Ask HN: As a developer, do you consider the carbon footprint of your apps?

Hi there,

I'm terrible at addressing the current environmental challenges.

This morning, I discovered the Website Carbon Calculator [0] and tested all the websites I've created. To my surprise, some of my websites turned out to be disastrous.

Until now, I hadn't been concerned about the carbon footprint of my apps, but having access to this information encourages us, as developers, to take responsibility for the performance of what we build. This article [1] details how to reduce this footprint when building websites, serving as a great starting point for considering how we can minimize our impact (e.g. using less JavaScript)

I don't want to engage in the cliché of “greenwashing”, but rather aim to make a positive impact as a developer.

What are your thoughts? Were you already aware of this?

[0] https://www.websitecarbon.com/

[1] https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/website-energy-efficiency/

(I'm not affiliated with any of the website I quote)

It doesn't cross my mind.

Not entirely. Besides the ones I build for work, I have a few systems running in a local server that I wrote, but I already optimized my home electricity network to use as little as possible.

For work, I don't have all that much choice. Obviously, I try to write as efficient code as reasonable, but I have no input on where it's hosted.

Looks like a new term for website optimisation? Which, more or less, anyone building anything online should do anyway. But forcing any environmental meaning behind in doesn't feel right.

It's like sorting waste that will end up in the general landfill.

No.