Sustainable marketing

Climate Conversations with Wholegrain Digital

January 2024

Welcome to Hattrick’s Net Zero ‘talking heads’ series - Climate Conversations.

Digital presence often takes a backseat when people measure their carbon footprint, overshadowed by more conspicuous factors like travel, diet, or waste. Contrary to popular belief, online activities significantly impact the planet, with the global carbon footprint of the internet nearly rivalling that of aviation - and it just keeps on growing. That’s why we turned to Wholegrain Digital.

A platform dedicated to delivering “mission critical, low-carbon sites”, their websites are 67% less polluting than the industry average while boasting optimised SEO capabilities and enhanced user accessibility.

With that in mind, we wanted to find out what makes their Co-Founder (and all-around web sustainability expert), Tom Greenwood, tick.

Q1. What are your top tips for businesses to be more sustainable?

Evaluate your website's environmental impact with tools like Wholegrain's own Website Carbon Calculator Calculator or Ecograder.
Take insights from "Sustainable Web Design" - a book written by Tom himself.
Use the Green Web Foundation to verify that your servers run on renewable energy.

Q2. What will it take to mobilise real change?

“Unless we look back within ourselves, and understand how we relate to the world around us, we won’t come up with new ideas, new perspectives, and new behaviours.”