Our world and our businesses are increasingly dependent on technology and the internet. According to UNCTAD’s 2024 Digital Economy Report, the production and use of digital devices, data centres and IT and communication networks account for between 1.5 to 3.2 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly as much the entire shipping industry.
The carbon footprint from our digital activities is quickly becoming a major player in climate change and developing countries are bearing most of the cost.
It’s clear we need to take a closer look at how our digital habits are impacting the planet.
Excitingly, this can be a rich impact area for a small business with an already relatively low carbon intensity to explore.
What changes can my small business make?
Website
Small changes make a big difference when scaled.
The average webpage tested by Website Carbon Calculator produces approximately 0.8 grams of CO2 per page view. If this page gets 10,000 monthly views, then it quickly rises to 102kg of CO2e produced a year. So it makes sense to make a few small changes to reduce the carbon intensity of your website.
We put our own homepage to the test. 0.24g of CO2 is produced every time someone visits our homepage. The calculator picked up that we are hosted by a green provider, Green Hosting, giving us an overall rating of B. We are due a website review anyway so will build some simple website reduction strategies into our review and see if we can get to an A.
Happily, many of the suggested website carbon reduction strategies also have the added benefit of improving the user experience. Here are some of the simplest changes to make to your website:
- Make it easy for your customers to find what they want. Optimise SEO to reduce web browsing and don’t make customers wade through waffle, be slick with your copy.
- Use black and blue as colours on your website as these use less energy to present on screens
- Reduce the size and frequency of images.
- Remove old content which is not needed anymore.
- Only have videos which are important and have genuine value to customers.
Go beyond website design
Your digital footprint is so much more than your website. The key for a small business is to find the easy wins across the board that get you started and encourage future, bigger changes.
Here are some other easy changes you can make to reduce your digital footprint:
- File Clear-out Day – Schedule a regular “digital declutter” where your team deletes old files. Fewer files reduce storage needs and energy consumption.
- Optimise Cloud Storage – Use cloud services powered by renewable energy. Providers like Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure are good examples.
- Tame Email Traffic – Sending fewer, more purposeful emails cuts down on energy used by servers. Consider alternatives like Slack for internal communications.
- Extend Device Life – Encourage your team to repair rather than replace devices. Extending the life of tech reduces both e-waste and carbon emissions.
- Green Web Hosting – Choose a hosting provider committed to renewable energy. We’re proud to partner with Green Hosting, which powers websites like ours with 100% renewable energy.
What next?
Once you’ve taken the first few steps you might want to go further and deeper into some of these areas. There are quite a few carbon emission calculators specific to digital online, many are free to use:
- Website Carbon Calculator mentioned before, this is for calculating the carbon footprint of your own website. Also links to extensive helpful resources.
- WES-Ga resource for designing new website with helpful guidelines to create environmentally friendly websites.
- The Green Pages is a crowdsourced list by BIMA Sustainability Council containing resources, online calculators and reviews to help businesses understand, measure and reduce their digital carbon footprint.
- BT’s Digital Carbon Calculatoris a free carbon calculator for everything digital in your business, and has an option for an extended package which gives more in-depth reports across your network.
- Small99 includes a digital carbon calculator, covering emissions for your websites, storage, employees and company marketing emails.
- Green Web Foundation have a website checker to see if yours is run on green energy and if not how to find a host that does.
Reducing your digital carbon footprint is an easy step to take and increasingly essential. Simple steps like optimising websites, minimising unnecessary emails, using devices longer, and choosing green hosting can significantly cut emissions.
With free tools and resources available to measure and reduce your digital impact, now is the time to act for a more sustainable future.
For more help getting started to reduce your digital carbon footprint, check out ten ways to reduce your digital carbon footprint guide.
For more information, please contact Jayne Saywell, one of our Business Advisors. Her knowledge, experience and ideas can help your company thrive in a wellbeing economy, and find joy in a sustainable future.
