Notice of Motion

Green GROUP

Reducing our internet-related carbon impact

This committee notes the:

• Declaration of a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency by this Council in December 2018
• Damaging effect on our environment through the use of electronic devices, including the carbon emissions from internet browsing
• Actions of businesses and organisations in the city such as the University of Sussex to use Ecosia as their default search engine
• The positive impact of planting trees on both carbon reduction and providing ecosystems to enhance biodiversity

This committee resolves to:

• Instruct Officers to investigate

 (a) the possibility of making Ecosia the default search engine for staff            and councillor council devices including workstations and mobile devices and

(b)  the use of Ecosia in the library service, customer service centres and council-owned buildings, such as schools and leisure centres and report back to the Committee with recommendations.

• Request that a review of the carbon impact of the council website be undertaken to ensure that it is as code-minimal and sustainable as possible
• Request an individual tracking link from Ecosia to review the number of trees planted as a result, and report the results yearly to Policy and Resources Committee

Proposed by: Councillor Clare        Seconded by: Councillor Mac Cafferty

Supporting information:

1) Ecosia is a search engine which uses the income from internet searches to plant trees across the world. Since launching, the organisation has  planted more than 68 million trees throughout the world https://info.ecosia.org/what

2) It is estimated that internet usage consumes 14.5 g of carbon dioxide (CO2) per an uncached page loads for a 10mb page https://blog.jacklenox.com/2019/09/23/talk-how-better-performing-websites-can-help-save-the-planet/

3) Sussex on Ecosia Campaign individual tracking link can be accessed at http://ecosia.co/UniversityofSussex