Sustainability at Beech,
it’s how we do business
We believe businesses can and should create a positive impact alongside profit. Sustainability is integral to how we operate. It shapes how we create websites, how we run our daily operations, and how we measure success.
This commitment is verified through B Corp™ certification. We’re independently and regularly assessed on our social and environmental performance.
Websites that perform better use less energy
Websites use energy and produce carbon emissions. Energy is required to power the server a site is hosted on, the infrastructure involved in delivering it to our devices and our devices themselves.
In this way, the efficiency of every single website element contributes to the overall environmental impact, and we believe that website creators have a responsibility to reduce that impact as much as possible.
We apply sustainable practices throughout the build process to ensure optimal performance and minimal environmental impact. Then, before we launch any website, it passes an industry-standard carbon footprint test.
How we build sustainable websites
We use WordPress with Elementor and the Hello Elementor theme. This lightweight foundation reduces overall code size and server load.
We ensure that hosting providers we partner with use renewable energy sources for their data centres. This strategy both reduces carbon footprint and provides fast loading speeds for our websites.
A CDN is a distribution of servers that store certain content on a server near to the location of your website visitors. Put simply, they reduce the distance your website information has to travel. They can store HTML, JavaScript, CSS, images and videos. By using a CDN, we reduce slow response times or ‘latency’ and lower the energy required to transmit data across long distances, reducing the amount of carbon emitted per website visit.
As well as reducing the original size and resolution of images before they’re uploaded to a website, we can go a step further and convert them into WebP format once they’re uploaded. This greatly reduces file sizes while maintaining the image’s quality and can greatly impact the overall size of a website and therefore the amount of storage space required.
We use a variety of tools to fully optimise WordPress websites. As every website is bespoke, we apply a unique set of tactics to best optimise each one. JavaScript, CSS, images and even fonts are compressed while retaining functionality and appearance. We work hard to apply our significant skills and experience in a way that not only ensures a faster experience for your website visitors, but also better performance in Google.
In 2016, Google began crawling mobile versions of websites first, before other sizes, prioritising the mobile experience above all. In acknowledgement of this, we ensure the websites we create work well across all devices and have specific optimisations focused on the mobile experience. In general, mobile devices consume less power than desktops and laptops, and so focusing on mobile designs also promotes sustainability best practice.
As well as reducing the original size and resolution of images before they’re uploaded to a website, we can go a step further and convert them into WebP format once they’re uploaded. This greatly reduces file sizes while maintaining the image’s quality and can greatly impact the overall size of a website and therefore the amount of storage space required.
The result is websites that load faster, rank better in Google, and operate more efficiently.
Better for your visitors, and better for the planet.
Sustainability in everything we do
As well as during the website creation process, we embed sustainability actions, big and small, into our daily operations. This is part of our environmental policy and a responsibility all team members share.
Our team takes action every day:
- Recycling office waste and reducing unnecessary printing
- Sending digital versions of all proposals, quotes, and documents (no paper)
- Online billing and paperless operations
- Switching off equipment at the end of the day
- Using dark mode across applications to reduce screen power consumption
- Setting automatic deletion dates for emails to reduce cloud storage requirements
- Only using office lights when necessary
These small actions reflect a larger commitment, as we’re reducing environmental impact through intentional choices.
Greener email marketing, independently verified
As part of our efforts to always look for the ethical, sustainable choices in digital marketing, we can utilise the greener, more eco-friendly tools and platforms out there for not only our client work, but also our internal operations.
Email is a core part of our digital marketing services, and we’ve made a deliberate choice to use Ecosend, an email marketing platform independently certified as carbon neutral. Every email campaign sent through Ecosend is offset through verified carbon reduction projects, and we chose them because their certification is externally audited, not self-declared.
This means email marketing campaigns deliver results while contributing to sustainability efforts, and your digital marketing doesn’t have to compromise environmental responsibility.
Planting trees with Ecologi, funding clean energy
In 2023, we committed to active carbon offsetting through Ecologi. We plant trees around the world and in the UK, and fund community and renewable energy projects.
Here’s how this commitment works:
Each month, we plant trees for every team member in our office and contribute to funding renewable energy and community sustainability projects around the world.
This impact is always transparent and visible, in line with our values. You can see our forest and our contributions to global sustainability projects at any time.
B Corp certification holds us accountable
Our sustainability commitment is verified through B Corp certification. We’re independently assessed against the B Impact Assessment, measuring environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.
B Corp certification means our commitment is verified by an independent organisation and reviewed regularly through rigorous assessment.
Learn more about our B Corp certification and what it means for your partnership with us.
Being sustainable is smart business
Sustainable practices deliver business value:
- Websites that load faster rank better in Google
- Efficient code means better performance
- Eco-friendly hosting provides reliability and speed alongside environmental responsibility
- Demonstrating sustainability helps validate to audiences that organisations are walking the talk on their values and eco-friendly claims without greenwashing
- Customers feel more confident purchasing from a brand that showcases their values
Sustainability is an investment in websites that work harder, companies that operate more responsibly, and a planet we can all share.
For clients, this means your website performs better, your digital marketing is more environmentally responsible, and your investment delivers results aligned with your values.
Ready to think about your digital marketing more sustainably?
If sustainability is included in your business values, let’s talk about how we can help. We’ll build you a website that performs brilliantly and operates responsibly.
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