Andy Davies is a Digital Sustainability Professional who works with businesses to help reduce their digital carbon footprints by choosing low impact tech solutions.
This is the video of a presentation Andy used to explain how and why independent businesses can get started on making some changes.
The presentation was followed by a discussion and a Q&A that is covered below.
Find Andy on LinkedIn and at Sitegeist Web Services
The following topics were mentioned in the discussion and Q&A
- Test the carbon impact of your website here:https://www.websitecarbon.com/
- Then learn how to take action here:
https://sustainablewebdesign.org/ - Find sustainably minded hosting services here (I recommend Krystal https://krystal.io/) :
https://app.greenweb.org/directory/ - For more digital sustainability information sign up for the Curiously Green newsletter from Wholegrain Digital:
https://www.wholegraindigital.com/curiously-green/ - Read what Andy has written on Digital Sustainability for Wholegrain https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/category/digital-sustainability/
Specifics of things that came up on the call:
- An article about changing browsers: https://www.wholegraindigital.com/blog/can-browser-choice-help-digital-sustainability/
- Guidelines for optimising website media (Illustrators and digital designers will find this useful)
https://sustainablewebdesign.org/guidelines/2-15-take-a-more-sustainable-approach-to-image-assets/
Finally this is an eye opening primer on AI energy use:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/
An example of a typical AI use case from the article:
Let’s say you’re running a marathon as a charity runner and organizing a fundraiser to support your cause. You ask an AI model 15 questions about the best way to fundraise.
Then you make 10 attempts at an image for your flyer before you get one you are happy with, and three attempts at a five-second video to post on Instagram.
You’d use about 2.9 kilowatt-hours of electricity—enough to ride over 100 miles on an e-bike (or around 10 miles in the average electric vehicle) or run the microwave for over three and a half hours.
The text, image, and video responses they requested add up to 2.9 kilowatt-hours of electricity.
In California, generating that amount of electricity would produce about 650 grams of carbon dioxide pollution on average. But generating that electricity in West Virginia might inflate the total to more than 1,150 grams.
If you have any questions for Andy just let us know and we’ll forward them to him.