A little while back, Blackle got a lot of coverage for putting forward some ideas about how web design can reduce electricity consumption. Unfortunately, the calculations of that particular approach, which centered on monitor energy consumption, have been widely debunked due to the now prevalence of LCD monitors.
The other day I came across a slightly different approach presented by Steve Souders [via Ajaxian] – which presents a rough calculation of how a reduction in page weight might reduce electricity consumption at the server side.
Interesting – especially if it holds up to scrutiny. What I like about it most is that it suggests that coding best practices, like web standards, server-side compression, and code optimisation, can actually have green benefits as we strive to reduce energy consumption.
Who woulda thunk it…