A look back on the great, good and not-so-good of 2025.
The northern lights streaking across the sky on my trip to Finland
Work
2025 brought the biggest change to my work life since I joined the creative industry. It started with redundancy. Not exactly where you wish things to begin. But it is the state that many in the creative sector found themselves in this year.
Viewing the situation as an opportunity rather than a straight negative, I chose to move into freelancing. Something that I had been thinking of doing for about five years or so. I just needed the ‘push’. Turns out redundancy was the pretty solid shove that was required.
It was, I must say, an all round smooth process, and one that I had foreseen happening. I had already been freelancing on the side a little bit to ‘test the water’. Plus working remotely is something I had been doing for best part of 5 years, so it really wasn’t as big of a shift as it may have been for others in a similar predicament.
Freelancing and my relationship with work
All of this malarky meant that my relationship with work changed. Quite naturally, and rather necessarily.
I suddenly became my own boss. As well as project manager, accountant, admin, new business finder and a number of other hats. The sole trader generalist.
I love chatting with clients. I don’t mind some of the admin tasks. I’m learning a lot more about accounting – which is no bad thing. I’m enjoying the work and making money. Which is the main thing.
It has also afforded me a little more time for side quests, and some recreational activities, too. Mainly golf.
Though, I have yet to take a proper holiday since going solo. Which isn’t really very good for being freelance for 10 months. Something that needs to change in the new year.
Overall, I would say that my relationship with work has changed for the positive. Perhaps slightly all consuming. But I’d argue that is quite normal for the first year in business.
Projects and clients
I’ve built and launched 15 websites this year. Maintained around 80 sites. Worked on existing ones to build in new features, as well as building another that is yet to launch.
There have been a multitude of clients. Predominantly creative agencies, partnering on projects for their clients. But I have also worked directly with two different universities on two separate research projects, non-profits, charities, and other for-good small businesses. It has been a pleasant mix.
Side quests
lowwwcarbon
The lowwwcarbon website showcase has both grown, and shrunk. How you ask? Well this year after a friend did some independent testing, finding a number of heavy sites, I added some better automated retesting of sites in the showcase. This helped me to track changes, and remove sites that no longer met the requirements. Which, was a surprisingly large number. The best part of 80 websites. A real shame. I continue to use the automated testing and tracking.
With an average of 0.10g per initial page view (pre-cache) the standard is higher than last year by 0.02g. It continues to prove that it is possible to have a great looking, high-performance website that is lightweight on servers, devices and the planet. Whilst also being better for the humans interacting with them.
The Climate Dictionary
This year, I found myself searching for a handful of climate term definitions. A couple of them slightly more obscure, or lesser known perhaps. Others as a little reminder for myself.
What I found was.. poor. For such an important topic that has and will affect everyone on the planet, it is rather difficult to find a well rounded, accessible source of related climate terms. Many buried in heavy PDFs that aren’t accessible, others simply missing a vast array of useful terminology.
So, I decided to gather as much information as I could and build my own. In a couple of days. Making it the lightest and what I believe is perhaps the most in depth single source of climate related terms. The Climate Dictionary. You can read more about it in the case study.
The Future Stories Club
Another new mini project this year sprung to life as a source of hopeful inspiration for the future. There is a lot of doom and gloom around the climate crisis. Of course there would be. But I think there are nicer, more positive stories that humans can tell about a better future.
So, I thought I might create a little project and invite some of my friends to initially write short stories, poems and prose for the website. It would be lovely if this could expand in 2026 with a wider array of writers and story tellers to spread positivity about out future.
Take a read of the stories so far.
Other cool things
There were a couple of other work and sustainability-related changes in 2025. The biggest one was joining the W3C’s Web Sustainability Group as an invited expert. It has been a very interesting experience being a part of a global group of volunteers and passionate people working on the new standards for a sustainable web. I’ve been glad to play a contributing part in the UX task force, utilising both my design background and knowledge alongside my technical skills to add to the guidelines.
I also finished a project with the Green Web Foundation, working on the concept of Grid-aware websites. Collaborating with a different globally distributed group of people to ideate, concept and write about the findings. This culminated in a written piece for issue 9 of Branch magazine. Which you can read online.
Life
As the above indicates, my life in 2025 was rather dominated by work. Establishing a new business is a lot. A lot of input, effort, and challenges. But also a lot of fun!
I had the wonderful privilege of seeing multiple friends get married this year, and I had a great time celebrating the occasions. As you do.
I have been away only once, which was before I officially went freelance, to Finland. It was an incredible holiday. Skiing within the artic circle for the second time, watching the northern lights from a skidoo on a frozen lake, and enjoying some good time with friends. Plus, many sauna sessions. Excellent.
The rest of year feels like it has ticked by. Until..
Personal wellness
The other element that felt like it dominated 2025 for me was my health. After many years of poor hearing in one ear, I finally thought I’d get it checked out properly. Well, let’s just say that was the start of quite the journey. One that involved a number of tests, scans and hospital trips, culminating in me having surgery a couple of days before Christmas.
Honestly, the whole process has been very stressful. At least for me anyway. But thankfully, the surgery seemed to go to plan and was as non-invasive as it could have been. So, there is positive news!
I am still recovering as I write this. With a follow up soon. Which I am hoping will provide some good results and hopefully some improvement to my hearing.
Balance
Yes, balance. At times it has felt like there has been quite a good level of balance between work and the rest of life, but the total opposite at other times. This I see as all part of the journey into the freelance world. It is a learning curve. A constant shift. But an enjoyable one.
2026 I’m sure will be spent ebbing and flowing, continuing to learn the balance.
What’s next?
An excellently formed question. If I do say so myself. But it is not one that I know the answer to. While there are plans afoot, I have no idea quite yet how many may fall into place. All I know is that life will continue to be an intriguing journey, and I’m excited about what a new year will bring.
If you have read all of this, I thank you. Deeply thank you. I genuinely don’t expect many people really read these overshares. But it has become a bit of a thing for me. A tool I suppose. To take time to reflect, wintering the things that need to be, and preparing to move into the new year with a spring in my step.
Another year has passed and the world continues to need more love, support, and kindness. Working in tech day in and day out, even within the field of sustainability, I feel the world also needs more human to human connection. It seems like there may be a bit of a shift towards this in 2026. So, if you feel inclined, reach out in whatever way suits you best. If you’re in the UK and want to meet up in person, then I’m very open to the idea. Especially if it means more human connection and collaboration.
Here is to a positive, healthy and sustainable 2026.