17th Aug 2022
Whether you're starting up a new business or making changes to how you already work, there are certain services you will always need or find incredibly useful.
We've been around for a while, so we've found some great services along the way. Here's a round up, some are our clients, some are services we personally use and some just look really good. Let us know if there are any you would recommend.
Green Stationery Co
We have been using the Green Stationery Company since day one (that's nearly 18 years ago). With their impeccable customer service, they supply everything we could have possibly needed for our office. On top of that, they really care about having as little impact on the environment as possible. Check out their 'About' page to find out what they say.
greenstat.co.uk
Ethical Revolution
Sam, founder of Ethical Revolution, is one of our Green Hosting clients and this service is incredibly clever. As well as providing a wealth of knowledge about ethical products and services, Ethical Revolution has a directory of ethical companies and a bank of discount codes for those companies (Green Hosting is included of course). You can also search for books from ethical shops as an alternative to Amazon.
ethicalrevolution.co.uk
Libraries of Things - Share & Elmbridge Community Eco Hub
As we have our beloved public libraries in the towns and cities of the UK, I feel we should have as many libraries of things too. What an amazing way to tackle waste, by simply borrowing the things we only need to use occasionally rather than buying them. Often, items in the library have been donated by the public too and the prices are lower than traditional hire shops (and/or there's a membership fee to contribute to costs like maintenance, insurance etc). Green Hosting clients Share Frome and Elmbridge Eco Hub stock a range of items such as tools, cleaners and events equipment. Do you have a library of things in your town?
sharefrome.org elmbridgeecohub.org.uk
Ethical Consumer
We have referred to Ethical Consumer time and time again when looking to buy goods or services for both home and business. This massive resource provides a wealth of detailed information about companies and how they score when it comes to various ethical issues (such as environment, people and politics). There are often surprises in there too so always worth checking! Their membership is very reasonably priced in our opinion too.
ethicalconsumer.org
We founded our business with a bank account with The Co-operative Bank all those years ago. Their customer-led ethical policy really is inspirational (see our article about our own ethical policy) and we believe they genuinely care about the planet, people and community as they say. Some of our clients use other, newer ethical banking services such as Starling, Triodos and Unity Trust which look great too.
We shopped around a little for our business insurance in the past few years. We found a company we really liked and have stayed with them, not just because of their ethical credentials but because of their helpful, friendly and professional customer service. They are Evergreen Insurance Services, a broker that donates a percentage of their commission to one of their many conservation and animal support charity partners. Other options that we looked at were Naturesave and The Co-op business insurance.
Good accountants are worth their weight in gold, dealing with the complexities of tax returns, PAYE and everything else that allows you to get on with earning the money. Green & Moore is a vegan and environmentally friendly business. David, the founder explains on their website how they work in a green and ethical manner. Kathleen Moss specialises in accounting services for charities. Both are Green Hosting clients.
Finding and expressing your unique business voice, whether through good marketing support or copywriting services, can make all the difference. Here are some Green Hosting clients who provide those services:
The Ethical Copywriter - Rachel is a freelance copywriter for ethical and sustainable brands. She cares about helping the right businesses make money. Read The Ethical Copywriter origin story.
Cocoon Communications - Katie provides conscious marketing communications for eco friendly and sustainable brands. Read the Cocoon Communications origin story.
Melissa Hobson - Copywriting and PR for people protecting the ocean. As a certified scuba instructor Melissa has a specific interest in caring for marine life.
Caitlin Job - Copywriter & French to English translator specialising in ecotourism, ethical marketing and international development.
Mission Mango - Marketing, consulting and coaching for socially conscious and ethically engaged entrepreneurs
Communicating your brand through visual media enhances anything we can say in words, whether that's in the form of illustrations, iconography or video. These Green Hosting clients have you covered:
Thoughts Make Things - Our colleague of many years (and our dear friend), Lydia provides illustration, art direction and design in the most thoughtful way. Take a look at her portfolio to see packaging and merchandise design, print and digital work, icon creation and her own personal projects.
Kiakari - A photographer, artist, designer, writer and editor with twenty years' experience to a range of clients.
Rob Bartlett - On a mission to do good with design, via icons and pictograms and with equality, diversity and inclusion front of mind.
Fuzzfox - Ethical video productions helping businesses, charities and non-profits raise awareness of their brand and engage their audience.
Puffin digital - Graphic design, logos, brand creation, web design and digital marketing. Transforming ideas into beautiful, eye-catching designs!
360events - Providing specialist services relating to the technical and creative requirements of branding agencies, marketing companies and event organisers.
Then there are those specialists who support you as an entrepreneur to learn the personal and professional skills to develop your ethical business further. Here are a range of those experts, all Green Hosting clients:
#Ethical Hour - We have been members of the #EthicalHour community since it was first founded by the brilliant Sian. It is a network and a wealth of resources 'to unite the most vibrant, supportive and sustainable community of changemakers on the internet'.
Kenekt - Connecting climate action with people and business through a range of services including pro bono support for charities and community projects.
Thinking Outside - Nature based-coaching and development including retreats and networking walks (or 'netwalks') to facilitate thinking.
Ethical Sales - B2B sales partners for purpose-driven business. Look out for their free sales resources and best practice examples for ethical businesses.
Laura Bartlett - For those at the beginning of a new journey, an Executive Coach helping people find their purpose and achieve their ambitions.
Rebecca Nestor - Supporting those facing the climate crisis through workshops and climate cafes, coaching and organisational consultancy.
Welsh Mill Hub - A shared work space and community venue for Frome including office space, remakery space, venue hire and events.
Edventure - Edventure in Frome run courses, events and programmes in community entrepreneurship. A place to build skills, community and confidence to grow a kinder, fairer, greener world.
1st Nov 2021
COP26 is officially underway. Now is the time that we want to see world leaders make real commitments to reducing carbon emissions. Amongst other means, two proposed measures to achieve this are to accelerate the phase-out of coal and encourage investment in renewables.
There will need to be some bold pledges from those in power, and waiting for them to take action can leave us feeling a little powerless. However, as we know, every change can make a difference.
In our world of web design and website hosting, we know of a few ways that small changes to our online activities can collectively have a big, positive impact.
Here’s what we all can do:
Why should we do these things?
Despite the internet appearing to be an intangible thing, it is very much made up of physical resources and consumes huge amounts of energy, 24 hours a day. Read more about this in our previous articles...
How using Green Hosting can help reduce carbon emissions and exercise consumer influence
Reducing Waste in Our Digital Lives
16th Apr 2021
We talk a lot about the environmental credentials of Green Hosting but we know there are other, arguably more important, things to consider when it comes to choosing a web host.
Being an online business ourselves we completely understand that entrusting your website with anyone is a big deal. You need to know that the service is secure and reliable and crucially that you can access technical support when you need it.
How do we know this? We've been providing web hosting for 16 years and so we've definitely got the experience behind us to know what clients really want the most.
When clients tell us how happy they are with our clear communication and straightforward support, that they were relieved at how smoothly we transferred their website and e-mails or or that they appreciated the quick set up, this shows us what matters to you.
Here are a some of the things our clients said about us:
"Thank YOU for providing such a brilliant service! Honestly, before starting Ethical Revolution all those years ago I used to provide web solutions for businesses and so I have had plenty of experience of web hosts. Even without the amazing green credentials you guys are the best!"
Sam Attard
ethicalrevolution.co.uk
"I'm really impressed with the service I received from Green Hosting. I was nervous about moving my site over in case anything got lost or broken but they guided me through the whole process, answered all my questions in plain English and kept me updated at every stage. They handled the whole switch over for me and it went smoothly. Not only have they made my site more sustainable but it's actually much faster now too!"
Sian Conway-Wood
ethicalhour.co.uk
You're a dream, thank you, best service I've ever had in my life from a hosting company!
Holly Rose
hollyrose.eco
We’d REALLY recommend Green Hosting as they’ve been fantastic throughout this whole process.
Sarah Webb
unlimited.earth
"So great to know that my website won't be running on fossil fuels - and to top it off they were incredibly quick and helpful with set-up"
Rachel Baker
theethicalcopywriter.com
If you are looking to move your website to Green Hosting then do get in touch. To see other websites using our Green Hosting, take a look at our Clients page.
Please note that Wix, Squarespace & Shopify are all closed web platforms and websites built with these systems are not able to be moved elsewhere.
26th Mar 2021
Did you know that we have Green Hosting badges for our clients to display on their websites?
If you are using our hosting service, go ahead and tell the world that you have chosen to power your site 100% by the wind!
We have a range of different sized badges and an option of full colour or grey and white. To use a badge, hop over to our support page and copy the code for the badge of your choice. If you would like some help then do get in touch with us through our helpdesk.
19th Feb 2021
Social media is pretty much a standard part of most businesses’ online marketing by now but users’ experience of it is far from standardised. This could be due to the content itself, how it's posted, or both. For people who have disabilities it may be difficult to access social media in many ways, which at best could be frustrating and at worst be a complete barrier.
With some forward planning and a few adjustments to the way we prepare and post, we could be providing a whole different and much more inclusive experience to many users.
This is a whistle-stop tour to highlight the different aspects of our social media posts we could (should) be making more accessible and inclusive. I'll say right now that we are learning too and will be implementing these things in our posts going forward.
At the end of this article I've added links to some really great guides and deeper information by the experts in this subject. There's a video from AbilityNet, which is very much worth a watch too.
Images are a big deal in our social media, especially in Instagram where it’s all about that engaging picture. For visitors who cannot see images, a useful and concise description is needed in the form of ‘Alt Text’.
Facebook creates automatically generated alt text, which you will need to check and edit, for Instagram and Twitter you can add alt text:
Editing alt text in Facebook
Adding alt text in Twitter
Adding alt text in Instagram
In some instances, alt text may not be sufficient to describe your image, especially if your image includes text (more about that below). In these situations you could add an image description into your post text or link through to the full information on your website.
For podcasts or audio-only content, a transcript should be included. If this isn’t possible within the post itself then you could provide a link to the full transcript wherever it is available online.
Transcripts can also be added to YouTube videos as can closed captions. Google provide useful guides on adding your own closed captions and creating a transcript file for YouTube videos.
Subtitles vs Captions?
Subtitles covey only the dialogue in the video and captions convey all of the essential audio (e.g. sound effects, music etc as well as dialogue). So you need to decide which will be most useful for the video you’re publishing.
AbilityNet have a great guide on this and adding captions to various platforms, which in the video is discussed at 26:50 and is on page 9 of the transcript document.
An audio description is useful for videos where visual content conveys meaning or information. However, you may be able to plan your video in advance so they’re not needed.
The W3C provide clarification on audio descriptions, when to use them and how to add them
Custom fonts
Custom fonts, which aren't included as standard on the social media platform can be difficult to read, due to the letter forms. Additionally, on social media custom fonts are are ignored by text readers and assistive technology. Using the fonts as provided means a better user experience and reduces the risk of your content not being read at all.
Text in images
If possible it's always best to avoid using text in images at all. However, it is a great way to make an impact, especially on Instagram. When using text in images, it is important to use a legible font that won't become illegible when zoomed to a much larger size. Also choose a simple or sans-serif font, where individual characters are easily distinguished. And importantly, ensure that the font colour and background colour contrast well so that the text is clear and strong. WebAim provide a very useful colour contrast checker which helps you easily choose highly contrasting colour combinations.
We can get a little carried away with hashtags sometimes, trying to hit as many key tags as possible. However, we need to take care about how we use them. Camel caps not only make hashtags much more legible but also allows text readers to distinguish individual words within the tag. To demonstrate camel case vs non-camel case, see the following:
#ThisIsCamelCase
#thisisnotcamelcase
Disability Rights Fund also advise putting hashtags in comments, separate from the post text. However others suggest hashtags within the post are OK if used in context within the sentence.
How we love an emoji to bring personality to our posts! However, for some people emojis can make the caption too ‘busy’ and difficult to read. They can also problems for those using text readers if used excessively and in the middle of sentences. This is because the text readers announce the name of the emoji and as you can imagine may make a post seem nonsensical. AbilityNet provide a brilliant example of this in their example video of emojis being read aloud (at 11:33).
This is a huge topic in itself and not as clear cut as making technical adjustments. However, two important things to be aware of are:
Here are some very useful resources which provide much more detail:
WebAim - People with Disabilities on the Web
Ability Net - How to Do Accessible Social Media (webinar and Q&As)
UK Government Communication Service - Planning, creating and publishing accessible social media campaigns
RNIB - Making Your Social Media Accessible
Disability Rights Fund - Creating Accessible Social Media for Those With DeafBlindness
Hootsuite - Inclusive Design for Social Media
W3C - Making Audio and Video Media Accessible
Emojipedia - See all of the different names of emojis
Self-Defined - A dictionary of words which may be not be inclusive
Gov.UK - Inclusive language: words to use and avoid when writing about disability
Stroke Association - Accessible Information Guidelines (Making information accessible for people with aphasia)
Green Hosting works handsomely with:
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