[Go Make Things] The environmental impact of the web we build

By rahmat hidayat

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

​ One of the things that's difficult for me to resolve in my head is the the conflict between three things… I absolutely love the web. I care deeply about climate change. The web has been a massive driver of climate change. Today, I wanted to talk briefly about we, as people who build things for the web, can do to reduce our environmental impact. Special thanks to Hidde de Vries and Thomas Broyer, whose exchange on Bluesky inspired today's post. It's not what you think I have for years been talking about how building sites that are big and bloated results in more carbon emissions, because transmitting all of that data is expensive. Turns out, that's not really true. More data means more server farms, sure. And more server farms means more electricity consumed and more emissions generated. But sending 100kb or data versus 10kb—the actually transmission—doesn't really have much of an impact at all. The single biggest carbon generator in the tech lifecycle are people's devices. And that's something that the size of our websites does have a direct (and indirect) impact on! Big websites are battery hogs Data over the wire—the size of it and the frequency of it—have a big impact on battery performance, especially in mobile devices. Megabytes of JavaScript lag devices, making them feel slow and clunky. The shitty, bloated web we build makes otherwise good devices feel laggy and obsolete. It helps perpetuate the upgrade cycle. As Thomas Broyer writes in his article that inspired this one… Extending the lifespan of a smartphone from 3 to 5 years can reduce its yearly global warming impacts by almost a third. Of course, this isn't really a you problem. It's systemic I have a degree in anthropology (which is a fun mix of biology, history, and sociology). One of the things I believe passionately is that systems are a far bigger driver of human behavior than individual psychology. But so much of the narrative around issues like climate change focus on individual behavior. It's not the beverage industry's fault that we switched from reusable glass bottles to disposable plastic. It's your fault for not recycling properly. It's not the oil lobby's fault that we haven't shifted to renewables. It's your fault for flying across the country once a year to see your family or take a vacation. It's not the insurance industry's fault you went into medical debt. It's your fault for not being healthier. The list goes on and on. And it's all, of course, bullshit. It's not really your fault It is the beverage industry's fault. It's the oil lobby's fault. It's the insurance industry's fault. And it's Apple and Google and Facebook's fault. New every two? Your old phone was just fine (until that forced software upgrade killed its battery life). Skip the case and just get a new one with Apple Care? A $30 investment (or a more durable phone) would keep your existing device in service for years longer. You could chose to use a more lightweight tool at your employer or for your project, but there's still millions of other websites built on React because Facebook convinced an entire generation of developers that the "real DOM is slow" and their bloated piece of shit wasn't. Small acts of resistance It can feel hopeless, at times, fighting against the tide of systemic problems. You alone can't change a system, and that's how bad systems persist even when lots of people recognize that they're broken. But small acts of resistance can inspire bigger change, like ripples spreading out over a pond. You convincing your team to reach for Svelte or Astro (or just using plain old HTML or PHP) today can lead to a similar decision at a future employer of theirs down the road. It could become the topic of a conference talk or YouTube video, or an example other developers point to when looking for alternatives. That's how React got such a stranglehold on the industry. It can work in reverse, too. Like this? A Go Make Things membership is the best way to support my work and help me create more free content. Cheers, Chris ​ Want to share this with others or read it later? View it in a browser.​ ​

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