Kilian Valkhof

A green economy and what it means for web development

Today is blog action day, a day where 14000 blogs unite and talk about one topic: the environment. Having a mostly techy-weblog, I’ve tried to find a topic that connects to my profession: a green economy and what it means for web development.

Green economy

The green economy page on Wikipedia has probably been made by a very bitter man, because the site tells us that there are no green economics, and that it’s not going to work and that the ideas fall under a couple of other, “real” economical systems. Naming conventions aside, a green economy basically means that the economy is geared towards preservation instead of production. Ideally, producing the same amount of stuff, but without damaging the environment.

Web Development

Web developers don’t build stuff that comes with litter, at least not on such as scale as most fields. For Fluxility, the occasional paper documents are there, but all in all, I try to do as much on the computer as possible. I think that counts for most web development companies. So we don’t pollute the environment as much, do we?

Well, guess again:

Power

When I look around me, there are 3 screens on and pointed at me. when I leave the room my pc stays on, most of the time. These things all consume power. However, there are simple things I do to use less energy:

• use LCD’s instead of CRT’s
  The argument that CRT’s have superior quality is, by now, an outdated view. LCD’s with 1000:1 contrast rates are available and don’t cost much any more.
• buy a laptop with a long battery life
  Having a long battery life means that you won’t have to charge as often, again reducing your power use
• The small things: turn your monitors off when you leave the room, don’t have your pc on when you don’t need to, don’t keep your laptop plugged into the power outlet all day.

Going even further, Turn off the lights when you leave a room, even if you’re coming back soon, don’t use the radiator/AC when you don’t have to, have a clean energy contract.

Go to clients on bike or with public transport. If you have to use a car, get a small clean, gas-saving one. Sure, being the account-manager-with-stationwagon is nice, but you’re one person, why do you need an entire stationwagon?

All these things aren’t life changing things. Some you may not do as easily (buy a new car) and some you can do without any effort (turn of the light when you leave the room). The way I see it, it’s the small things like this that are going to help us get back on the right track and get the environment stable again.

So, what tips do you have for the rest, how do you preserve energy? Share in the comments! :)