Websites & Search Engines
Calculating the footprint of websites or a single search online is not an exact science and there are many factors at play – data centres, transmission networks, WiFi connection and the devices you’re using for example. However, its undeniable that websites use energy and therefore, generate carbon.
Wholegrain developed the Website Carbon calculator tool to help you better measure a website’s annual CO2 emissions and energy consumption because globally, the average web page produces approximately 0.36 grams CO2 equivalent per page view. Knowing that, here’s what you can do to minimise the footprint you create when you are spending time online.
Bookmarks
Avoid searching for websites that you visit regularly by creating a useful bookmark bar.
Consider grouping bookmarks into folders to save even more time when searching!
Reduce energy when using digital devices
Switch to dark mode on your devices. Each device has individual settings but here is an overview.
Turn the brightness down.
Turn off devices at night or when you’ve finished using them.
Use Power Saving mode in your device settings.
Use search engines, not AI for searching.
Remove AI from everyday searches. To do so, include “-ai“ after your search. For example, “vegan dinner recipes -ai”
ChatGPT prompts use approx 10x more carbon than search queries.
Challenge yourself to minimise your screen time
Set limits in individual apps.
Benchmark and access where you spend most of your time when using digital.
Try apps like Freedom to block distractions.
Check the footprint of your favourite websites
With Website Carbon Calculator you can start to see which companies are also prioritising digital sustainability.
Read Sustainable Web Design book by Tom Greenwood.
Set Ecosia as your default search engine
Set dark mode as your default.
Plant trees whilst you search the internet.
Find out how to do that on your browser here.
IT Hardware
The dominant approach to hardware in tech is ‘take, make, dispose’, making e-waste management one of the fastest growing solid waste streams. Currently 62 million tonnes of e-waste are created annually and it’s projected to rise to 104 million tonnes by 2050. Additionally, the level of e-waste being illegally exported to Africa and East Asia where they are processed in inadequate facilities, is steadily rising.
Circular models and proper waste management should be a priority. As businesses, organisations and individuals we can all make better decisions to reduce our carbon footprint and extend the life of our electronics. Promoting alternative models presents wider opportunities also, including new jobs, increased security and localised innovation. The following practical steps allow us to be proactive in reducing our e-waste and material footprint.
Buy refurbished tech
Explore tech through sites like Fairphone, BackMarket and eBay.
Consider buying a modular device that is repairable, such as Framework laptops.
Increase IT shelf life
Find a local repair cafe to learn how to repair and maintain your devices.
If something isn’t working properly, research it! There is a good chance someone else has run into the same problem.
Dispose of your tech properly
Avoid landfills and use Recycle Your Electrics to find your nearest recycling location.
Choose energy-efficient devices
Select IT products with Energy Star or similar eco-certifications.
Minimise tech clutter by combining functions to reduce the number of devices needed.
Use cloud storage sparingly
Only store what is really needed!
Regularly delete files to reduce demand on data centres.
Apply the full ladder of R-Strategies when approaching tech
Rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, refurbish, remanufacture, repurpose, and THEN recycle.
Video Calls & Streaming
A globalised economy, hybrid working and FaceTime transformed how we communicate, allowing us to chat with people face-to-face without leaving our homes. Yes, this solution is less polluting than travel, although it’s not a clean slate. An hour of video conferencing can emit around 150g of carbon, meaning if we turn our video off during a webinar for example, we could be reducing our carbon footprint by 96%.
In a world where we are looking to make genuine connections online, we’re not saying always have your camera off! However, there are opportunities to be more conscious of when or how we use video conferencing.
Video calls
Use a blurred background when your camera is on.
Turn your camera off during webinars or large group calls.
Prioritise WiFi over 4G/5G.
Streaming
Use WiFi rather than mobile data when streaming or downloading.
Download videos on WiFi to watch later rather than streaming in real time.
If you do stream, stream the videos in SD rather than Ultra HD.
Make a phone call instead of a video call.
Emails
The carbon footprint of an email may feel small on the individual level, but it mounts up fast!
Emails use energy, however not all emails are created equal. Mike Burners-Lee estimates in ‘How Bad are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything’ that a spam email creates 0.3g CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent), an unnecessary email (defined as an email with 4 words or less) creates approximately 1g CO2e and a standard email creates 4g CO2e. We’ve all received those long emails with attachments too, and they can create 50g CO2e.
In 2021, 7.8 billion physical letters were sent in the UK, equating to roughly 202.8 billion grams of carbon. Whereas in one day, 116.6 billion emails are sent through just Gmail. Let’s assume they’re all standard emails, that’s 466.4 billion grams of carbon in one day from just Gmail!
In 2025, there were an estimated 376 billion e-mails sent and received daily around the world. The global carbon footprint of email is significant. Email is however, a necessary communication tool for individuals and for businesses, so how do we start tackling the problem and ‘Thinking Before we Thank’?
Avoid sending unnecessary emails
Confirm receipt to only those that need it.
Proof read before send to avoid unnecessary follow up emails to clarify mistakes.
Set up delay send, so if you catch a mistake you can edit it before it hits inboxes.
Thank people in advance.
Add a note to your email that says ‘thank you in advance’ or a simple ‘no need to reply if all is agreed’.
Reduce the bloat
Only include your email signature in new emails, not replies.
Avoid forwarding long email chains; delete content that is not relevant.
Don’t cc in lots of people who don’t need to read the email.
Attach only essential files, and try to attach smaller versions when possible.
Link to files that you already have stored, rather than attaching copies of them to emails.
Delete old email accounts that you no longer use.
Delete and block the spam – don’t just mark it as read.
No unnecessary notifications
Switch off email notifications for apps.
Remove the notifications on your mobile – you work from your laptop so no need to double up.
Unsubscribe from newsletters that you don’t read.
Try Cleanfox.io to help!
Follow leaders in the Ethical Marketing Space
Data Centres & Cloud Storage
The Cloud has a great marketing team because they’ve got us all believing it lives in the sky, in a far away land where carbon evaporates into the abyss.
Whilst going paperless and saving things to the Cloud is a great step, it does not absolve you of all carbon. The reality of the Cloud is that it lives in data centres that are real buildings, all over the world and those pictures and files wait there too, ready to be accessible 24/7.
Reduce file storage
Review photos, videos, emails from cloud storage drives and websites on a regular basis.
Clean out unused files, deleting them perminently.
Create a uniform naming convention to file storage to improve organisation and minimise duplicates.
Avoid storing the same files in multiple places – like iCloud as well as Google Photos.
Reduce the impact of Cloud storage
Select a cloud storage provider with a commitment to use 100% renewable energy.
Video & Image Content Creation
Capturing moments, whether personally or within businesses, is more accessible than ever. Sharing photos and creating videos has allowed compelling stories to impact more people than ever before, especially in regards to the climate. However, the convenience comes with high energy use when it comes to creating, maintaining and storing the content.
This framework is one step towards prioritising the planet when creating and sharing content. If we optimise all images uploaded on the internet, we could save 76% of carbon!
We think World Clean Up Day said it best, so here are helpful tips inspired by them.
Curating your memories
Take one picture, rather than five of the same thing.
Save space and money by reducing your cloud storage.
Delete low-quality pictures straight away.
Organise photos that matter to you in folders by date or occasion.
Be mindful of what you want to capture and how
Instead of photographing every moment, be present and consider the significance of each moment.
Switch off auto cloud storage.
Manually upload only the most important shots you want to save through the years.
Keep the monitor and phone brightness down when watching videos.
Share your knowledge, mindfully
Raise awareness about the environmental impact of excessive photo/video storage among your friends and colleagues.
Choose wisely which content to post online.
Posting a picture as a post has less environmental impact than sharing it as a story.
AI
Digital technology already had a significant environmental impact before the AI boom, but the race to be market leaders in AI technology has led to tech companies throwing their sustainability goals out of the window.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI has said that we will need an “energy technology revolution” just to provide the amount of energy they are predicting they will need in the near future. Google’s chief sustainability officer, Kate Brandt, has said that “AI has a really major role in addressing climate change” in the same year that Google reported that its annual emissions have increased 48% since 2019, mainly due to its advancements in AI. They stated that although they have a commitment to get to Net Zero by 2030 “as we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging”.
We therefore need to use these technologies intentionally and thoughtfully. It’s important to define what technology we are talking about because AI generally falls into one of two categories.
Machine Learning – Essentially a number crunching game, combining specialised data sets with algorithms to find patterns and provide useful insights. This could be used for anything from sales forecasting to climate modelling.
Generative AI – Technologies that mimic the intelligence of humans in tasks like writing, visual artwork, music and speech. When most people are excited about AI, whether it’s ChatGPT, Gemini or Midjourney, this is what they are talking about.
With this in mind, let’s look at how we can minimise the environmental impact of AI as individuals.
Responsible use
Don’t think of ChatGPT, or equivalent, as a search engine.
Ask yourself whether your use of AI is truly in your own best interests. Are you gaining new skills and knowledge or cutting corners and tuning out?
Prioritise using your own creativity and invest in developing your own faculties rather than handing over creative control.
When using Generative AI tools, think carefully about your prompts to ensure that you get the response you need without the need for repeated prompts to refine the answer.
Close down your AI chat thread before starting a new thought.
Assess what is truly the best tool for the job. Is it Generative AI, Machine Learning or a more traditional digital technology?
Websites & Search Engines
Calculating the footprint of websites or a single search online is not an exact science and there are many factors at play – data centres, transmission networks, WiFi connection and the devices you’re using for example. However, its undeniable that websites use energy and therefore, generate carbon.
Wholegrain developed the Website Carbon calculator tool to help you better measure a website’s annual CO2 emissions and energy consumption because globally, the average web page produces approximately 0.36 grams CO2 equivalent per page view. Knowing that, here’s what you can do to minimise the footprint you create when you are spending time online.
Integrate the Sustainable Web Guidelines into your website
Optimise any images on your site, serve them in modern formats and remember that the most sustainable image is the one you don’t add to a page.
Reduce the use of animation.
Reduce tracking and advertising scripts.
Consider a lower weight platform for your site.
Ensure navigation and content discovery is intuitive. Perform UX audits and tests to verify validity.
Test your website
Test the accessibility of your website.
WAVE is a great tool
Use Website Carbon to test your key pages.
If you need to get a fuller picture of your entire website’s performance, consider a carbon audit.
IT Hardware
The dominant approach to hardware in tech is ‘take, make, dispose’, making e-waste management one of the fastest growing solid waste streams. Currently 62 million tonnes of e-waste are created annually and it’s projected to rise to 104 million tonnes by 2050. Additionally, the level of e-waste being illegally exported to Africa and East Asia where they are processed in inadequate facilities, is steadily rising.
Circular models and proper waste management should be a priority. As businesses, organisations and individuals we can all make better decisions to reduce our carbon footprint and extend the life of our electronics. Promoting alternative models presents wider opportunities also, including new jobs, increased security and localised innovation. The following practical steps allow us to be proactive in reducing our e-waste and material footprint.
Buy refurbished equipment
Explore tech through sites like Fairphone, BackMarket and eBay.
Consider buying a modular device that is repairable, such as Framework laptops.
Increase IT shelf life
Adopt a Lifecycle Management Process.
Work with an IT logistics and repair company.
Work with charities ethically processing e-waste and minimising tech inequality such as Community Tech Aid or Sun Screen IT.
Find out how repairable your device is with iFixit.
Implement an IT asset recovery program
Collect, refurb or resell old equipment.
Recycle responsibly by partnering with certified e-waste recyclers.
If you are an electronics company, consider implementing an E-waste compensation model with someone like Closing the Loop.
Consider tech leasing
Keep devices in a circular loop, ensuring they can be refurbished and reused.
Apply the full ladder of R-Strategies when approaching tech
Rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, refurbish, remanufacture, repurpose, and THEN recycle.
Video Calls & Streaming
A globalised economy, hybrid working and FaceTime transformed how we communicate, allowing us to chat with people face-to-face without leaving our homes. Yes, this solution is less polluting than travel, although it’s not a clean slate. An hour of video conferencing can emit around 150g of carbon, meaning if we turn our video off during a webinar for example, we could be reducing our carbon footprint by 96%.
In a world where we are looking to make genuine connections online, we’re not saying always have your camera off! However, there are opportunities to be more conscious of when or how we use video conferencing.
Service providers
Choose a video conferencing provider with a commitment to use 100% renewable energy (e.g. see the energy intensity of different providers).
Work with your team to ensure they have strong Wifi and don’t use data.
Establish the purpose
Can this meeting be an email?
Does everyone need to be invited to this call?
Do we have an agenda to reduce everyone’s time?
Video calls
Use a blurred background when your camera is on.
Turn your camera off during webinars or large group calls.
Emails
The carbon footprint of an email may feel small on the individual level, but it mounts up fast!
Emails use energy, however not all emails are created equal. Mike Burners-Lee estimates in ‘How Bad are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything’ that a spam email creates 0.3g CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent), an unnecessary email (defined as an email with 4 words or less) creates approximately 1g CO2e and a standard email creates 4g CO2e. We’ve all received those long emails with attachments too, and they can create 50g CO2e.
In 2021, 7.8 billion physical letters were sent in the UK, equating to roughly 202.8 billion grams of carbon. Whereas in one day, 116.6 billion emails are sent through just Gmail. Let’s assume they’re all standard emails, that’s 466.4 billion grams of carbon in one day from just Gmail!
In 2025, there were an estimated 376 billion e-mails sent and received daily around the world. The global carbon footprint of email is significant. Email is however, a necessary communication tool for individuals and for businesses, so how do we start tackling the problem and ‘Thinking Before we Thank’?
Campaign focused
Use a sustainable email provider for your marketing or sales funnel, such as EcoSend.
Calculate the carbon impact of your own email campaigns.
Use EcoSend’s Email Carbon Calculator.
Send fewer emails
Monitor your campaign’s Bounce Rate. It should remain lower than 5%.
For addresses which bounce from more than 3-5 consecutive campaigns, remove the addresses from your list.
Ensure your email domains are correctly verified
With SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication protocols, you reduce your Bounce Rate. Watch more on this here.
Use audience segmentation
Separate your users into clearly defined groups so that they only receive the relevant emails.
Watch for more on this
Give clear journeys to unsubscribe so you’re not sending unwanted emails that will go unread.
Remove ‘grey-list’ users on a monthly / quarterly basis
Create a segment of users who continually receive your emails, but aren’t actively engaging.
Watch more on this here
Send a follow up email to ask if users would like to remain in contact with you, or if they would prefer to unsubscribe.
This helps you reactivate disengaged users, and avoid sending unnecessary campaigns to legacy recipients.
Send smaller emails
Where possible, use light email templates with plaintext and lightweight HTML.
Is it in the correct format and sized properly?
Consider if you need images.
Optimise all brand images and logos used in email communications.
Optimise your image with a tool like Squoosh.app
Follow ethical marketing best practises
Avoid sending excessive campaigns to recipients to reduce the risk of ‘email fatigue’. Read more on this here.
Offer your recipients a ‘Subscription Preference Centre’.
Allow audiences to opt-in to certain campaigns, but opt-out from others.
Be cautious with participating in consumerist trends, such as Black Friday campaigns.
30 billion emails were sent in 2023 Black Friday, the equivalent of approximately 34,948,790 kgs of Co2, or 38,667,663 pounds of coal burned!
General business
Delete old colleague email accounts that are no longer in use.
Only back up needed emails from employees who have previously left the business.
Add only the necessary team members to group addresses.
Data Centres & Cloud Storage
The Cloud has a great marketing team because they’ve got us all believing it lives in the sky, in a far away land where carbon evaporates into the abyss.
Whilst going paperless and saving things to the Cloud is a great step, it does not absolve you of all carbon. The reality of the Cloud is that it lives in data centres that are real buildings, all over the world and those pictures and files wait there too, ready to be accessible 24/7.
Choose a sustainable web hosting provider
If 100% renewable energy is not an option, choose someone who is transparent about how they’re sourcing power.
Check your website hosting providers energy using the Green Web Foundations web check.
Find a sustainable web host through the Green Web Foundation’s directory.
Consider hosting a data centre
Recapture heat generated by data centres and use it for social good! Speak with Deep Green to see if that’s the right fit for your business.
Considered storage
Make a monthly/quarterly/annual reminder to staff to clear their emails and documents.
Create a uniform naming convention to file storage to improve organisation and minimise duplicates.
Avoid storing the same files in multiple places.
Select a cloud storage provider with a commitment to use 100% renewable energy.
Set a monthly or quarterly ‘Digital declutter’ reminder in colleagues calendars.
Video & Image Content Creation
Capturing moments, whether personally or within businesses, is more accessible than ever. Sharing photos and creating videos has allowed compelling stories to impact more people than ever before, especially in regards to the climate. However, the convenience comes with high energy use when it comes to creating, maintaining and storing the content.
This framework is one step towards prioritising the planet when creating and sharing content. If we optimise all images uploaded on the internet, we could save 76% of carbon!
Pre-production
Take meetings virtually (rather than travelling to meet-up in person).
Whilst creating designs, prioritise darker colours as they require less energy to display on OLED displays. You can also use energy conscious colour schemes (eg. reducing the number of blue pixels as they use approx 25% more energy than red or green pixels).
Encourage your team and clients to use ‘dark mode’ as their default display mode.
Production
Adjust your camera settings. Seriously consider the needed quality of footage for your projects. 9 times out of 10 you won’t need as high quality as you initially think.
Log the carbon footprint of your project via Albert Sustainable Productions.
When sourcing images for a production consider doing so using an ethical service such as Climate Visuals. Consider using a paid stock image service to ensure photographers and artists are compensated for their work.
Use AI generated imagery as a last resort due to the ethical and environmental impacts of these platforms.
Post-production
Block autoplay and ‘play on hover’ on your videos.
Reduce the length of your videos and lower the resolution.
Review fonts and remove unused symbols and fonts.
For film production services, follow the Green Documentary Protocol to ensure sustainability is top of mind during pre-production, production and post-production.
For event services, follow the Green Events Guide by the Carbon Trust to make sure events and workshops are sustainably produced.
Think about the lifecycle of your digital content. Review and delete old project webpages and social media content.
Optimise your images and videos by reviewing the format, compression, responsive image sizing and lazy loading.
Perspective: optimising all images uploaded on the internet could save 76% of carbon!
Asset management
Cloud storage is better than localised storage however, be aware that the cloud is not limitless.
Commit to storage providers with commitment to use 100% renewable energy, see Cloud Storage for more information.
Establish naming conventions for findability, usability & accessibility.
Ensure not to duplicate files in different locations.
AI
Digital technology already had a significant environmental impact before the AI boom, but the race to be market leaders in AI technology has led to tech companies throwing their sustainability goals out of the window.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI has said that we will need an “energy technology revolution” just to provide the amount of energy they are predicting they will need in the near future. Google’s chief sustainability officer, Kate Brandt, has said that “AI has a really major role in addressing climate change” in the same year that Google reported that its annual emissions have increased 48% since 2019, mainly due to its advancements in AI. They stated that although they have a commitment to get to Net Zero by 2030 “as we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging”.
We therefore need to use these technologies intentionally and thoughtfully. It’s important to define what technology we are talking about because AI generally falls into one of two categories.
Machine Learning – Essentially a number crunching game, combining specialised data sets with algorithms to find patterns and provide useful insights. This could be used for anything from sales forecasting to climate modelling.
Generative AI – Technologies that mimic the intelligence of humans in tasks like writing, visual artwork, music and speech. When most people are excited about AI, whether it’s ChatGPT, Gemini or Midjourney, this is what they are talking about.
With this in mind, let’s look at how we can minimise the environmental impact of AI as individuals.
Responsible use
Assess what is truly the best tool for the job. Is it Generative AI, Machine Learning or a more traditional digital technology?
When using AI, look for specialised Machine Learning tools that tend to be more efficient than generalised tools like ChatGPT.
With Machine Learning projects, be focussed in the data you need to analyse, store and output in order to minimise the computational energy needed to achieve your goals.
If developing Machine Learning tools, follow Green Software development principles.
If you need to use AI, look for providers with a strong commitment to energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Try to calculate the environmental impact of your Generative AI usage using tools like GenAI Impact and their AI calculator.
Follow Wholegrain’s 7 Principles for Responsible AI Usage.
Avoid perpetuating AI hype through your brand communications.
Avoid putting pressure on employees to use AI technology unnecessarily and educate them on responsible AI usage.
Create spaces for human creativity to flourish within your organisation.