Making Digital Sustainability Part of the Main Conversation

We believe sustainability isn’t an “add-on” to our work. We work with clients to place Sustainability firmly at the heart of our projects. 

Our job is to help our clients see it clearly and make sure it’s accounted for alongside other key priorities like accessibility, performance and usability. Because done right, sustainability isn’t just better for the environment. It’s better for users. It’s better for business. And increasingly, it’s a competitive advantage.

Earlier this month, I joined a panel discussion hosted by Umbraco alongside Mike Berners-Lee, author of There is No Planet B and A Climate of Truth. Mike’s work highlights the global and systemic urgency of the climate crisis and the need for honesty, clarity and action at all levels. His message was simple but powerful, "We can’t just care about sustainability in principle, we need to make it part of everything we do." That’s exactly what we try to do in our day-to-day digital work.

Here’s what that looks like.

When we respond to briefs, whether for a new platform, a content strategy, or a full-scale redesign, we don’t wait for sustainability to show up in the RFP. We make it part of the conversation from the start.

We challenge assumptions that bigger, more complex platforms are always the goal. We ask where the value is and what can be simplified. We add sustainability as a KPI, so that we can benchmark and measure on an ongoing basis. If it doesn’t get measured, it doesnt improve.

Designing with sustainability front of mind means faster load times, simpler journeys and a clear focus on user needs. It also often means less, fewer pages, fewer templates, fewer redundant features, but with more purpose and precision behind what stays.

We use flexible, reusable components not just to speed up delivery, but to cut down on digital waste.

The more we reuse, the less we reinvent, and the smaller the carbon cost of each build. That’s why we invest in clean, scalable design systems that reduce repetition, simplify maintenance and keep interfaces lightweight and consistent across the service.

We’ve found that design systems are one of the most effective ways to embed sustainability into an organisation’s digital culture. They support content teams, dev teams and stakeholders by reducing friction and by making good decisions the easy default.

Sustainability isn’t just a technical conversation, it's about looking at a service in it's entirety including if/where there is a digital aspect to it. 

We map end-to-end journeys to identify friction points which can cost users their time, energy and attention. Sometimes this means means rewriting content so people can find what they need more easily, or it might mean removing unnecessary steps in a process needed to complete a task. Every unnecessary interaction, carries a cost.

One of the most sustainable things we can do is help people get what they need clearly, quickly and with minimal fuss. We don’t measure success by time on site. We measure it by clarity, confidence and completion.

That means clearer content. Logical navigation. No unnecessary steps. No bloated pages “just in case.”

Sustainability isn’t always about saying no, it’s about making well-informed trade-offs.

When clients are excited about AI features or dynamic content, we don’t shut the conversation down, we open it up. We talk about long-term energy costs and help teams weigh short-term gains against long-term environmental impact, and organisational strategy. If the benefit justifies the cost, that’s their decision. But we make sure it’s an informed one.

We also help clients map the carbon impact of their current stack or site and compare it against alternative solutions. That turns sustainability from an abstract concept into something tangible and actionable.

You don’t need a perfect carbon calculator to make better choices.

Most of the meaningful changes we make with clients are (simplifying journeys, optimising performance, cleaning up content, reusing components) are low-effort, high-impact decisions. They don’t require sign-off from a Chief Sustainability Officer. They just require someone to say, “This matters.”

We ask the question: does this need to exist? If it does, can we do it in a lighter, smarter, more intentional way?

That mindset sits at the heart of our work.

If your organisation is ready to embed sustainability into your digital strategy and make it part of the main conversation, we’d love to talk.