How Much Energy is the Internet Using?

When we think about the internet, it’s common not to associate it with something that needs a physical infrastructure, right? Wrong!

Although we often think of the internet as something that solely exists in a virtual space, it actually depends on a massive amount of physical infrastructure.The internet consumes energy the same way powering the lights in your house does. You may not realize it, but even the computer or phone you’re using to read this contributes to that energy use and, in turn, to the carbon footprint left on Earth. With every Google search, post to social media, email, or visit to a website requires electricity to function!

Don’t feel guilty! Everyone has a part in this and we can work together to move forward in a positive way.

“4.6 billion people use the internet every day. In fact, 350,000 tweets have been sent in the past minute.”

Kettle, J. (2021, June 9). The internet consumes extraordinary amounts of energy. Here’s how we can make it more sustainable. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-internet-consumes-extraordinary-amounts-of-energy-heres-how-we-can-make-it-more-sustainable-160639

That amount of internet traffic in just the past minute is mind-blowing! Now think about how many times you’ve checked social media, listened to music, shopped online, or even come to this website for this article.

Now imagine billions of people across the globe doing the exact. same. thing.

The internet might feel invisible, but the energy required to keep it running is very real.

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Don’t fret! Change is happening

Although seeing these numbers can be staggering, many of the larger consumers are working to lower their environmental impact and, in turn, reduce their energy bills. This is great news for the environment moving forward, “Google have announced their goal to achieve 24/7 renewable energy-powered data centres by 2030, and their first such data centre became operational last year near Las Vegas”(Kettle, 2021). If Google is making the effort to reduce their non-renewable energy consumption, we can assume many of the other organizations like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft will commit to doing the same. While the demand for these data centers grow, so does the need for sustainable energy alternatives.

Sustainable Energy Alternatives

• Solar
• Water
• Windturbines

It should bring you a great sense of comfort to know that many of the larger-name organizations that have been mentioned in this post are working towards incorporating these sustainable energy sources into their data centers.

What about us?

Well, we’ve spoken about big corporations, data centers, and the billions of internet users. But how does this impact our website?

We used Website Carbon to help us assess the environmental impact of our own page. Here’s what we found:

We are extremely happy to announce that according to websitecarbon.com, less than 0.01grams of CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) is produced every time someone visits our page (Wholegrain Digital, n.d.)! In a world full of high carbon emissions, it brought us immense joy to know our site isn’t contributing to the damage in a major way. With that being said, we want to make you aware of the carbon emissions generated by visiting other websites.

The “Other Guys” (Kettle, 2021)

• The Conversation- each user generated 1.3g of CO2 by logging onto the site.
• Google- generates ~ 0.2g of CO2 per visit
• DailyMail- 54.0g of CO2 per visit

You may be wondering why each of these numbers is different. Why would one website produce more Carbon Dioxide than others?

Not every website is built and created the same way, causing a variation in the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by each visit. Some webpages can contain large images, videos, animations, advertisements, interactive features, and other media forms. These elements all require data to be transferred from a server directly to your device. The more data that needs to be sent to your device, the more energy required to do so.

Where do we draw the line?

We need to be realistic when demanding change. Many of the organizations that run these websites are aware that the more involved, animated, or picture-heavy their site is, the more carbon dioxide it will generate per visit. However, if websites committed to making their sites have a more minimalistic approach, the engagement overall would significantly decrease. Many organizations won’t remove everything from their website in order to reduce the carbon emissions because doing so would decrease traffic to their site and their whole goal is to have visitors.

The solution to this issue may not be to make every website completely minimalistic.

Instead, we need to work together to discover how websites could be designed in a more efficient way.

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You may be wondering why our post on this topic is a little bland. We wanted to be conscious of the amount of media we included with this article to ensure, in light of this new research, that our Carbon emissions were extremely low.

It would be a bit silly for us to comment on CO2 emissions just to come here and add pictures, videos, and infographics, to cause a need for more energy! With that being said, we always encourage you to read on and involve yourself in more research. Please read the article that influenced this post and check the carbon emissions of your favorite sites using Website Carbon!

References

• Kettle, J. (2021, June 9). The internet consumes extraordinary amounts of energy. Here’s how we can make it more sustainable. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/the-internet-consumes-extraordinary-amounts-of-energy-heres-how-we-can-make-it-more-sustainable-160639
• Wholegrain Digital. (n.d.). Website Carbon Calculator | How is your website impacting the planet? Website Carbon Calculator. Retrieved September 26, 2026, from https://www.websitecarbon.com/