Digital eco-design
statement

This page documents the digital sobriety choices applied to this site: what was done, the measured figures, the method used, known limitations, and next steps. It will be reviewed and updated after each measurement.

What was done

• Re-encoded the heaviest photos on the homepage, adjusting quality with no visible loss.
• Deferred loading of secondary images, including the footer logo: they are only transferred once they come into view.
• Vector optimization of the site’s icons and illustrations (SVGO), while preserving required licence attributions.
• Photos in WebP format, served in several sizes to suit the screen.
• Minified stylesheet.
• The homepage contacts two domains: the site’s own and that of the Umami analytics tool. Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Fonts, Google Maps, Vimeo and the Tidio chat, all present on the previous site, no longer load there.

The figures

These figures were measured on the published site on November 6, 2026, and on the previous site on October 10, 2026, using the same method (see Method). This is a voluntary statement: it is not a certification and does not claim compliance with any regulatory framework.

Homepage, median of three runs per format:

That is 92% less data transferred on desktop, 94% less on mobile, and over 80% fewer requests. The previous site fit on a single page, whereas this site spreads its content over several: together, its eight main pages transfer 2.7 MB on desktop and 2 MB on mobile, each counted with an empty cache, which is 49% and 60% less than the previous site.

Two online tools also estimate the homepage’s footprint using models. Website Carbon puts it at 0.04 g of CO₂ per visit on November 6, 2026, compared with 0.67 g for the previous homepage on October 6, 2026. Ecograder gives it 99 out of 100 for weight. Both tools count the web host as running on renewable energy, a classification that no published supporting document backs up, and part of the carbon gap comes from it. These are estimates: no actual energy use was measured.

The method

Measured with a real browser (Chromium, driven by Playwright), cache disabled, in desktop (1440 × 900) and mobile (390 × 844) formats. Weight and request count are recorded on first load, before any scrolling; each value is the median of three runs, which differ by less than 1 KB. The same method was used for both sites compared: the previous site was measured live on October 10, 2026, this site in its published version on November 6, 2026, with visit analytics turned off during the measurement. The carbon estimates come from Website Carbon and Ecograder, two tools that calculate emissions from page weight and hosting.

Limitations

• Fonts are still heavy: 116 KB on the homepage, or 39% of its weight on mobile and 29% on desktop (November 6, 2026 measurement), despite an existing character subset.
• These figures come from a single day of measurement on each side, from a single workstation. Network conditions and server load were not controlled.
• Weight is measured in Chromium. Other browsers may load images in different sizes.
• The measurements cover the first load. Images further down the page only load when you scroll to them.
• The two-domain count does not account for any third-party tools (consent banner, chat) that may be added later.
• The grams of CO₂ are model estimates. No actual energy use was measured, for either the previous site or this one, and these figures do not support describing the site as “green” or “carbon neutral”.

Next steps

• Measure again at regular intervals, using the same method.
• Continue reducing font weight.
• Set a maximum weight budget per page type, to guide future additions.