Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

Designing and building low-carbon websites independently

Tuesday, November 18, 2025 • Climate UX Interest Group
Share the love for this talk
Designing and building low-carbon websites independently
Speakers: Nick Lewis
Link:

Summary

What are low-carbon websites and what do they look like in practice? In this conversation, we will talk about creativity within the constraints, how to navigate client conversations when they want resource-heavy designs and how to think about your project’s carbon budget. As a bonus, we’ll get sneak peeks on what happens behind the scenes of a curation site of over 270 low carbon sites and why some of them get removed over time.

Key Insights

  • Nick Lewis entered digital sustainability motivated by personal outdoor experiences highlighting climate impact.

  • Around 2017, digital sustainability resources were limited, sparking Nick’s self-driven research and experimentation.

  • Working in traditional creative agencies, Nick found tension between flashy, heavy designs and sustainable/performance goals.

  • Transitioning to agencies with sustainability core values and then freelancing allowed Nick to work with more aligned clients.

  • Low carbon web design involves optimizing everything from typography and color choices to reducing unnecessary animations and videos.

  • Creative constraints in sustainable design often inspire innovative solutions rather than limiting creativity.

  • The Low Carbon Showcase website enforces a strict review process but has removed about 70 previously included sites as their sustainability regressed.

  • Most performance and sustainability issues on websites come from heavy videos, large images, excessive JavaScript, and multiple font files.

  • Nick is critical of generative AI in creative fields, viewing it as uncreative and energy-wasteful, but sees other AI applications as valuable.

  • Nick developed a Figma plugin prototype to help designers identify sustainability issues early in the design process without disrupting workflow.

Notable Quotes

"When I started out, I knew nothing about digital sustainability."

"Designing sustainable doesn’t mean removing everything fun from the web."

"Creative constraints can actually bring out the most creative solutions."

"Clients often want flashy autoplay video even though it negatively impacts performance and sustainability."

"About 70 sites have been removed from the Low Carbon Showcase after regressing in sustainability."

"Most heavy website performance issues come from videos, images, JavaScript, and fonts."

"Generative AI is not creative; it’s just pattern finding and recycling what’s been done before."

"Using generative AI for design risks losing the human creativity that makes design special."

"Be curious, keep learning, and believe you can make a difference in sustainability."

"The Climate Dictionary was built in a couple hours over a weekend, focused on function over form."

Ask the Rosenbot
Alba Villamil
Stereotyped by Design: Pitfalls in Cross-Cultural User Research
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Nidhi Singh Rathore
Embracing participation to unlock deeper truths in commercial research
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Jim Kalbach
Peace is waged with sticky notes: Mapping Real-World Experiences
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Discussion
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Daniela Magaña Flores
Ahead of Competition: Learn What UX Benchmarking Can Do for Your Business Today
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Samuel Proulx
Invisible barriers: Why accessible service design can’t be an afterthought
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Uday Gajendar
Theme One Intro
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Ricardo Martins
Unlocking the power of advanced quantitative methods
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Catt Small
Craft a Vision that Actually Gets Shipped
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Husani Oakley
Theme Three Intro
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Alan Williams
Designing essential financial services for those in need
2022 • Civic Design Community
Uday Gajendar
Theme Four Intro
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Jane Reid
Self-care in User Research
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Cornelius Rachieru
Handling Complexity: Framing a Scale of Design
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Aiyana Bodi
Three Key Climate Initiatives and How You Can Help
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Molly Fargotstein
Multipurpose Communication & UX Research Marketing
2019 • DesignOps Community

More Videos

Rebecca Gimenez

"Design is a very powerful role and at Airbnb people are ready to engage in it as a collective practice."

Rebecca Gimenez

Work in Progress: Service Design at Airbnb

December 3, 2024

Lada Gorlenko

"IBM pivoted its design education program from in person to online very quickly and successfully."

Lada Gorlenko

Theme 2 Intro

June 9, 2022

Brigette Metzler

"There’s a tension in repositories having to serve immediate product decisions and more durable, strategic knowledge."

Brigette Metzler Dana Chrisfield

Research Repositories: A global project by the ResearchOps Community

August 27, 2020

"Align on what you’re looking for before the interview to evaluate non-traditional candidates fairly."

Discussion

June 9, 2017

Sarah Brooks

"We need to push back when we see the concrete boat coming, but it’s really hard to know how."

Sarah Brooks Jennifer Pahlka

Fireside chat with Sarah Brooks and Jen Pahlka

October 21, 2021

Lisa Spitz

"We actively coach Department of PFML staff to shadow and eventually run their own research sessions so they’re empowered long-term."

Lisa Spitz Nikki Brand

Building Trust Through Equitable Research Practices

November 18, 2022

Theresa Neil

"Healthcare technology is absolutely a growing market with tremendous opportunity."

Theresa Neil

Designing for Wellness: Specializing in Healthcare

May 22, 2024

Maverick Chan

"I haven’t gone more than one day without seeing a new gen AI tool that promises to do it all with a single prompt."

Maverick Chan Claire Lin

From Doodle to Demo: AI as Our Storytelling Partner

October 23, 2025

Alla Weinberg

"If there isn’t safety and connection, you get a culture of transaction and silence that kills innovation."

Alla Weinberg

Design Teams Need Psychological Safety: Here’s How to Create It

September 8, 2022