When Website Carbon™ launched in 2018, the goal was simple; help people see that while a website isn’t a physical thing, it still has a carbon footprint. Using a pared back interface and easy to interpret results, the original carbon calculator on the web has gone from strength to strength. That user friendly simplicity remains and over 1 million individual URLs have been tested on the platform since it’s launch in 2018.

The tool has come a long way since then. It’s last major update came in late 2023 when we added a rating system to help users more accurately benchmark their websites.

The calculator uses the Sustainable Web Design Model (SWDM) as it’s basis. This model has been iteratively updated by a team of dedicated collaborators since it’s inception. As new research and data becomes available, the model evolves to reflect the latest thinking. The current version of the model, V4, is now rolled out on Website Carbon™ ready for the next 1 million tests (and many more).

We’ve chosen this moment to simplify the language on the FAQs and How does it work? pages too. The wording is now less technical and more accessible to the average user.

Give the blog a read for more information and of course, test your site to see how you score!

Just over a year ago the Edinburgh University UX team got in touch via the Curiously Green. They were running a Green Web Internship for students. As they explained “During the 12 weeks over summer, our Green Digital Design interns will investigate the sustainability challenges faced by the University’s large web estate and research potential solutions that we could consider in the future – the more creative, the better!”

I spoke to the 2024 three interns Chris, Osh and Catalina last summer about their findings and fed back on their draft report. Speaking to them was such a joy. They were on a digital sustainability speed run. They weren’t developers and came to the subject cold, but grasped the core tenets so quickly.

Speaking to them gave me such hope for the future of the web. With a little education and curiosity they found actionable solutions that they presented to key stakeholders. They inherently understood what is important and what they could do about it.

Osh (returning as part of the second cohort of interns), posted an update on the actions taken off the back that initial work. The presentations must have hit the mark! Following sustainable web design principles, Edinburgh University have made sustainability changes to their Edweb2 platform around how images are served across their digital estate. 65,539 pages are now lower weight and lower carbon as as result! Initial estimates that the changes reduce the website’s carbon footprint by around 25 tons a year!

Huge congratulations to the Green Web Interns and Edinburgh University for taking action.

The gauntlet is well and truly thrown down to organisations with large sites. If a university with a complex digital architecture can do it, what’s stopping you?

If you’ve been inspired by the work of Edinburgh Uni and tested your website on Website Carbon™ what can you do next?

Climate Action Tech has the answer. They’ve got a series of action guides to help technically and none technically minded stakeholders take meaningful action on digital sustainability.

The link above takes you to guides on:

• Creating Low-Carbon Images (just like Edinburgh did)
• Starting a Green Team
• Joining a sustainable tech community
• Reducing website carbon emissions
• Sharing digital sustainability initiatives

As the summer season begins and work flows lighten (slightly) why not pick the most relevant guide to you and take some positive action? Reply to this email if you do take action and I’ll share the best initiatives when the newsletter resumes after the annual August hiatus.