Going Green Media does an amazing job documenting and celebrating sustainable innovation. Their approach to showcasing how sustainability has a place in tech, travel, fashion, plant-based living, and more is nothing short of inspiring. However, a key issue we recognised was the significant digital footprint their website was creating, with 0.89g CO2 per load. Aligning their footprint with their passion for sustainability was crucial, ensuring the platform truly reflects the innovators they celebrate.
Beyond the carbon footprint, the existing website was functional yet lacked the polish, clarity, and scalability needed for growth. While it contained all their necessary content - a list of eco-stays, projects, blogs, and a media kit - the structure made it difficult to expand the website while keeping things user-friendly. A key goal for the project was to remove the "pigeon-hole" they felt they were in and to confidently position Going Green Media as professionals in the sustainability sector. We kept this objective in mind while building the new website and brand identity, ensuring they could expand while remaining professional, user-friendly, and accessible.
Finally, Going Green Media wanted to be recognised as a fun brand that makes sustainability and taking action for our planet feel accessible, inclusive, and simple. It was important to strike a balance: ensuring that the fun elements did not undermine their expertise or create an immature brand image.
To achieve the goal of a 15% decrease in Co2 from page load, the approach combined being efficient in both design and development. It was crucial to make decisions that ensured the website was sustainable at build and maintainable by Going Green Media moving forward. This strategy began during the sitemap and content architecture phase, where the UX was designed to ensure each page contained only the content relevant to that part of the user's journey. This not only decreases the digital footprint but also allows for a smoother, tailored browsing experience. In development, all files and content were converted and compressed to eliminate unnecessary data loading. This included utilising AVIF and SVG images where possible and uploading fonts as WOOF2, decreasing the energy needed for each page load. Finally, all styles and classes were built at an HTML level, minimising the code required for design while building a website full of character and with a minimal footprint
A priority for Going Green Media was to position themselves as the experts they are, with the ability to scale and expand on their capabilities when necessary. My focus was on building a smooth, professional experience for their users while ensuring their content could be showcased effectively and in a way that spoke to the relevant user. To achieve this, the website's content architecture and sitemap were rebuilt, giving content room to breathe and taking users on a relevant, seamless journey. Since Going Green Media targets both B2B and B2C audiences, we created tailored paths:
For B2C viewers, we guided them towards a filterable catalogue of projects, eco-stays, and blogs that sparked their interest.
For B2B partners, the journey was focused on discovering their media kit and easily guiding them toward contacting for partnership opportunities.
A seamless and tailored experience was built for both user types to provide relevant content and demonstrate their authority. To ensure future growth can be handled effortlessly, tailored tutorials were provided to Going Green Media for uploading content, creating pages, and expanding their newly built platform.
