If you’re a sustainability-minded brand, you already know the big stuff: packaging, shipping, energy use, sourcing. But there’s a quieter category that almost never makes the list, your digital footprint.
Your website isn’t “just a website.” It’s a living, breathing system of servers, data transfers, device energy use, and caching rules. Plus, it’s running 24/7, across thousands (or millions) of visits. And as the internet grows, so does the energy required to power it. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) notes that estimates of the ICT sector’s share of global emissions vary, but commonly fall in the 1.5%–4% range (with their report estimating at least 1.7%).
And when you zoom in on where energy demand is heading, it’s hard to ignore the trendline: the International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that data centres used about 1.5% of global electricity in 2024. Demand has been growing by roughly 12% per year since 2017, and the IEA projects it will more than double by 2030.
So yes, every click does matter. But the bigger point is this:
Digital sustainability is one of the most “doable” climate actions a modern brand can take because it sits at the intersection of performance, trust, and measurable accountability.
And it's gaining more business attention.
Canadian Business recently explored the rise of “digital pollution” and why more companies are treating it as a real part of Corporate Social Responsibility, not a niche concern.
Here’s the simple framework we use to measure digital emissions, reduce what we can through performance, and offset what remains, with the help off Offset.org.
When someone visits your site, three things happen:
All of that energy has an emissions profile that varies by region and power source. And the heavier your site is (bloated pages, oversized media, unoptimized scripts) the more energy it takes to deliver a single visit.
Here’s the twist most brands miss:
Reducing digital emissions often looks exactly like improving performance.
Which means the “green” work isn’t separate work. It’s the same work that improves:
We call this digital housekeeping, and it’s the part you can control.
If you want a sustainability story that holds up under scrutiny (and doesn’t drift into greenwashing), the order matters:
This is performance-led. It’s the discipline of building and maintaining an efficient site (not necessarily a smaller one) so you reduce waste per visit and stay fast as your traffic and content grow.
Because even the cleanest site still produces emissions. So you neutralize what remains by funding verified climate projects, but only if the quality bar is high.
That’s the model behind Offset.org: measure your website’s footprint, then offset it to become certified. Offset.org positions the process as quick and low-friction (including a “30 seconds” footprint estimate) and ties certification to earning their badge.
Let’s explore these steps in more detail.
Let’s make this practical. Digital housekeeping isn’t a vague “be greener online” initiative. It’s a repeatable performance system and it pays you back in the same places marketing leaders already care about: speed, SEO, and conversion.
Digital emissions are driven by energy use, and energy use is driven by work:
When you reduce page weight and unnecessary requests, you get four outcomes at once:
So yes, this is sustainability work. But it’s also commercial performance work. And that’s why it’s one of the easiest climate actions to get buy-in for: it aligns with results.
One important nuance: the goal isn’t to make your website “small.” Growing brands will naturally add pages, products, and traffic. The goal is to reduce waste per visit so your site stays fast, efficient, and lower-emissions as it grows, instead of getting heavier by default.
If you want to run this like a real initiative (not a one-off tidy-up), start with a simple scorecard your team can track monthly or quarterly:
You don’t need perfection, you just want to make sure efficiency improves (or at least doesn’t slip) as your site grows.
The key thing to know is this: you don’t need to rebuild your website from scratch to make meaningful progress.
Most brands can reduce page weight, speed up load times, and lower digital emissions with a handful of focused changes, then tackle bigger structural improvements when it makes sense.
Think of this as two lanes:
This is where sustainability stops being a campaign and becomes a standard.
This is why we anchor the “Reduce” phase in performance. The best digital sustainability stories aren’t a separate set of tasks. They’re the result of building faster, cleaner experiences by default, then keeping them that way.
When you run digital housekeeping like a performance program, you don’t just end up with a greener site. You end up with a better one.
This is where most brands get nervous, and honestly, they should.
Carbon offsetting has been criticized for inconsistency in quality, and the market has faced scrutiny over whether some credits deliver the climate impact they claim. That doesn’t mean “offsets are useless.” It means due diligence matters.
A helpful lens: offset quality isn’t one thing. It’s a bundle of requirements like: additionality, robust quantification, permanence, and avoiding double counting.
So when we looked at offsetting our digital footprint, we had one non-negotiable:
We needed a solution that made trust easier, not harder.
Here’s the concept that clicked for us, and it’s why Offset.org’s badge matters.
Think of the Offset Badge like an SSL certificate for sustainability.
Most people don’t understand encryption or certificates, but when they see the padlock in their browser they instantly get the point: "this brand is taking security seriously."
That’s exactly what a trustmark should do.
It turns a complicated topic (measurement, accountability, verified action) into something clear and recognizable, without asking your audience to decode a sustainability report.
And importantly, it’s not just a “nice to have.” It’s useful because it travels well across the moments where proof matters:
Offset.org makes the process straightforward:
On the Offset Foundation side, they describe a web carbon calculator built from a large set of data sources, and third parties like SEMrush have documented elements of how the calculator was developed. For us, the value wasn’t buzzwords. It was repeatability and credibility.
Offset completed the picture:
Reduce what you can through performance. Offset what remains through verified projects.
“Major Tom understands that digital emissions are one of the fastest-growing sources of carbon impact. Through our partnership, they’re not only measuring and offsetting their own footprint with Offset.org, but also empowering their clients with a credible, data-driven path to achieving net zero.”Paul Reynolds COO of The Offset Foundation.
We don’t believe the main reason to reduce digital pollution should be “because it might help marketing.”
If the motivation isn’t rooted in genuine responsibility, sustainability messaging gets risky fast. In a world where offsetting claims are under a microscope, you want the commitment to be real, and the proof to be easy to verify.
That’s also why standards matter. Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), for example, describes itself as a widely used GHG crediting program with rules, independent auditing, and public registries intended to support credit integrity.
The point isn’t “pick a standard and relax.” The point is: build your sustainability story on foundations that can handle questions.
You don’t need a six-month sustainability committee to begin.
Take the simplest path.
Start by taking responsibility immediately and then improve from there.
The key is doing it credibly: measure your baseline, go carbon neutral right away, and then follow through with real reductions through performance improvements so your certification reflects an honest, proof-backed process.
Use Offset’s calculator to estimate your website’s carbon footprint and understand the pricing to neutralize it (can be as low as $9.99).
If it feels right, sign up with Offset and make your website carbon neutral immediately; so responsibility starts now, not “someday.”
Then shift into digital housekeeping: reduce page weight, remove unnecessary requests, tighten third-party scripts, and optimize media. You’ll lower emissions at the source, and usually improve speed, SEO fundamentals, and conversion efficiency at the same time.
We’re in the business of growth but we also believe growth should come with responsibility.
Digital sustainability is one of those rare opportunities where:
If you’ve been looking for a sustainability initiative that’s measurable, practical, and genuinely aligned with modern brand trust, this is a good place to start.
Curious about your own website’s carbon score?
You can use the same calculator we did to see where you stand, explore supported climate projects, and learn how certification works directly through Offset.org.
Be both a dreamer and a doer.
