Last CallLast Call Pool
Performance

Digital ecology: Do websites contribute to global warming?

September 5, 2023 10:00 AM
Power Talk
🇬🇧 English
CMYK

About

Have you ever thought about the impact of your online activities on the environment? Do you know the term digital ecology? Join my talk to get familiar with tips and tricks everyone can implement to act more sustainably online.

In the keynote, I am going to talk mainly about websites. Do you know how much CO2 an average website produces? I want to show you how to check the carbon footprint of your website and how to easily improve the result by introducing simple changes. I develop a tool called ec0lint, which can help you in creating more sustainable websites.

Talk by

Photo of Julia Ziębińska, Lead Frontend Developer @ ec0hub
Julia Ziębińska
Lead Frontend Developer at ec0hub

Watch the full talk

Watch this WaysConf session, then continue with related talks or explore the current programme.

Explore the 2026 agendaMore WaysConf recordings
From the recording

Talk in brief

In this presentation, Julia Ziębińska, Lead Frontend Developer at ec0hub, explores the environmental impact of our digital lives and outlines practical strategies for reducing the carbon footprint of websites. The ICT sector accounts for approximately 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, driven by massive data centers, continuous data transfer, and consumer devices. Ziębińska provides actionable advice for both everyday users—such as managing email inboxes, closing unused browser tabs, and extending device lifespans—and web developers. For creators, she highlights the importance of sustainable web design, demonstrating how choosing lightweight programming practices, optimizing media assets (like using WebP and WebM), and hosting on green servers can dramatically lower a site's energy consumption. Finally, she introduces EcoLint, an open-source tool developed by her team to help developers automatically identify and eliminate carbon-heavy code, potentially reducing page sizes by up to 88% without compromising user experience.

Key takeaways

  1. 01

    The Hidden Cost of Cloud Storage

    Cloud storage is not weightless; it relies on massive, continuously powered data centers. By 2025, the cloud is projected to store 100 zettabytes of data, generating emissions equivalent to 200 billion tons of CO2 annually.

    Watch from 2:39
  2. 02

    Email Storage Accumulates Carbon

    While sending a single email emits about 4 grams of CO2, storing one email for a year generates 19 grams. With the average user holding 10,000 emails, cleaning out inboxes and avoiding unnecessary attachments can significantly reduce digital waste.

    Watch from 3:00
  3. 03

    Extending Device Lifespans

    Manufacturing and charging smartphones accounts for roughly 1% of global emissions. Keeping a laptop for six years instead of four saves 190 kilograms of CO2 emissions per person.

    Watch from 5:13
  4. 04

    Optimizing Web Assets

    Developers can drastically reduce page weight by choosing modern formats like WebP for images and WebM for videos. Using WOFF2 for local fonts instead of TTF can also save up to 70% of font data.

    Watch from 10:58
  5. 05

    The Impact of Data Tracking

    Collecting extensive user data for advertising significantly increases website weight and carbon emissions. An experiment by USA Today showed that implementing a GDPR-compliant version of their site made it 91% lighter and faster.

    Watch from 12:50
Read edited transcript highlights

These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.

Understanding the Digital Carbon Footprint

Every online action and digital interaction generates a real-world carbon footprint. This footprint is driven by three main components: data centers, transmission networks, and end-user devices. Although the cloud sounds light and ethereal, it actually consists of massive physical data centers that require constant power and cooling. Furthermore, transferring data across networks requires continuously powered infrastructure, and our personal devices consume significant energy both during manufacturing and daily operation.

Watch from 0:49

Simple Habits to Reduce Personal Digital Waste

Individuals can make a meaningful impact by adjusting simple digital habits. For instance, instead of sending short emails, users can utilize instant messaging platforms like Slack or Teams. Cleaning out old emails is highly effective, as storing a single email for a year produces 19 grams of CO2. Additionally, users can reduce email sizes by sharing links to cloud storage instead of attaching raw files, disabling unused mobile notifications, and turning off home routers when they are away.

Watch from 3:00

The Environmental Toll of Web Browsing

Web browsing habits also contribute to global emissions. Keeping dozens of browser tabs open continuously consumes energy because many active sites maintain live connections in the background. To mitigate this, users should close unnecessary tabs, use bookmarks, and type known web addresses directly into the address bar to bypass search engine processing. Even deleting old, outdated photos from social media platforms helps reduce the storage burden on remote servers.

Watch from 4:25

Technical Strategies for Sustainable Web Development

Web developers have a unique opportunity to build a greener internet by optimizing their code and asset choices. Writing custom, clean code is far more efficient than relying on heavy website builders like WordPress or Wix. Developers should prioritize plain JavaScript over heavy libraries like Lodash, and use native APIs like Fetch instead of Axios. Furthermore, choosing modern file formats like WebP for images and WebM for videos can reduce asset sizes by up to 50% or more, resulting in faster load times and lower energy consumption.

Watch from 9:02

The Hidden Cost of User Tracking

Extensive user data collection for advertising purposes is not only an ethical concern but also a major contributor to website bloat. When USA Today conducted an experiment by creating a separate, GDPR-compliant version of their website for European users that stripped out heavy tracking scripts, they discovered the site became 91% lighter and loaded significantly faster. Minimizing tracking scripts is one of the most effective ways to reduce a website's carbon footprint.

Watch from 12:50

Introducing EcoLint for Green Coding

To help developers write more sustainable code, ec0hub is developing EcoLint, an open-source tool that functions similarly to ESLint but focuses on ecological impact. While tools like Lighthouse analyze a website after it has been deployed, EcoLint works directly within the developer's code editor, providing real-time suggestions to replace carbon-heavy practices with greener alternatives, such as substituting plain JavaScript for redundant libraries. Implementing these sustainable design techniques can reduce overall page size by up to 88% without altering the visual user experience.

Watch from 13:57
Explore WaysConf 2026

View the agenda

Get tickets