Building a Sustainable Website with Umbraco

A high-performing website shouldn’t cost the earth. Rising energy demand, data transfer and oversized media now make the web a measurable source of global emissions.

With thoughtful design, smarter hosting and efficient development practices, we help organisations run websites that are fast, accessible and significantly lower-carbon all without compromising experience or impact.

Speak to an Umbraco expert
umbraco logo on laptop background
A carbon emission report showing the organization's total CO2e emissions of 13.777 kilograms, with a detailed breakdown table displaying individual cloud service emissions by type and plan, including monthly and yearly totals.

Why Umbraco is a sustainable choice

Umbraco’s modern .NET architecture is efficient, lightweight and low-overhead, meaning less wasted server compute and lower energy consumption. Combined with modular design and cloud hosting, it provides a future-ready foundation for sustainable digital services.

  • Modern .NET runtime = reduced processing load and fewer server calls.

  • Clean editor experience ensures content teams can publish efficiently without relying on heavy workflows.

  • With Umbraco Cloud you are automatically powered by Microsoft Azure’s renewable-energy data centres.

  • Component-based development prevents bloat, lowering operational energy and long-term cost.

  • Strong alignment with accessibility and inclusive design reduces duplication and improves longevity.

  • A ‘build once, adapt' mindset means your website can evolve rather than be rebuilt every few years.

What We Bring to Your Project

Uncover your digital footprint

We identify where your website generates the biggest environmental impact from oversized imagery to inefficient scripts, data transfer, hosting configuration and content bloat. You get a clear, prioritised view of what to optimise.

Design that performs beautifully

Our UX and design teams create streamlined journeys and lightweight UI patterns that load faster, use less energy and deliver a more accessible user experience.

Host with cleaner infrastructure

We configure your site for renewable-powered, high-efficiency hosting. With Umbraco Cloud on Azure, you gain a platform that is energy-optimised and benefits from Microsoft’s sustainability commitments.

Empower your editors

We help your team manage content sustainably, reduce duplication, improve structure and maintain an efficient publishing workflow long-term.

Track your progress

We give you tools and indicators to monitor performance improvements, carbon impact and the evolution of your sustainability story.

Build for what's next

You get a future-proof CMS that keeps pace with accessibility updates, regulatory expectations and sustainable web standards.

Real Sustainability Improvements We Deliver

Your website’s largest carbon impact usually comes from oversized images and unused legacy media. To fix this, we’ve built a custom Umbraco optimisation tool that lets you bulk-resize and compress every media item across your site in one go.

 

Paired with upload rules that block oversized files and automatically convert new images into efficient formats, your media library stays clean, lightweight and consistently optimised, reducing carbon output while improving page speed and Core Web Vitals.

Book a FREE 30min consultation
A table showing 110 images that need resizing, with file details including name, type, parent folder, owner, last modified date, and file size. Images exceed the 1mb maximum width limit and are marked in red, totaling 78.98mb.

Before & After: The Difference Sustainable Optimisation Makes

We recently optimised an Umbraco website with thousands of oversized images, legacy assets and inefficient page structures. By applying our bulk media optimisation tools, restructuring the media library and improving front-end performance, we delivered measurable environmental and user-experience gains across the entire site.

Here’s what that transformation looked like:

Media Library Size

6.71 GB → 754 MB

88.7% reduction
A dramatically leaner media library that uses far less storage and reduces long-term hosting energy.

Homepage Weight

4.1 MB → 0.9 MB

78% lighter
A lighter homepage results in faster loads, a lower carbon impact per visit and improved Core Web Vitals.

DOM Load Time

1.05 s → 591 ms

43.7% faster
Cleaner markup, reduced scripts and a more efficient render path significantly speed up the browser workload.

First Contentful Paint (FCP)

4.9 s → 0.9 s

81.6% quicker
A huge improvement to perceived page speed, users see content almost instantly.

PageSpeed Performance Score

85 → 92

8.2% improvement
A higher Google score reflecting real-world performance and sustainability improvements.

Carbon Score

F → B+

80% improvement
A substantial uplift in your website’s environmental rating, with far fewer grams of CO₂ produced per page view.

Laura Pinkstone holding a laptop and speaking with Dan Chadney who is looking at the laptop

Who Is It For?

This service suits organisations who want a credible, measurable approach to digital sustainability:

  • Organisations with ESG or sustainability commitments who need fast, low-footprint digital platforms.
  • Charities, public sector teams and nonprofits who need efficient, accessible sites that support environmental goals.
  • Businesses preparing for future sustainability regulations or requiring transparent reporting.
  • Any organisation wanting greener hosting and lower operational cost without sacrificing performance.
Speak to us about creating a sustainable website

Get a free 30 minute consultation

Speak to Kevin and get free advice from an Umbraco Platinum Partner who has been helping organisations get the most out of Umbraco websites for over 10 years.

Kevin Triggle

In your free session we will:

  • Talk with you to understand your website and specific requirements
  • Offer advice around what sustainability improvements might be possible for your organisation
  • Create a plan to get you started

Or if you'd prefer, just send us an email hello@digitalwonderlab.com

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Got some questions?

01

How does a sustainable website actually reduce carbon emissions?

A sustainable website reduces the amount of data transferred and processed every time a page loads. Through efficient hosting, optimised media, cleaner code and streamlined user journeys, your site uses less server power and emits less CO₂ per visit.

02

Can existing Umbraco sites be made more sustainable without a full rebuild?

Yes. Most improvements come from smarter hosting, removing unused media, bulk image optimisation, removing legacy scripts and improving caching. You rarely need a rebuild unless the site is extremely outdated.

03

What has the biggest impact on a website’s carbon footprint?

Images and video are usually the largest contributors. Removing unused media, compressing assets and enforcing upload rules can reduce emissions significantly while making pages faster.

04

How do you measure a website’s carbon impact?

We use tools such as Website Carbon, Lighthouse, Azure sustainability dashboards and Umbraco Cloud’s own sustainability reporting to track carbon intensity, energy usage and performance improvements over time.

05

Does sustainable development also improve SEO?

Yes. Most sustainability improvements result in faster load times, reduced page weight, improved structure which directly benefit Core Web Vitals, which improves search rankings.

06

Do we need Umbraco Cloud to be more sustainable?

Not strictly, but Umbraco Cloud runs on Microsoft Azure’s renewable-powered data centres and includes sustainability reporting. It is one of the most efficient hosting options for Umbraco.

07

Can you stop editors from uploading huge images in the future?

Yes. We can implement upload limits, automated compression, auto-WebP conversion and rules in the media workflow to prevent oversized files from being published.

08

What’s involved in a media-in-use audit?

We scan your entire site for used images, video and documents, flag duplicates, oversized assets, unused media and legacy content. You receive a clear roadmap of what to optimise or remove.

09

Does sustainable hosting affect performance?

Not negatively. In most cases performance improves, because optimised infrastructures and renewable data centres often offer faster, more efficient compute.

10

Will sustainability improvements affect design or content?

No. Good design and sustainability complement each other. We focus on efficiency and performance without compromising the visual experience or editorial freedom.

Ready to reduce your website's carbon footprint?

We’ll assess your current digital impact, identify high-carbon hotspots and show you how to cut energy use while improving performance, speed and UX.

Get in touch