Seven tips for a more sustainable e-commerce tech stack

More and more consumers expect the online retailers they choose to live up to their social and environmental responsibility. One lever that should not be underestimated is a sustainable e-commerce tech stack that keeps energy consumption, and with it the carbon footprint, low. We have put together seven measures for this.

Gescher, February 26, 2024. An average "standard" online order delivered to the front door caused an average of 1,421 g of CO2 equivalents in 2021, according to calculations by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI on behalf of the bevh. That corresponds to roughly nine times the emissions of one passenger kilometre travelled by a combustion-engine car, meaning the kilometres covered multiplied by the number of travellers. Alongside packaging and logistics, the digital infrastructure is also an important lever for improving sustainability in online retail. The study's authors assume its share of total emissions is between 5.5 and 25 percent.

This figure, however, also includes consumers' own IT infrastructure, and their share is higher than that of the retailers. Even so, online retailers can reduce their environmental footprint further by setting up their own e-commerce tech stack as sustainably as possible. Manuel Ludvigsen-Diekmann, CTO of the e-commerce service provider Shopmacher, has put together seven points that online retailers need to keep in mind.

With a cloud-based IT infrastructure, many users work on a shared infrastructure. Each one only uses the capacity they actually need at that moment. This means the hardware is used efficiently and excess capacity is avoided.

Work with hosting providers that rely on energy-efficient servers and renewable energy sources in order to minimize the environmental footprint. These providers invest in modern server hardware that meets current standards for energy efficiency, and they work with energy-efficient processors and optimized cooling technology, among other things. Positioning data centers in locations with favourable climate conditions or using energy-saving lighting also improves energy efficiency.

Even the newest tech stack ages at some point or has to be scaled. For the sake of the environment, it is better if the entire infrastructure does not then have to be replaced, but instead systems are built from independent and interoperable building blocks. This way individual elements can be swapped out easily without overhauling the whole system.

The internet has become one of the biggest power consumers in the world. Retailers can find out how high the CO2 emissions of their own online shop are with this tool. The good news: sustainable web design can significantly reduce power consumption when using an online shop, and with it CO2 emissions. The first premise is "mobile first", since browsing on mobile devices is considerably more resource-saving than on a desktop PC. Doing without unnecessary elements, graphics, animations and above all videos also shortens loading times and saves power. An optimal UX gets online visitors to their goal faster and thereby saves page views and CO2.

A CDN distributes static resources like images, stylesheets and JavaScript files across servers positioned in various geographic regions worldwide. This places these resources closer to end users, which reduces latency and speeds up loading times. By distributing static resources across different servers, the load on the origin servers is reduced. The workload is spread better, which uses the servers more efficiently and lowers the need for additional server capacity. On top of that, CDNs implement powerful caching mechanisms that ensure resources retrieved once are cached. Repeated requests for the same resources do not have to go back to the origin server each time, which reduces data traffic and minimizes energy consumption.

Avoid electronic waste by recycling old devices properly. Functioning hardware can also be donated. Many non-profit organizations, schools or charitable projects can benefit from working hardware.

Many consumers now pay closer attention to whether the companies they buy from take measures to protect the environment. You may be able to win these customers over if you make your sustainability efforts visible. At the same time, you can also motivate your customers to shop in an environmentally conscious way, for example by pointing out beneath videos what carbon footprint a click on the video leaves behind.