With digital sustainability initiatives gaining momentum worldwide, we’re making real progress addressing the environmental impact of digital technologies. But as technical and operational challenges are being tackled, we must ensure the benefits of these efforts resonate across the industry – from server rooms to boardrooms, from customers to policymakers. To achieve this, we must equip ourselves with effective language and communications strategies: translating complex technical solutions into tangible benefits and outcomes that demonstrate why sustainability is relevant to decision-makers, stakeholders, and users, why they should care about it, and how it’s a net positive for businesses and their customers.

For too long, the myth has persisted that sustainability and business success are natural adversaries. This could not be further from the truth! In reality, framing them as enemies only delays the innovation we desperately need: the realization that sustainability benefits companies, communities, and the planet. This issue of Branch explores how technical design often falls out-of-sync with broader sustainability goals, reflecting a modern world struggling to align with nature and harmonize competing values and interests.

A key driver of this disconnect is the mantra ‘maximize shareholder value above all else.’ Ironically, harmony is also a key goal of business: between operations and regulations, shareholder interests and customer expectations, and corporate values and public opinion.

In writing this essay, we recognize that fostering harmony between technical development and its implementation among business decision-makers and end users is just as important as writing efficient code. If we want to realize our vision for a sustainable internet, it’s crucial that we, too, harmonize our language and strategies with the audiences we strive to reach. The good news is that, by every metric, the arguments are on our side.

Why businesses should care about sustainability

Let’s start with a hard truth: Digital infrastructure has a significant environmental footprint and by most estimates now accounts for around 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions – on par with aviation – and that figure is rapidly increasing with the rise of generative AI. In parallel, we face more frequent (and visible) climate-induced extreme weather events, geopolitical competition over resources (notably chips/semiconductors and critical raw materials), and the urgent warnings from climate scientists that time is running out.

Yet, carbon emissions only tell one part of the story. The entire life cycle of digital hardware is fraught with unsustainable practices – from unethical mining practices that exploit conflict labor for minerals, metals, and other raw materials to manufacture them, to the ‘dumping‘ of e-waste in countries such as Ghana once it’s discarded. 

Despite these challenges, not all corporate decision-makers are persuaded by pro-sustainability arguments on the basis of environmental responsibility.

Yet, businesses play a pivotal role in driving the necessary change – and the case for environmental responsibility continues to grow stronger for businesses of all sizes. Viewing sustainability as an integral feature rather than an add-on or an afterthought offers numerous advantages, but it’s important to frame those benefits in language that resonates and aligns with business priorities.

Study after study shows, for instance, that when businesses adopt sustainable practices, it decreases costs while increasing their competitiveness, boosting market position, strengthening customer and investor trust, and enhancing brand value. Sustainability is now becoming a ‘value creation opportunity‘ as well, one that is increasingly demanded by customers and expected by socially and environmentally-conscious investors to be prioritized. Even from a purely numbers perspective, prioritizing sustainability practices can help save money, increase resilience and efficiency, and reduce risk and disruption (especially for supply chains) – all while staying ahead of legal and regulatory compliance and stricter environmental standards amid greater scrutiny for stronger environmental, social, and corporate governance.

In short, it shouldn’t be a question of why, but how.

Where do we start? Simplifying our communication

There’s a wide range of actions your company can take to make its digital operations more sustainable – from simple steps like switching to a green hosting provider or pledging to avoid greenwashing, to more involved changes such as adopting more sustainable procurement practices or using only refurbished hardware. However, instead of simply listing those tasks for a variety of departments and business units, let’s focus instead on how we communicate about sustainability, both internally and externally.

Clear, straightforward communication not only helps to avoid greenwashing and increase transparency, it builds trust. It also helps to signal to both company employees and your community of customers, investors, and supporters why certain decisions are being made and actions taken. This is especially true when it comes to digital infrastructure improvements, such as those related to community-facing applications like a website. 

Remember: Most people don’t have a technical background, so communicating about why a decision has been made, its expected improvements, and how it will impact customers is important. It’s also a way to tie infrastructure changes and improvements to corporate and sustainability strategies, further highlighting how decisions are taken in a strategic and holistic way, which strengthens trust in corporate decision-making.

In this sense, a holistic approach and a pragmatic one are not mutually exclusive. As an example, if internal research shows that integrating more sustainable code within a company’s web payment system also happens to decrease the costs of maintaining that system, focusing on the cost savings is a reasonable strategy to take. Likewise, a deep-dive into the code may be a good way to explain the back-end development, but may not resonate with people who don’t inherently understand code. And not mentioning the savings at all may alienate those customers or employees that do care about sustainability. 

In the end, seeking harmony also applies to finding balanced outcomes and highlighting win-win scenarios – even if the methods to get there differ – but it often boils down to identifying arguments that work in language that resonates with whatever audience you aim to reach.

Case study: Communicating about grid-aware websites

In late 2024, the Green Web Foundation established an advisory group – including myself along with James Hobbs and Andy Eva-Dale – to accelerate the development of grid-aware websites. This project is an evolution of an idea previously explored here on Branch – building online experiences that adapt to real-world energy grids, delivering a core experience when the grid is powered by more fossil fuels, and progressively enhancing it with functionality as the grid becomes cleaner. 

Early on, we realized that without a concise ‘elevator pitch’ to succinctly explain the concept and its benefits, corporate adoption and end user interest would stall. Our initial step was assembling a list of answers to frequently asked questions, including most fundamentally the definition of a grid-aware website. While certainly useful, it didn’t solve our core challenge of nailing a pitch to decision-makers and other audiences. We therefore decided to try and create a pitch that could speak to different stakeholders in clear and non-technical language, while still conveying the purpose and mission of the project. This was our first draft:

“We’re developing an open-source code library designed to be deployed on the edge that is aware of local grid intensity for the user. This service can then provide personalized content based on local grid intensity. For example, it knows everyone is using their washing machine at the moment; so, it shows a webpage that uses less power.”

Although technically accurate, it failed to clarify key terms like ‘the edge’ and ‘grid intensity,’ or explain why open source matters. This led us to our revised version:

“We’re developing an open-source code library that anyone can use that is designed to work locally for an internet user. The purpose is to deliver web content, ranging from email to a streaming site, based on the type of energy available where the user is located. This service can then provide personalized content based on local grid intensity – meaning, how “clean” or “dirty” the energy is that’s powering your device. For example, the code we’ve devised knows that (1) fossil fuel (i.e., coal, oil, and/or natural gas) are the main energy source(s) in your area at the moment and (2) everyone in your area is using, say, their washing machine at the moment. So, it shows a webpage that uses less power to compensate for lots of current use for dirty energy.”

This version trades jargon for concrete benefits. It still needs trimming and testing with real stakeholders, but it already resonates far better with business audiences. Importantly, this case highlights that online and offline infrastructure is inseparable – your ‘cloud’ is merely someone else’s computer (or, more likely, data center). Therefore, it’s immensely valuable to help users bridge their online activity with the underlying, real-world infrastructure serving it (as shown by Branch, for example). To do so effectively, however, requires demonstrating alternative solutions for how existing systems can integrate sustainability (bonus points when those integrations also save money).

Key questions for decision-makers

Clearly, communication is crucial at least in terms of getting all stakeholders invested in the project to be on the same page. To get corporate decision-makers on board in particular, we needed to address their top concerns directly and identified three key questions:

1. Will this save us money or boost revenue? E.g., highlight cost reductions, new service offerings, or premium positioning.

2. How will customers experience this? E.g., show how sustainable choices can enhance – or at least maintain – the UI/UX.

3. Do we need to build and maintain multiple versions of the same website? E.g., explain integration strategies that avoid fragmentation and extra maintenance.

We are still developing answers to these, frankly, difficult but important questions, and they absolutely deserve convincing ones.

Where we go from here

As we continue to develop the concept of grid-aware websites, it will be important to highlight trailblazers that are implementing the code – whether content delivery networks (CDNs), content management system (CMS) platforms like Wagtail, Drupal, or Umbraco, or independent websites, projects, and companies. We’ll particularly benefit from case studies of more traditional commercial entities such as banks, retail stores, or airlines implementing similar systems.

Above all, success hinges on communication. By using inclusive, non-technical language, diversifying our communication strategies tailored to different audiences, and offering straightforward, data-driven answers to tough questions, we can align stakeholders, accelerate adoption, and prove that digital sustainability is both feasible and profitable. 

Join us in leading this transformation: Integrate the open-source code library of our toolkit into your own site or service, track your energy savings, and share your story. After all, harmony is often best achieved through collaboration.

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A Belgrade-based entrepreneur and founder of Oghia Advising, Michael J. Oghia is a tech sustainability consultant and startup advisor serving worldwide clients across digital infrastructure, cyber resilience, internet policy, and media development. He’s a connector at heart and a seasoned communicator with 15+ years of experience in sustainability, conflict resolution, development, journalism & media, infrastructure, and policy across seven countries and regions.

James Hobbs is the Head of Technology at Aer Studios in the South West of the UK. Blending software engineering and operational expertise, James has worked with organizations as diverse as Honda, Dyson, and the Ministry of Defence. A passionate advocate for digital sustainability, he was included in the Champions for Change: Planet category of the BIMA 100 list 2024.

Andy Eva-Dale is Chief Technology Officer of Tangent and has been actively involved in the content management system (CMS) industry for 17 years, most notably within Umbraco, Contentful, and Sanity communities. His work now also spans data, cloud-native, AI, and engineering circles, providing him with a broad perspective on technology’s evolving landscape.