♻ Digital Sustainability at BAARCH
We rebuilt BAARCH.com and cut its estimated carbon footprint per visit by ~100×.
At BAARCH, our mission is to reduce emissions in the built environment — and we hold ourselves to the same standard online. Websites consume energy on servers and networks every time a page loads. Heavier pages use more electricity. So we rebuilt our site with a low-code, low-energy approach that keeps performance high and impact low.
Digital waste adds up at scale. Large images, scripts and animations increase energy use and slow pages. To align our operations with our values, we removed anything that didn’t help clarity, access, or speed.
- Removed heavy scripts and animations — only essential code remains.
- Optimized every image to under 100 kB.
- Stripped unused CSS/HTML — the bare minimum for clear communication.
- Built for longevity — no resource-hungry features that need constant updates.
| Metric | Before | Now |
|---|---|---|
| CO₂ per visit | ~2.2 g | 0.02 g |
| Carbon rating | C | A+ |
| Cleaner than | – | 97% of tested sites |
At 10,000 visits/month our site now produces roughly 2.4 kg CO₂/year (~5 kWh) — about 325 cups of tea, 405 smartphone charges, 31 km in an EV, or roughly what one tree absorbs in a year. When translated into everyday terms, the benefits are tangible — that’s why it matters.
This was not a visual “refresh.” It’s proof that waste can be cut anywhere — in kilowatts, cubic metres, or grams of CO₂. We apply the same discipline to our digital footprint that we bring to building performance.