How can websites be more sustainable?

Source page: https://www.feelcreated.com/insights/how-can-websites-be-more-sustainable/

Structured JSON: https://www.feelcreated.com/insights/how-can-websites-be-more-sustainable/ai.json

This page is generated automatically from the same reviewed FC AI data as the JSON version.

Meta

Type: insight_article

Language: en-GB

Last updated: 2026-09-28

Retrieval summary

What: The article introduces the concept of website sustainability, explaining that websites rely on physical infrastructure (storage, networks, device processing) despite appearing weightless.

Who

Organisation: Feel Created

Relevant for

Problems solved

Article

Type: Insight article

Primary topic: Making websites more sustainable through better design, development, performance, content management and ongoing website management

Intent: The article introduces the concept of website sustainability, explaining that websites rely on physical infrastructure (storage, networks, device processing) despite appearing weightless.

Author

Name: Ian Long

Organisation: Feel Created

Bio: Ian is Creative Director at Feel Created, focusing on digital platforms, UX and AI-ready content.

Audience

Topics

Content focus

Canonical claims

Item 1

Claim: When assessing websites for performance, we often find more than one tool performing a similar job, old tracking code, and new pages replacing old information without removing earlier versions.

Evidence type: page_content

Evidence strength: medium

Source section: websites-build-up-over-time

Item 2

Claim: Website carbon calculators use available data and assumptions to estimate emissions, so results depend on the method and assumptions used.

Evidence type: page_content

Evidence strength: medium

Source section: one-score-cannot-describe-the-whole-website

Item 3

Claim: A change in a score may highlight something worth investigating, especially if a page becomes heavier after a new feature is introduced.

Evidence type: page_content

Evidence strength: medium

Source section: one-score-cannot-describe-the-whole-website

Item 4

Claim: Sustainable design does not mean plain design; visual elements can be used effectively if they perform well and serve a purpose.

Evidence type: page_content

Evidence strength: medium

Source section: sustainable-design-does-not-mean-plain-design

Item 5

Claim: External services add scripts, connections, suppliers, and decisions that can become difficult to manage as a whole.

Evidence type: page_content

Evidence strength: medium

Source section: external-services-add-up-too

Item 6

Claim: Broad labels such as green, carbon neutral, net zero or sustainable do not always explain what has actually changed.

Evidence type: page_content

Evidence strength: medium

Source section: hosting-is-only-part-of-the-answer

Item 7

Claim: Moving to a provider with stronger environmental credentials does not remove old files or reduce oversized images.

Evidence type: page_content

Evidence strength: medium

Source section: hosting-is-only-part-of-the-answer

Item 8

Claim: Removing a feature properly requires deleting scripts, closing accounts, and disconnecting integrations.

Evidence type: page_content

Evidence strength: medium

Source section: external-services-add-up-too

Services

Website design & digital platform development

Relationship: supporting

Url: /services/website-design-digital-platform-development/

Hosting, maintenance, support & optimisation

Relationship: primary

Url: /services/hosting-maintenance-support-optimisation/

Managed WordPress hosting

Relationship: primary

Url: /services/managed-wordpress-hosting/

Sections

Overview

Content

Item 1

Text: Websites can feel almost weightless. We open a page, read something, watch a video or complete a form, and there is nothing obviously physical in front of us.  Behind the scenes, though, many files need somewhere to be stored. Images, video and code have to travel across networks, while the device you’re using has to process everything needed to display the page. We may experience a website on a screen, but the infrastructure behind it is very real.

Design and development are only the starting point

Content

Item 1

Text: When we’re asked about making a website more sustainable, the conversation will generally start with how the website is designed and built. This will include discussions about image optimisation, page performance, hosting and technical efficiency. It all matters. These are things that should be carefully considered during a website project, particularly when design, development, performance, and hosting are planned together. What is easier to overlook is how much the website will change after it launches. New pages are published, campaigns introduce tracking, new features are added, and editors upload documents, photographs, and videos. Some of the additions remain useful for years, but others stay because nobody goes back to review them. That is where many websites begin to carry more than they need.

Websites build up over time

Content

Item 1

Text: Most organisational websites will continue to change and grow after launch. Websites will record what was added, but not always why it was added or when it should be reviewed. The problem is that the website keeps serving all the additional pages, scripts, files and integrations that were needed at different points in its life. Several years later, nobody really has a complete understanding of what everything does.  When we’re assessing websites for performance, we’ll often find more than one tool performing a similar job, old tracking code, and new pages replacing old information without the earlier versions being removed. Likewise, media libraries are often filled with large files that are no longer used anywhere. At the same time, integrations remain connected because no one is certain what will happen if they are removed. Of course, nobody set out to create an inefficient website. It has simply got that way through a succession of additions that made sense at the time but were not reviewed later. None of this usually happens through a bad decision. It builds up through a succession of reasonable additions that are never reviewed together.

Make sure everything has a purpose

Content

Item 1

Text: The answer is not simply to make every website smaller. A guide may answer questions that would otherwise lead to phone calls or emails. Strong photography may be central to how an arts, heritage or cultural organisation communicates, though I stand by the need to make sure images are properly scaled and optimised. A video may explain something far better than several pages of text. These things all require storage, data transfer and processing, but they can also provide real value to your site. A better question is whether everything on the site is still needed. Some content has an obvious lifespan. Events, vacancies and campaigns come to an end, while policies and guidance need to be reviewed or replaced over time. Unless these are being monitored, they can all stay online indefinitely and they can all still be found and served. When content is not reviewed, old pages remain alongside newer versions and information starts to conflict. Editors have more content to manage, while visitors are left unsure which version is correct. The problem is not that a website contains too much useful information. It is that content and features remain after they have stopped helping anyone.

Sustainable design does not mean plain design

Content

Item 1

Text: There is an unhelpful version of this discussion where more sustainable websites are treated as though they should all be visually minimal. They do not need to be. Design can make information easier to understand and help people feel confident in the organisation behind it. Used well, images, animation, video and interaction can make information easier to follow and the website more engaging to use. The answer is not to remove them, but to make sure they perform well and are used for a good reason. These are not compromises that weaken the design. They are part of doing the design properly. There will be cases where a highly visual page uses more data but remains the right choice. Examples may be a virtual exhibition, an interactive map or a collection of high-quality artwork. Removing what makes the experience useful would not represent good judgement and it’s not what I’m suggesting. The aim is not to use as little as possible. It is to understand what the experience needs and avoid adding more than that.

External services add up too

Content

Item 1

Text: Most websites rely on services outside the main platform. Analytics, video players, embedded maps, chat tools, booking systems, social feeds, marketing platforms and external fonts can all be useful, and some are essential to the service the website provides. They also add more scripts, connections, suppliers and decisions. Different parts of an organisation often introduce these tools independently. Marketing introduces one, a service team commissions another and a previous supplier installs something directly into a feature the website uses. Over time, the collection becomes difficult to see as a whole because no one originally planned it as one system. A useful question to ask is whether your organisation would choose to add each service again today. Does anyone still use the information it collects? Does it need to run on every page? Is another tool already doing the same job? Is it still covered by the organisation’s privacy and consent processes? Removing a feature is generally not just a case of hiding it. A tool can disappear visually while parts of it continue running behind the scenes. Removing it properly may mean deleting scripts, closing accounts and disconnecting integrations. There are environmental reasons to review these services, but the wider impact matters too. Each one adds another dependency, another privacy consideration and another system that somebody may eventually need to maintain or replace.

Websites need housekeeping

Content

Item 1

Text: Website maintenance is often described in technical terms. Software needs updating, security issues need fixing, backups need checking and faults need resolving. All of that is essential, but it does not automatically deal with everything a website has built up over time. Unused plugins, old integrations, unlinked files and outdated documents can all remain long after their original purpose has gone. Broken links appear, temporary features become permanent and nobody is quite sure whether removing something will cause a problem elsewhere. A full review can take time and may sit outside routine technical maintenance. It may need to be planned as a separate piece of work or focused on the areas most likely to have accumulated unnecessary content, files or software.  The value of this becomes clearer over time. Without that review, editors are less certain about what they can remove and developers have to work around code and connections that nobody wants to disturb. Each new feature then sits alongside everything that came before, gradually making the website more difficult to understand and improve. Eventually, an organisation may decide the platform needs replacing, partly because years of smaller additions were never brought back under control. Making time for occasional housekeeping gives somebody the chance to look at what has built up, understand why it is there and decide whether it still deserves a place on the website.

Hosting is only part of the answer

Content

Item 1

Text: Hosting matters because every website needs somewhere to run. It is reasonable to ask a provider where its data centres are, how they are powered and what evidence supports its environmental claims. Those questions should be part of choosing a supplier, but hosting alone cannot tell you whether a website is being managed sustainably. Moving a website to a provider with stronger environmental credentials does not remove old files, unused scripts or services that are no longer needed. It does not reduce an image that is much larger than it needs to be, and it does not decide whether an abandoned campaign page should still be online. A hosting decision also does not account for everything the website loads from elsewhere. Video platforms, payment services, analytics and other tools all rely on separate infrastructure. Hosting is important, but it should not become a badge that stops an organisation looking at the website itself. It is also worth being specific when talking about the environmental work carried out on a website. Broad labels such as green, carbon neutral, net zero or sustainable do not always explain what has actually changed. An organisation may have reduced image sizes, removed services that were no longer being used, reviewed its hosting or lowered the amount of data transferred across important page types. Explaining those improvements gives people a much better understanding of the work than relying on one general claim.

One score cannot describe the whole website

Content

Item 1

Text: Website carbon calculators and performance tools can be useful. They can highlight pages that are unusually heavy on load, help compare different templates and show whether a change has reduced the amount of data being transferred. What matters is understanding what the score is actually measuring. Website carbon calculators use available data and assumptions to estimate the emissions associated with loading a page. Results depend on the method used and the assumptions behind it. Performance tools have their own limits. They assess particular pages, conditions and metrics, rather than everything happening across the website or every way people may use it. Take a homepage. The homepage may be carefully optimised, but its score can only show what is happening on that page. Other parts of the website may load very differently, so one result cannot represent the site as a whole. That does not make the tools any less useful. A change in the result may highlight something worth investigating, particularly if a page suddenly becomes much heavier after a new feature or service is introduced. The score works best as a prompt to look more closely. It should help start the conversation rather than become proof that the whole website is performing well.

This should be part of ordinary website management

Key points

Content

Item 1

Text: Most organisations do not need a separate process for digital sustainability. The right questions can sit within the work they already do. When something is added to the website, somebody should know why it is there, who is responsible for it and when it should be reviewed. The same applies to content, media, tools and features. A more sustainable website can still be visually engaging, technically ambitious and full of useful information. The aim is to reduce storage, transfer, and processing that no longer serve a purpose by reviewing what is added, who is responsible for it and when it should be reconsidered. Building the website carefully matters. Looking after what it becomes matters just as much.

Entities

Website sustainability

Website housekeeping

Environmental claims

Website maintenance

Image optimisation

Sustainable design

Carbon calculators

External services

Page performance

Website hosting

Content review

Hosting

Concept relationships

Item 1

Subject: Website sustainability

Predicate: influenced by

Object: design, development, content, media, performance, hosting, and ongoing management

Item 2

Subject: Removing a feature

Predicate: requires

Object: deleting scripts, closing accounts, disconnecting integrations

Item 3

Subject: Website inefficiency

Predicate: caused by

Object: succession of reasonable additions never reviewed together

Item 4

Subject: Digital sustainability

Predicate: should be part of

Object: ordinary website management

Item 5

Subject: External services

Predicate: add

Object: scripts, connections, suppliers, decisions

Item 6

Subject: Website housekeeping

Predicate: addresses

Object: accumulated content and software

Item 7

Subject: Content value

Predicate: requires

Object: storage, data transfer, and processing

Item 8

Subject: Carbon scores

Predicate: should be used as

Object: prompts for investigation

Item 9

Subject: Website additions

Predicate: require

Object: clear responsibility and review

Item 10

Subject: Hosting

Predicate: does not ensure

Object: sustainable management

Implementation patterns

Item 1

Pattern: Assess website performance to identify redundant tools, old tracking code, and outdated content.

Description: During performance assessments, look for multiple tools doing similar jobs, old tracking code, and new pages replacing old ones without removal.

Benefit: Identifies inefficiencies and opportunities to reduce resource use.

Item 2

Pattern: Periodic website housekeeping reviews

Description: Schedule reviews to identify and remove unused plugins, old integrations, unlinked files, and outdated documents.

Benefit: Prevents accumulation of unnecessary content and code, making the website easier to manage.

Item 3

Pattern: Regular review of website additions

Description: When adding content, media, tools, or features, define why it is there, who is responsible, and when it should be reviewed.

Benefit: Prevents accumulation of unnecessary elements, reducing environmental impact

Item 4

Pattern: Specific environmental reporting

Description: Report concrete changes like reduced data transfer or removed services instead of using broad sustainability labels.

Benefit: Provides clearer understanding of actual environmental work.

Item 5

Pattern: External service review

Description: Periodically review third-party services to determine whether they are still needed and how they affect the website.

Benefit: Reduces unnecessary dependencies, scripts and connections.

Item 6

Pattern: Proper feature removal

Description: When removing a feature, delete scripts, close accounts, and disconnect integrations.

Benefit: Ensures no hidden background processes continue.

Item 7

Pattern: Content review process

Description: Regularly monitor and review content to identify and remove outdated or conflicting pages.

Benefit: Reduces confusion and management burden.

Item 8

Pattern: Use score changes as triggers

Description: Monitor carbon or performance scores and investigate significant changes, especially after new features.

Benefit: Identifies potential issues early and maintains efficiency

Practical guidance

Item 1

Guidance: Assess each external service by asking if it would be added again today, if it is still used, if it runs on every page, and if it is covered by privacy processes.

Importance: high

Item 2

Guidance: Integrate sustainability questions into existing website management processes, ensuring every addition has a purpose, owner, and review date.

Importance: high

Item 3

Guidance: Plan regular housekeeping as a separate piece of work to review accumulated content, files, and software.

Importance: high

Item 4

Guidance: Ask hosting providers about data centre locations, power sources, and evidence for environmental claims.

Importance: medium

Item 5

Guidance: Be specific about environmental improvements, such as reduced image sizes or removed services.

Importance: medium

Item 6

Guidance: Consider the value of content against its resource use (storage, data transfer, processing).

Importance: medium

Item 7

Guidance: Use carbon scores as prompts to investigate changes, not as definitive proof of performance.

Importance: high

Item 8

Guidance: Review website content and features regularly to ensure everything still has a purpose.

Importance: high

Risk areas

Item 1

Risk: External services accumulate without central oversight, leading to privacy and maintenance issues.

Impact: Increased dependencies and potential compliance gaps.

Item 2

Risk: Relying on hosting as a sustainability badge can stop organisations looking at the website itself.

Impact: Missed opportunities to reduce data transfer and improve efficiency.

Item 3

Risk: Outdated content remains online, causing conflicting information and visitor confusion.

Impact: Reduced trust and increased management burden.

Item 4

Risk: Integrations remain connected because no one is certain what will happen if removed

Impact: Unnecessary resource consumption and potential security or performance issues

Item 5

Risk: Without regular housekeeping, websites become difficult to understand and improve.

Impact: May lead to platform replacement due to uncontrolled additions.

Item 6

Risk: Features may continue running behind the scenes after being visually hidden.

Impact: Unnecessary data transfer and resource use.

Item 7

Risk: Misinterpreting carbon scores as definitive proof of website performance

Impact: May lead to complacency or incorrect conclusions about sustainability

Item 8

Risk: Websites become inefficient over time due to un-reviewed additions

Impact: Increased data transfer and resource use, undermining sustainability

Common misconceptions

Item 1

Misconception: Broad labels like 'green' or 'carbon neutral' fully describe environmental work.

Clarification: Specific improvements provide a better understanding than general claims.

Item 2

Misconception: Hosting with strong environmental credentials makes a website sustainable.

Clarification: Hosting does not address existing inefficiencies like old files or oversized images.

Item 3

Misconception: A single carbon score can represent the whole website's sustainability

Clarification: Scores are based on specific pages and conditions, so they cannot represent the entire site

Item 4

Misconception: Making a website sustainable is only about design and development.

Clarification: Design and development are only the starting point; ongoing management and review are crucial.

Item 5

Misconception: Sustainable websites must be plain or less engaging

Clarification: A sustainable website can still be visually engaging and technically ambitious

Item 6

Misconception: Removing a feature is just hiding it.

Clarification: Proper removal involves deleting scripts, closing accounts, and disconnecting integrations.

Technical context

External services examples

Removal steps

Tools

Concepts

Reasoning paths

Item 1

User problem: Accumulated unused plugins, old integrations, unlinked files, outdated documents

Why this article is relevant: This page explains the topic and gives practical points to consider.

Evidence refs

Relevant sections

Item 2

User problem: Websites accumulate unnecessary content, scripts, and integrations over time

Why this article is relevant: This page explains the topic and gives practical points to consider.

Evidence refs

Relevant sections

Item 3

User problem: Hidden scripts and integrations continuing to run after visual removal

Why this article is relevant: This page explains the topic and gives practical points to consider.

Evidence refs

Relevant sections

Item 4

User problem: Integrations remain connected due to uncertainty about removal

Why this article is relevant: This page explains the topic and gives practical points to consider.

Evidence refs

Relevant sections

Content profile

Content type: Insight article

Primary topic: Making websites more sustainable through better design, development, performance, content management and ongoing website management

Supporting topics

Primary audience

Retrieval topics

Organisation

Name: Feel Created

Type: Digital partner specialising in websites and digital platforms

Url: https://www.feelcreated.com/

Service model: We work as an extension of our clients' teams, combining strategy, UX, accessibility, content design, WordPress development and ongoing support to create digital platforms that help organisations communicate more clearly, work more efficiently and grow sustainably.