Why it’s time to rethink the environmental impact of digital

When we talk about sustainability, most of us think about plastic waste, transport emissions or food miles, but how often do we stop to think about our websites, or the carbon footprint of our daily scrolling and streaming?

What the UN says about data, e-waste and AI

The Digital Economy Report 2024 was published by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) last year and it sets out that digital technologies, while often seen as the cleaner alternative to physical systems, are far from carbon-neutral. In fact, the digital economy is a major contributor to global environmental pressures. Global internet traffic tripled between 2017 and 2022. In 43 countries analysed, business e-commerce sales expanded from $17 trillion in 2016 to $27 trillion in 2022. ​The report warned that if current trends continue, the ICT sector could be responsible for up to 14% of global emissions by 2040

Data centres worldwide consumed about 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2022, which is roughly the same figure as energy consumption required for the whole of the UK. Additionally, data centres remain largely unregulated in terms of environmental reporting. Many do not disclose carbon emissions, making accountability and comparison difficult.

Meanwhile, the volume of e-waste linked to digital tech has risen sharply, reaching over 10 million tonnes globally. That’s a staggering footprint for an industry many still consider intangible. Organisations such as The Restart Project are working on this, but the scale of what they are facing is daunting.

It is also hard to comprehend the environmental effects of digitalisation. The report sets out that there is a lack of timely, comparable and accessible data, and a lack of agreed reporting standards. Crucially, the speed of digital developments means that the environmental impact is also not fully captured. For example, it is stated that existing studies don’t reflect the environmental impact of recent developments in AI or the shift to 5G mobile networks. Since the report was published nearly a year ago, this concern is likely even more urgent now, especially with the explosion of AI adoption over the past 12 months. And to try to put Generative AI into perspective: training a single large AI model can emit over 284 tonnes of CO₂, the same as five return flights from London to New York.

While we can’t make an impact on digital hardware, the way we design, build and host websites directly affects energy consumption. An oversized, poorly optimised site with bloated media and inefficient scripts forces servers to work harder and users to download more data. That’s not just bad UX, it’s bad for the planet.

We’re sometimes asked whether it really matters to optimise the carbon footprint of a website, especially if the gains are small. Our answer is simple: yes, it matters. Any improvement is still an improvement, plus it should make a direct difference for themselves too in terms of their website’s performance. Furthermore, if they scale up and see an increase in traffic, then those few grams per page view could end up being kilograms.

Why website performance matters for the planet

Sustainability in the digital world isn’t just about tech stacks or server energy. It’s about mindset. It’s about challenging the “bigger is better” culture that has dominated web design and instead thinking critically about what we build, why we build it, who we are building it for and how long it will last.

So we need to consider how sustainable our websites really are. Are we using green hosting providers? Are we optimising our images, fonts, and scripts? Are we embracing minimalist design principles that don’t just look good but load faster and consume less power? Small choices at the code level, multiplied across millions of visits, can have a real-world environmental cost.

A circular approach to digital

UNCTAD’s report encourages action, promoting the idea of a circular digital economy: designing products (and websites) to last longer, be maintainable, and require fewer resources. Rather than constantly rebuilding from scratch, it calls on developers to think in terms of longevity, adaptability and efficiency.

What does that mean in practice for a website? It might be as simple as consolidating third-party scripts, reducing server calls, avoiding autoplay video, or caching assets more effectively. We understand that you can’t always avoid more energy-intensive features such as images or video, but it is how they are considered that is important. We also need to educate clients, helping them understand that faster sites don’t just improve SEO and conversion, but also contribute to a lower carbon footprint.

And that’s an angle we can all get behind: sustainability also improves user experience and business performance.