Website Sustainability Audit

Make your website leaner, cleaner and greener with a Website Sustainability Audit

Do you know how much CO₂e your website produces?

Your website – and all digital activity in fact – has a Carbon Footprint, and that Carbon Footprint can be measured and reduced.

Understand, measure and reduce your website’s carbon footprint with a Website Sustainability Audit. Because, when you need to improve sustainability and the eco credentials of your business or organisation, you can’t ignore your website.

Reducing carbon emissions associated with your website isn’t difficult to do. With some time and effort and some optimisations your website will be leaner, cleaner and greener.

“Why should I audit my website?”

Essentially, consideration must be given to reducing the impact and carbon footprint of an existing website as part of a Carbon Reduction plan. It is also a great place to start when you look at where to begin reducing the carbon emissions associated with your business or organisation.

In some ways, it’s easier to build a low-carbon website if you start from scratch, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t relatively quick and easy steps you can take to reduce carbon emissions for your existing website.

The average website produces as much as 1.76g of CO2e per page view. Therefore an average website with 10,000 page views per month could generate 211kg of CO2e per year, which is the same as would be absorbed by 105 trees in a year.

1g CO2e per page view used to be considered acceptable, but in 2024 you need to rate at 0.5g or less to have any claim to a low-carbon website.

Above 0.85 gets you an F on a popular website carbon rating system.

Less than 0.49g gets you a C rating.

0.095g CO2e or less gets you an A+ rating on your website carbon report card.

Reducing carbon emissions, one website at a time

Book your Guided Website Carbon Footprint Audit Session with me now for only £99 (£75 for Registered Charities and CICs). Understand, measure and reduce the digital Carbon Footprint and electricity consumption of your website.

You’ll get a full audit of your entire site, where you’ll see:

• Your website’s carbon footprint
• Your website carbon report card rating (graded A+ to F)
• A breakdown of how each element on the page contributes to the overall total CO2 score
• A comprehensive run-down of areas for improvement

What you can expect from the Guided Zoom Website Carbon Footprint Sessions

1. You book on via my Calendly (make sure that you go for the £75 option if you’re a Charity or CIC)
2. On the day, we sit down together on Zoom
3. I take you through Page Speed and Carbon Footprint auditing tools to give you a range of results and recommendations that are bespoke to you, not generic or arbitrary
4. The full website (not just the homepage or individual pages) is audited
5. You see the scores, grades and reports, generated in real time, for the tools that bring back immediate results.
6. Where a unique URL for the report is generated, you can harvest that and save it for later reference or sharing with a colleague
7. Where the reports aren’t generated in real time, those results are shared with you at a later date (usually within 2 to 5 working days), via email
8. Further resources and references go out to you after the Zoom meeting has finished

 The Audit: what you get

• An understanding of how and where your website emits carbon
• A benchmark and grading for the carbon footprint of your website
• Hints, tips and tricks to reduce the carbon emissions associated with your website
• An audit of the full website, not just the homepage or individual pages
• A range of results and recommendations that are bespoke to you, not generic or arbitrary
• Pointers to where you will find the exact files and elements referred to in the results and recommendations
• A take-away action plan for website carbon reduction, that’s realistic and achievable
• Individual action points for you or your web developer to fix and optimise
• Additional resources for further reference
• Data and figures to feed into your Carbon Reduction Plan or other carbon calculation tool: a Carbon Translator, Carbon Syncing Calculator, or Digital Emissions Calculator, for example

What you get from the Full Website Assessments

Depending on the exact scope and requirements, and costing from £275 (plus bolt-ons that cost extra):

1. Full website health check and assessment
2. Page Speed insights
3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Audit – On Page and Technical
4. Keyword Research
5. Search Engine Rankings (SERPs)
6. Competitor Research and Analysis
7. Carbon Footprint Audit (if included as an option)*
8. Ethical Audit (if included as an option)*

*additional bolt-on, at £100 extra per Audit type

NB. Example costing, including Full Website Assessment with additional Carbon Footprint and Ethical Audits as bolt-ons = £475.

Detailed research and reports, in document, spreadsheet and PDF formats, covering performance benchmarks for your website and for your peers and competitors too, plus recommendations and action points.

What happens after the Website Sustainability Audit or Full Assessment?

Following the Audit (or Full Website Assessment), I’ll explain to you exactly what needs doing, in Plain English.

No in-house web developers or existing partnerships? No problem, because I’ll also recommend and introduce you to capable and reputable web developers. Subsequently, they’ll work with you to implement the changes needed.

When that remedial work is done, we’ll then repeat the Audit to give you your new scores and grading. That second Audit will show you where you’ve improved, achieved better scores, and the exact amount that your website’s overall carbon footprint has reduced.

Website Carbon Footprint Audit (per session) – £99 (£75 for Registered Charities and CICs)

See Calendly – Giles Metcalfe for bookable events.

Website Carbon Footprint Audit Testimonials

What people have said about the Giles Metcalfe Digital website carbon footprint audit:

I’d HIGHLY recommend getting in touch with Giles and finding out more about his website carbon footprint audit. It will really open your eyes to the impact your website is having on the environment and then Giles will explain exactly what you can do to make your website leaner and greener.
ALISON PETTY, MINDSET COACH

It was great to have Giles on hand over Zoom to talk me through the whole process, explaining anything I didn’t understand and giving me quick tips on how I could improve things! He’s very knowledgeable and passionate about sustainability. If you are too, I’d recommend getting in touch with him!
BELINDA HODDER, FREELANCE COPYWRITER

If you would like to reduce the negative impact of your website, I recommend you speak to Giles who is an expert on this stuff and can offer you a website sustainability audit so you can clean up your act. Go on! What have you got to do that’s more important than this?
ZENA BARRICK, WEBSITE DESIGNER

Many thanks Giles, for your time and insight into helping us work towards a more sustainable digital footprint for the Good Business Charter The first step on our journey!
THE GOOD BUSINESS CHARTER

“Why should I care how green my website is?”

If you own a website or are thinking of creating one, you should be mindful about its ecological impact and carbon footprint. This is especially true when you’re going for accreditation, such as that offered by The Good Business Charter.

As Environmental Responsibility is one of the 10 Components of Good Business Charter (GBC) accreditation, it absolutely made sense for The GBC to look at their own website and reduce its environmental impact. Back in May 2023, I worked with The GBC’s internal team to audit their website and advise on where significant gains in carbon reduction could be made.

Together, we worked to reduce the website’s size and carbon emissions from a hefty
6.04 MB and 5.058g CO2e to a leaner and more creditable 1.75 MB and 0.556g CO2e.

Sustainability is now a mainstream concept

Consumers, citizens and activists have turned sustainability into a mainstream concept that is able to ruin a business or organisation’s reputation and profits if concerns about environmental impact, business ethics and behaviour are not addressed.

Knowing your carbon footprint and reducing it could give you a competitive advantage

Knowing your carbon footprint and reducing it could give you a competitive advantage over other businesses. Clients, customers and consumers care about your business’ sustainability credentials, including the carbon footprint of your business activities, products and services. As a matter of fact, conscious clients, customers and consumers are attracted to and actually pay more for lower impact products and services.

Evidently, adopting net zero strategies helps your business grow, save money, and boost business resilience. By becoming carbon neutral or carbon positive, business is closing the gap between government commitments and the 1.5 degree target, enabling you to:

• Increase revenue (by differentiating yourself in the market and charging more)
• Reduce costs (by changing behaviour on high emission activities)
• Engage stakeholders (attract, retain and motivate employees and staff; and attract investment)
• Mitigate risks (reduce the risk of possible future regulation that taxes carbon consumption)
• Gain accreditation (to reflect your values and ethics and best practice, enhance your reputation, and provide confidence to customers and stakeholders)

Basically, environmental responsibility benefits your bottom line.The economy of the future is low carbon, and companies that prepare for that future now will quickly gain a competitive advantage.

Net Zero and Carbon Reduction Plans

Emphatically, firms must commit to net zero to win major government contracts. They must also publish clear and credible carbon reduction plans before they can even bid for major government contracts.

A carbon reduction plan not only sets out where an organisation’s emissions come from, but also the specific environmental management measures that they have in place. The Plan must show the actions you have taken, and are taking now and going forwards, within your business to reduce your carbon intensity.

The new rules drive forward the green agenda, while also striking a balance to not overly burden and potentially exclude small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from bidding for government work.

2025, Carbon Reduction Plans and Supply Chains

From 2025 onwards, you must now have a Carbon Reduction plan in place if you want to work with larger companies as part of their supply chain, too.

Now, you can no longer rely on Carbon Offsetting to claim Carbon Neutrality. And, there are changes to advertising standards around the terms carbon neutral and eco-friendly too to avoid greenwashing.

SMEs and Carbon Emissions

Small and medium-sized enterprises account for 99.9% of the business population in the UK. So, you have a vital role to play. Basically, even the smallest organisations, businesses and solo-preneurs have a significant carbon footprint. Through your premises. The vehicles you use. Your supply chain, too. Even your use of social media, email and especially your website.

Have you considered what it takes for a simple website visit?

Have you ever considered what it takes for a simple website visit? Basically, there’s the power required on the end user’s device… The communication networks… The data centres where a website is hosted, and the storage of the website on a server… Obviously, the resources needed to accomplish a simple website visit quickly start to add up.

The biggest factors in a high-carbon website are large file types, slow load times, and unnecessary click-throughs.

The more energy a server uses so that your website can deliver information to a user, the bigger the impact on emissions and the environment.

Low-carbon Websites

Low-carbon web design and development acknowledges the impact of a website on the environment, and aims to reduce this by limiting the amount of energy required to run a website.

Essentially, lowering the carbon emissions associated with a website boils down to reducing or minimising the amount of electricity being used to load, send, and view a web page, and ensuring that the resulting electricity required to do that is from clean, renewable resources – ie. green hosting.

The benefits of a low-carbon website

Low-carbon websites are leaner, cleaner and greener.

As well as being great for lowering your environmental impact they’re also great for your business or organisation too.

Win more business and investment

Firstly, they increase brand loyalty and help to attract new customers, clients and employees.

Consumers are becoming increasingly purpose-driven and want to work with brands that align with their values.

Businesses and organisations that commit to a low-carbon digital strategy are putting themselves front of mind with ‘conscious consumers’. Evidently, a segment that’s only going to continue to increase over the next 5 to 10 years.

Customers and employees expect more sustainable actions from the brands they want to support.

The same is true for investors. Emphatically, they want to invest in future-proofed and innovative businesses that are adapting to what the market demands, and ultimately, what the planet needs.

UX and accessibility

Secondly, they’re a win-win for UX.

Low-carbon websites and green digital platforms often go hand in hand with accessibility. Halving the steps in a user journey will lessen the carbon footprint, while also improving the user experience of your product or service. Basically, as UX experts already know, quicker and simpler user journeys with faster loading speeds improve conversions and are key to success.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Lastly, they’re great for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) too.

Search Engines love low-carbon websites. Why? Because they help website users like you search for and find what you’re looking for as quickly as possible.

What’s efficient for you (ie. not having to visit irrelevant pages or wait for slow-to-load web pages) is also more efficient energy-wise. Because fewer server requests are made and less battery is used on your device, energy and associated emissions are saved.

Search engines compete to provide us (impatient) humans with the best search results and experience, so they boost higher quality and more energy-efficient websites to the top of their rankings.

In her web article for Consider Digital,  Claire Knights outlined four key ways effective SEO can reduce your website’s carbon footprint. Particularly, good SEO saves energy by:

1. Targeting the right audience
2. Using the latest technology
3. Cutting out poor-quality content
4. Making online journeys shorter (ie. getting users to they information they want more quickly and efficiently)

Not only will you benefit from higher search rankings (and consistently attract a more highly motivated audience) you’ll also reduce your website’s environmental impact too.

So, to sum up, a low-carbon website uses fewer resources to run, has a smaller environmental impact, and contributes less to overall global warming.

A low-carbon website helps reduce your total carbon footprint and your costs too. Plus, emphatically showing customers, stakeholders and potential investors that you’re committed to carbon reduction.

I’ll work with you to audit your existing website, whether you’re a charity / CIC, or business / organisation. Looking at your website and overall digital carbon footprint is a great first step in reducing your carbon emissions and starting your Carbon Reduction Plan.