Building a Greener Digital Future: Catchpoint Launches Carbon Control

In our quest for a greener planet, we have become increasingly aware of the detrimental effects of single-use products like plastic bottles, coffee cups, and plastic bags on greenhouse gas emissions. However, there exists an ominous carbon culprit that goes largely unnoticed—the carbon footprint of the Internet.

It might seem abstract, but the Internet is responsible for around 1.6 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. That’s about 2% of total emissions, rivalling the much-maligned global aviation industry. And as the Internet keeps growing in users, devices, and capabilities, these emissions are expected to double by 2025. What steps can businesses and organizations take to reduce their digital carbon footprint and make a positive impact on the environment? It all starts with the crucial step of measurement.

Introducing Carbon Control

At Catchpoint, we’ve built our award-winning platform on the principle that you can’t improve what you don’t measure. That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce Carbon Control, a new tool that lets businesses and organizations see the real-time carbon footprint of their websites. By providing visibility into Internet-related CO2 emissions, Carbon Control empowers users to take targeted actions towards reducing their environmental impact. The best part is Carbon Control is available free of charge.

How Carbon Control works

Carbon Control is powered by Catchpoint WebPageTest (WPT), the gold standard for web performance testing, developed and maintained in open source by pioneers of the WebPerf industry. Leveraging data from various sources, including The Green Web Foundation, Carbon Control offers users an estimated carbon footprint in grams of carbon per minute and CO2 emissions per new visit, and comprehensive page weight information. Your website’s carbon footprint measurement will be seamlessly integrated into the Catchpoint WPT performance summary you’re familiar with.

Actionable insights for a sustainable website

Catchpoint WPT lets you run multiple tests to understand your footprint from different locations and the difference between first load and subsequent loads. Since page weight correlates heavily with your carbon footprint, Carbon Control provides impactful best practices to remind you of optimizing opportunities, including:

• Compressing text assets

• Image optimization opportunities

• Caching

• Lazy Loading

These represent just a few of the traditional page weight metrics that present quick wins and opportunities to reduce your website’s carbon footprint. Pro users can also use Carbon Control to run no-code experiments to see the real impact of changes and optimizations on live sites.

Why Carbon Control matters

Carbon Control highlights a concern many did not realize: the Internet’s carbon footprint. But it also delivers a strong business case. We’re witnessing the emergence of a new era in web sustainability, driven by mandates and regulatory requirements that are reshaping the operations of enterprise and digital organizations. For example, in the EU, new corporate sustainability rules will require organizations to provide more detailed reporting on sustainability issues to strengthen sustainable investment. In other cases, public sector spending will request partner organizations to have sustainability initiatives to be considered.

“Sustainability is becoming a higher priority for organizations globally. Not only is it our ethical responsibility, but there are new regulations that will require companies to monitor and manage their environmental reporting,” said Adrian Cockcroft, Technology Strategy Advisor. “Carbon Control is making it easy to take the first step by measuring the carbon footprint of a website or web application while also providing actionable recommendations on actions that could result in improvements.”

“Enterprises of all sizes are seeking ways to reduce their carbon footprints, making it part of their missions as well as formalizing reduction goals that align with the UN’s Global Roadmap and other climate initiatives,” said Mehdi Daoudi, Chief Executive Officer, and co-founder of Catchpoint. “The always-on and expanding Internet we all want has today a massive carbon footprint. Monitoring environmental impact and understanding ways to reduce it is part of our responsibility to society as a whole and to future generations.”

A badge you can wear with pride

The efforts to decrease carbon emissions on the web often go unnoticed. But in a landscape where two-thirds of customers say they will pay more for sustainable products, we wanted to create an easy way for any site to show their commitment to reducing their carbon footprint. That’s why we’re offering a badge you can easily add to your website.

We invite you to join us in taking action for a more sustainable Internet by running a test today and proudly displaying the Carbon Control badge on your website, showcasing your commitment to a greener future.

Ready to test? Measure your website’s carbon footprint now.

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