Much of our work involves helping organisations understand and reduce their environmental impact. It was important that we did the same for ourselves, so we assessed the impact of our website and looked at where improvements could be made. In an increasingly digital world, a growing share of environmental impact comes from the systems we use every day.
Sustainability includes the digital infrastructure that sits behind modern organisations. Websites use energy through data transfer, server demand and the devices people use to access them. Heavier pages require more resources and increase emissions with every visit.
Our previous website was hosted in the United States on a high-carbon grid and included redundant code and scripts. It functioned well, but it did not reflect the efficient, low-impact approach we encourage in our work.
To address this, we worked with OYNK to redesign the site and improve its efficiency. Their insight and technical guidance helped us take a more rigorous approach to digital sustainability. We also used EcoPigs to measure the footprint using live data from the UK grid, giving us an accurate and transparent assessment of performance.
PEER stands for Performance, Experience, Emissions and Ranking. It measures how fast a site loads, how easy it is to use, how much carbon it produces, and how well search engines can find it. Each area is scored out of 100.
Here's how the new site compares with our old one, measured like for like.
Improving the website has made it simpler, faster and less resource-intensive. A lighter site uses less energy and bandwidth and places fewer demands on the devices people use to access it.
The process also showed that meaningful reductions often come from changes that do not affect quality or usability. The same principles we apply to operations, supply chains and energy use are just as relevant in the digital space. Measuring the footprint and understanding where the emissions sit helped us make practical improvements.
We are also seeing more organisations ask about the impact of AI tools, cloud storage and other digital systems. Websites form part of that picture, and improving their efficiency is a straightforward way to reduce demand and cut avoidable emissions.
This is why we work with partners such as OYNK and EcoPigs when supporting clients. Their tools and technical insight help provide accurate measurement and a clearer understanding of where digital impacts arise.
This figure is live. It updates with the UK grid every time it's measured — this very page, right now.
We worked with OYNK to redevelop the site and improve its efficiency. Their technical expertise helped ensure the build was lightweight, accessible and aligned with good digital sustainability practice. The footprint was measured using EcoPigs, which uses live UK grid data and independent hosting checks to provide an accurate assessment.
