At Sanovel, sustainability is embedded at the heart of everything we do. We work to reduce our environmental impact, use resources efficiently and contribute to Türkiye's net-zero emissions ambitions. We believe this responsibility extends to our digital activities.
With this in mind, we developed our website not only to provide a fast and user-friendly experience, but also to reduce its digital carbon footprint. We implemented optimizations to minimize unnecessary data transfer and assessed our website using the Sustainable Web Design Model (SWDM) v4 methodology so that we can share the results transparently.
How Do We Share Our Current Digital Carbon Footprint?
At the bottom of every page, we share the estimated CO₂e value for an average page view across our website, together with its comparative position. CO₂e, or carbon dioxide equivalent, is a common unit used to express the impact of different greenhouse gases.
The values shown are not fixed. They reflect the website's current data efficiency and are updated as its content or technical structure changes.
What Is the Sustainable Web Design Model (SWDM) v4?
The Sustainable Web Design Model is an open-source calculation model developed to estimate greenhouse gas emissions associated with digital products and services.
SWDM v4 considers the environmental impact of a web page across three key areas:
- Data centers, where data is stored and served to users,
- Networks, which transfer data to users,
- User devices, on which the page is viewed.
In addition to operational emissions arising from the use of these systems, the model also includes embodied emissions associated with the production of the relevant hardware.
What and How Do We Calculate?
The primary input for the calculation is the amount of data transferred when a web page loads. Images, fonts, stylesheets and JavaScript files all contribute to the page's total data transfer.
SWDM v4 relates the amount of data transferred to the energy intensity of digital infrastructure and the carbon intensity of the electricity used, producing an estimate in grams of CO₂e. The model can also account for data savings provided by browser caching for returning visitors.
The value we share is not a direct meter reading or the website's total emissions. It is an estimate of the emissions associated with an average page view.
Why Do We Display a Site-Wide Average?
The content and estimated emissions of individual pages across our website may differ. We therefore assess all pages within the defined scope using the same methodology and calculate a site-wide average.
We reassess the website daily. The values displayed at the bottom of each page do not represent a real-time calculation or the result for that individual page. They are based on the most recently calculated site-wide average.
By serving the current results from cache, we avoid running additional calculations on every page load and prevent unnecessary data transfer and processing.
What Does the Comparative Value Mean?
The comparative percentage displayed at the bottom of each page shows how our website's estimated average page-view emissions compare with the web pages in the reference dataset. A higher percentage means that our website has lower estimated emissions than a larger proportion of the pages included in the comparison.
These values do not constitute an environmental certification or a “zero-carbon” claim. They provide an accessible view of our website's current position compared with pages assessed using a similar methodology.
At Sanovel, we consider performance and digital sustainability together, continually improving our website to provide a more resource-efficient digital experience.
Sources and Methodology
For more information about the calculation, please refer to the Sustainable Web Design Model v4 methodology and the Digital Carbon Ratings methodology.
