The internet has long since ceased to be a purely virtual space; it now has very real consequences – including environmental ones. Accounting for just under 4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the digital sector is responsible for an environmental impact comparable to that of the entire global aviation industry. Digital technologies account for around 7 percent of global electricity consumption.
Emissions are generated not only when a website is in operation, but also during its creation. This aspect is becoming increasingly significant, particularly due to the growing use of AI. Frequent relaunches mean that this development effort is regularly repeated.
For us as an agency, this is not an abstract issue: almost 60 percent of our clients address sustainability on their own websites. So what is already being practiced in terms of content must also be consistently taken into account in website development.
How can website emissions be measured?
Websites generate emissions primarily through the electricity consumption that occurs throughout the entire supply chain – from servers, through the network infrastructure, to users’ end devices. End-user devices account for the largest share of this, at around 66 percent, which is mainly due to their energy-intensive manufacture and short lifespan. Emissions are generally estimated on the basis of electricity consumption per page view.
Emission Benchmarks
What this means for your website
Typically, only a few grams of emissions are generated per page view, but this figure quickly adds up for high-traffic websites: with several million page views per year, this results in total annual emissions of several tonnes. By way of comparison, this is roughly the same order of magnitude as the annual carbon footprint of an average Austrian.
How can energy consumption be reduced?
When developing websites, there are a number of principles designed to minimize environmental impact as far as possible. One of the most comprehensive collections of such principles are the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG), which were drawn up by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). They comprise over 250 guidelines and are particularly relevant because W3C guidelines often form the basis for legal frameworks – such as the accessibility guidelines, which became mandatory in June 2025 under the European Accessibility Act.
Solutions
Design, development and lifecycle as levers
Design
Design improvements
Even at the website design stage, a considerable proportion of emissions can be avoided – usually by reducing data volumes. Videos almost always have the greatest single impact on a website’s emissions. A single video usually uses more data than the rest of the page combined. The situation is similar with images: they account for around 50 percent of the data volume transferred. Significant savings can be achieved here through careful use and optimized formats. The comparison shown here illustrates this clearly: by blurring the background, using a modern image format and applying appropriate compression, the file size of the original image was reduced by 94 percent.
Development
Technical improvements
From a technical perspective, the most effective measures are choosing hosting powered by renewable energy sources (“green hosting”), consistent caching to reduce repeated server requests, and file compression to significantly reduce file sizes. Many of these measures overlap with principles from the fields of accessibility and search engine optimization, which we at pixelart already implement as standard. Fast, streamlined and accessible websites are therefore also more sustainable websites.
Lifecycle
Long-term planning
On average, websites are revamped every 2–3 years – in most cases because they become outdated in terms of design or technology. However, complete relaunches generate significant emissions, which can be avoided through long-term planning. We therefore focus on designs that are as timeless as possible and on robust, maintainable technical structures that can be expanded over the years. For us, the guiding principle of ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ also applies in the digital sphere.
Our Approach
Our approach: three principles for sustainable websites
We only transmit what is really needed.
We optimize all the data we provide.
We also support older devices.
What pixelart contributes in this regard
To assess websites in concrete terms, we develop our own tools and calculation methods for optimization. One such tool is the Sustainalyzer, which helps designers create low-emission designs. Through case studies, we have been able to demonstrate that targeted improvements – without making significant changes to the aesthetics – can achieve emission reductions of up to 67 percent. For high-traffic websites, this equates to a reduction of several tonnes of CO₂eq per year.
The internet is growing, and with it, its environmental footprint. Anyone who takes sustainability seriously as a value can align their own digital presence with this principle – while at the same time creating better experiences for everyone.
By the way: This page generates around 65 percent fewer emissions than the average website.
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