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Is your organization measuring the carbon footprint of its digital content? Hint: most aren’t. In fact, most haven’t considered that the content we produce can even have an environmental impact in the first place.    

Let’s start with an obvious statement: the world’s information is increasingly digital. We’re relying on digital technologies to educate and inform, using everything from websites and apps to videos and podcasts. But this accelerating wave of digital content is increasing the energy demands on an already overextended planet. And energy—at least for the foreseeable future—generates the carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.

If we want to design experiences that are clear and meaningful for the people who use them, we can’t ignore the corresponding downstream impacts that our digital emissions have on marginalized populations. 

Digital content drives energy consumption

“That can’t be right,” people say. “After all, we’re generating more and more renewable energy than ever.” True. But humanity is also using more energy than ever before. We’ve nearly doubled our energy consumption in the past four decades, as we see in Figure 1. So, as we’re increasing our percentage of renewable energy, our increased overall consumption limits the amount of headway that we’re making on a true green energy transition. Digitization is driving a significant amount of that consumption.

How bad can it be?

When I talk about the emissions impact of digitization at conferences or with clients, the first response is usually, “How bad could it be? If it was a big deal, I would’ve heard about this already,” or “that doesn’t apply to us, we use a green data center.” True, but what kind of energy is your audience using? The data center only tells part of the story.

Let’s say that you have an industry-average four-megabyte (MB) web page. Just like the boxes in your attic, it takes a relatively small amount of energy for it to just sit there. Real energy comes when you have to move it.

Now, let’s say that the web page gets 10 hits. That four MB of data is moved 10 times: 10 times the energy, generating 10 times the emissions. Of course, we don’t create content to be viewed just 10 times. We want it to be downloaded hundreds, thousands, or even millions of times. We can quantify the energy and emissions generated by those downloads to phones, tablets, and laptops.

How much energy does data use? In his book, “Sustainable Web Design,” Tom Greenwood suggested a current estimate of less than one-kilowatt hour per gigabyte (kWh/GB) of data that accounts for internet protocol (IP) core networks and access networks, plus cables and data centers, as well as the networking equipment and devices in your home or office. This number seems to be the most comprehensive end-to-end assessment and is continuously revised on Greenwood’s website as overall efficiency improves.

Leveraging our impact at work

A report published by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) stated that 100 companies are responsible for more than half of all greenhouse gas emissions since the start of the industrial revolution—250 years ago. These organizations have been responsible for 71% of all emissions since 1998. If most emissions are driven by corporations, then it makes sense that we have the most opportunity to leverage our impact at work. But how?

By employing the sustainable content calculator, we can measure the direct impact of our digital content—and, in turn, balance the value of our content creation against its planetary impact. All content professionals should keep these numbers in mind when balancing audience needs with the most climate-friendly content choices.

Calculating the impact

I’m going to use a web page as my example because every organization has a website. But any digital content—emails, videos, apps, podcasts—can be measured in the same way.

Step 1: Measure the size

Apps, audio, and video are easy to measure; simply look at the file size. Web pages can be easily measured using the tool at Pingdom.com.

I’ll use The Nature Conservancy as an example. Running the home page through the Pingdom calculator in January 2023 revealed that the site was 4.1 MB.

Step 2: Identify the source of the page weight

Next, use the Pingdom calculator to identify not only the total weight of the page but also the weight of the components of the page. Is it heavy on imagery? For most web pages, page weight comes from imagery, but the bloat can come from multiple sources. This one is a little different than most. We can see in Figure 2 that more than half of the page weight comes from backend scripts and tracking. 

Step 3: How many hits?

Now we have the weight of the page. How many hits does it get each year? SimilarWeb says that The Nature Conservancy gets more than one million hits annually.

Step 4: Run the Numbers

This one web page contributes 1.6 metric tons of emissions, as we see in Figure 3. Now imagine extrapolating that impact across the dozens or hundreds of pages on your organization’s website.

Designing content effectively

While I used websites as an example, they are far from our only source of digital content. What about when management wants a video? Video is the most energy-intensive and emissions-heavy form of content. But there are a wide variety of video types with varying levels of value for the audience. What is more valuable: a two-minute product walk-through video demonstrating use or a two-minute feel-good marketing video of smiling employees in corporate hallways? Both generate the same emissions, but only one has value for the audience.

When creating content, ask yourself: is this the lowest-emissions format that has the most value for my audience? Could this video be audio instead? Could it be a single image? Could it be effectively communicated in text?

A simple checklist I follow when considering content formats:

• Measure: What is the net expected emissions impact of the thing?
• Mitigate: Is there a lower-weight option that can communicate this information effectively? (audio instead of video, text instead of audio, etc.)
• Monitor: Keep track of how it's being used and whether it's delivering the appropriate value.
• Manage: Management isn't always going to like this approach because data-heavy, energy-heavy content is generally flashier and feels more "produced." Use the metrics to justify content decisions, manage expectations, and give them talking points when their boss starts looking for positive sustainability stories.

The good news: We don’t have to abandon digital content

Ultimately, sustainable content is everything we want our content to be: straightforward, accessible, clear, concise, and usable. We don’t need special permission to create it. We just need a conscientious content strategy, effective content design, and our existing arsenal of content best practices.

By measuring the carbon emissions of our digital content, we can balance the value of our content creation against its planetary impact. We can ask ourselves; is this digital format the best resource for the audience as well as the planet?