Digital carbon footprint

Every digital interaction generates carbon emissions through the energy required to power servers, transmit data, and run user devices. A single email produces roughly 4 grams of CO2, while streaming an hour of video can generate up to 55 grams. These numbers seem small individually, but scale massively across billions of users and interactions daily.

Measuring your product's carbon footprint starts with tools like Website Carbon Calculator, Ecograder, or cloud provider dashboards that estimate emissions based on data transfer and server usage. While measurements aren’t very precise, they reveal patterns. Track data transfer per user session, server processing time for key features, and infrastructure energy consumption.

Focus on high-traffic areas first since they multiply impact across your user base.Use this baseline to identify optimization opportunities. Heavy homepage assets that load on every visit create more impact than rarely-accessed features. Auto-playing videos and uncompressed images are common culprits. Product teams can prioritize reducing carbon in areas that also improve performance, creating alignment between environmental and user experience goals. The goal isn't perfect measurement but understanding where your product consumes the most resources.