce it and do it less so. Another, another thing to just consider is this idea of compliance, because right now, businesses aren't really being legally um made to do these things, but it's, it's only a matter of time before all businesses will need an environmental policy, a sustainable sustainability policy. They'll need to do their carbon footprinting, they'll need to demonstrate what they're doing. So this won't come like next week, but it is coming I was even thinking.

Josh Hall: 46:59

We did an episode recently which is one of the most popular on the podcast, about um grant, like getting grant funding, and I would imagine if you have a green policy in place even honestly, just what we've covered here in the checklist that you're going to provide if you have that and and you say these are the things I'm actively working on, that's going to also put you in a much better position to get grant funding for your business.

Adela Mei: 47:20

That's absolutely on the list. It puts you just that. And this isn't about being competitive better than anyone else, but it's about, if you have a choice of companies and one's going green, they're on their journey and one isn't, which one are you going to choose? Um, a lot of this is um in the uk anyway, if you are, I say, a larger web design agency and you're putting tenders in, you will probably have to well, you do actually now in the uk kind of have to have some sort of sustainability element in your business plan or you're not considered for larger tenders.

Adela Mei: 47:54

Now, I know that doesn't affect everyone sole trader web designers, probably over the top. But if, if you're growing and scaling and that's where you're aiming, that because I'm involved in supporting clients with their tendering process I produce their sustainability piece to the business plan, you're going, you're going to be starting to lose out. So this is about you don't have to do it now, but why not start thinking about it now for the future of your business? You don't want to be losing out because you just didn't get this in place and it isn't that complicated to get started. Yeah, a lot of this seems quite common sense.

Josh Hall: 48:32

But some of the of this seems quite common sense, but some of the things that are really common sense and easy to take in are also easy to forget. Or, just again, a lot of this, too, is just if it's out of sight, it's out of mind. But this has been quite eye-opening for me to think of, just as a really good reminder of mainly for me digital storage. That's one of my biggest takeaways here is I had, I had no idea.

Josh Hall: 48:53

I just looked up separately, not that I didn't believe you, adela, but I did look up the data center thing and that is wild, yeah, I mean yeah, and have a look yeah, so the word the, the non-green web designer, is going to fly to a client with a briefcase of papers they're going to have non-organic stuff and uh sending over video files and then uh, yeah, and littering yeah and then so and then the last, the last tips, the number 10 I just pulled out was remembering to showcase, like your, green credentials to attract new clients.

Adela Mei: 49:38

So again, my experience is in the UK mainly, but green businesses are looking for other green businesses and clients and customers have a preference for green businesses. So it's another good. I mean personally. I think everyone wants to do their bit for the planet. They all know deep down somewhere that we have an obligation to protect the earth because we need it to survive. A lot of what I'm seeing here is green businesses attract other green businesses and then clients and customers want green businesses. So it all works together really nicely.

Josh Hall: 50:18

And then the cool thing is too with this it's like it's not even like political affiliations or anything like that. With this it's like if you just say, like you are doing what you can with with your little business as a web designer for the environment, that that should be cool for everyone. Your little business as a web designer for the environment, that that should be cool for everyone. I I definitely it's funny, because anything environmental I've never quite understood how that's been polarized politically when it's like, yeah, like you just said, the, the, the place that we live in, we should probably make sure we freaking take care of it.

Adela Mei: 50:47

So this all makes great sense to me you know we forget it and actually what I'm seeing and you know I'm in in the thick of it is what we're really talking about is a disconnect that people humans have as a race have forgotten that our survival is intrinsically connected to the planet's health. So our health and well-being is absolutely connected to the planetary health and well-being. That's really what the message is. At the core of all of this is we've forgotten, and a lot of it is because we're in our screens all the time. We've you know, we've forgotten, we've forgotten. So it's like my, my passion is just getting people to. Okay, let me write your action plan for you and get that done right now. Get back out into nature, do Do some breathing, do some meditating, be a good person, remember who you are. That, to me, is what I'm really passionate about. Well, a lot of this Adela has been just really good practical reminders too.

Josh Hall: 51:51

So I really appreciate you, yeah, really educating me on some of this too and just making me think about like, yeah, maybe if I post a two gigabyte video on Drive to submit it in somewhere, I just need to remember to delete it and not have it suck up storage for everyone's good. So this has been great. I know we got just a couple of minutes left, so where would you like people to go? Adele, I think you have this as like an official download for people, right?

Adela Mei: 52:16

Where should folks go after this? There's a free download that will have those tips, and we've also got some tips on building green websites, which are connected, obviously, with what we've been talking about. I've got some quick ways to basically save. Well, to sum up, of all the things that you can save for your business with, say, building, you know, faster sites, for example. Saving time and energy. Saving your client base, when you've got clients who maybe are moving away because they want to be looking for a green web designer or green web design agency. Saving money on supplies, you know, by reducing your printing, your paper and then, your favorite, saving money on data storage, which you know. Saving money on data storage, which you know. Saving money on reducing energy. Saving money on, like, reducing your equipment purchases. Saving money reducing driving, you know. Saving fuel and I don't know. You probably don't realize how much fuel costs over here in the uk compared to where you are it's fluctuated pretty drastically.

Josh Hall: 53:35

Yeah, it's, it's not as bad as it was a while ago, but uh, election year, how, how? Uh?

Adela Mei: 53:43

coincidentally, gas prices always fluctuate in election years that's another conversation it must be completely unrelated and then it's just remembering, like, why we're doing all of this is to save the planet, ultimately, because we're you know, we're a growing population, we're having a massive impact on the planet and this digital transformation we're in, I mean, it is revolutionizing things, but it has got a little bit, you know, out of control. So it's this idea of being sustainable with what we're doing. It's not about sustainability, isn't about stopping growth or stopping us doing things. It's just about doing things in a sustainable way, which, you know, is being mindful about what we're doing.

Josh Hall: 54:32

I love it. That's great, Adela. I think that is an awesome message to end off here and again, I appreciate hearing the foundation of all this for you, which is huge. So this has been really great. We'll make sure we have everything linked and I'll have all those resources linked in there. So this is cool. Adela, I haven't really talked to you about this stuff. I knew it was your background, but it's kind of cool to see this is obviously your passion over something like.

Adela Mei: 54:54

CSS. These things come around. Thank you, Josh.

Josh Hall: 55:00

Maybe your web design journey was needed, because now you're able to actually probably make a bigger impact with this passion of yours, having spent a lot of time in this industry.

Adela Mei: 55:12

Exactly that's being in the industry, being able to understand it for sure, yeah.

Josh Hall: 55:17

Awesome. Well, adela, thank you for your time, thank you for all you do, and this has been really cool, eyeopening, something different. So I feel I feel a little more cultured and educated after this. One Got me thinking I'm not going to drive. Yeah, I'm going to go over to my drive folder and clear some stuff out. How's that sound Awesome? Thanks, adela. Thank you Again.

Josh Hall: 55:42

Friends, I hope you enjoyed this one. If you are kind of like me, where you're a bit in the dark or just unaware of some things we can do practically as far as being a green web design business, I hope this gave you some good ideas. A green web design business I hope this gave you some good ideas. It's definitely made me be more proactive on particularly data storage and it just feels kind of good to clear things out. So I'm actually in the process of doing some of that myself, and we covered a lot of links here, and Adela does have a free guide for you. You can get that at the show notes for this episode at joshhallco slash 333. It should be an easy one to remember joshhallco slash 333. It should be an easy one to remember joshhallco slash 333. There you'll also find a full transcription for this episode and again, the resource that Adela has for you to check out and you can check Adela out at jackdawdigitalcom, which again will be linked over at the show notes at joshhallco slash 333.

Josh Hall: 56:31

All right, friends, I hope you enjoyed this one. We'd love to hear from you If you'd like to leave a comment over at the show notes and make sure you subscribe to the podcast. We've got some doozies up ahead. I'm so pumped. I hope you're pumped as well. So let's have some fun together. Shall we go to the show notes. Joshhallco slash three, three, three for all the goodies on this one. Cheers, friends.