Making SHARE’s Web Presence “Grid Aware”

SHARE Reflections are a series of short pieces that record the questions, dilemmas, and insights that arise as we navigate sustainability in the course of our research. These reflections document the real discussions happening within our community—conversations where environmental ideals meet personal circumstances, structural inequalites, ethical concerns, and practical constraints.

The second in our series reflects on whether our website should be made "grid aware". This would mean incorporating software to allow the website to adapt its appearance to reflect the proportion of electricity generated from fossil fuels (as opposed to renewable energy sources like wind or solar) in its local energy grid. For example, serving up black and white images is less energy intensive than serving up colour images, so the website would switch from colour to black and white images when the electricity it is running off is mainly generated from fossil fuels. This question started as a technical curiosity but quickly become a window into many of the themes that underpin SHARE's wider work.

As we discussed this issue in a group meeting, we explored how the importance of us "walking our talk" needs to be balanced with the inevitable inconsistencies when it comes to acting in an environmentally responsible way.

We asked ourselves whether a grid aware website would only signal symbolic virtue, rather than generate meaningful impact around environmental sustainability. The environmental saving from a single site is minimal, which raises the possibility that the gesture might be purely performative and virtue signalling rather than substantive. Yet signalling has its own value in raising awareness and debate. In our case, making our digital presence visibly responsive to the carbon intensity of the local electricity grid could spark conversations about sustainability in contexts – such as simply browsing websites - where it is usually invisible.

These reflections have raised practical questions too. We had envisioned videos on our website, yet adaptive design might mean they disappear or play inconsistently. Would a marginal reduction in our digital footprint be worth a possible drop in engagement? Balanced against this, for visitors with limited bandwidth, a simpler site could increase accessibility — a reminder that environmental responsibility can intersect with questions of equity.

There were moments of humour too. After spending some time negotiating for a colourful SHARE logo within the carefully branded Oxford web presence, to evoke the importance of diversity and plurality in our team, the idea that a grid-aware site might now show only muted tones felt delightfully absurd.

It was also highlighted that significant effort may be required to persuade the Oxford Communications team to adopt such an experimental design - none of the project websites within its current portfolio appear to be grid aware, and security concerns may also be raised. This in turn highlights one of our core aims: to explore institutional constraints and the difficulty of doing things differently. If we struggle to make small sustainability-focused changes, what does that say about the barriers faced by researchers elsewhere? The grid aware question in many ways echoes what we are hearing from participants in our research: that sustainability initiatives within laboratories and institutions often rely on voluntary work done alongside formal roles. Realising the parallels within our own team has been both grounding and unsettling.

Thinking globally added further layers. If the website appears more visually engaging in places with cleaner grids, then users in the Global North would be more likely to get the "better" version, with visitors in the South, where fossil fuel-based energy is more frequent, seeing something plainer. This irony touches directly on the justice questions at the heart of SHARE as it exposes the fact that access to greener energy is limited for countries with less resources, who have historically contributed less to carbon emissions due to their lower industrial development.

Despite these uncertainties, many of us feel there is value in exploring the idea precisely because it encourages a broader conversation. Even if the environmental impact is small, the act of questioning our digital practices underscores the principle that sustainability should be considered across every aspect of our work, not only in the research we produce.

The question of a grid-aware website has become a microcosm of the SHARE project: full of tensions, insights, humour, and uncomfortable truths. Whether or not we ultimately adopt it, the reflections it has sparked are already shaping how we think about sustainability in practice — as something situated, imperfect, and continually evolving.