Digital agencies build websites for a living. You'd expect their own sites to be lean, performant, and well-optimised. The data tells a different story.
We ran carbon scans across 100 digital agency homepages — small boutique studios, mid-size agencies, and larger digital consultancies across the US and UK. We measured CO₂ per page view, data transferred, and assigned each site an A–D sustainability rating using the Sustainable Web Design (SWD) model.
Here's what we found.
The Results: 73% Scored C or D
The industry average for website carbon emissions is approximately 0.5g of CO₂ per page view. Most agency homepages significantly exceed that benchmark.
A
< 0.3g CO₂ per page view
8%
B
0.3g – 0.5g CO₂ per page view
19%
C
0.5g – 1.5g CO₂ per page view
46%
D
> 1.5g CO₂ per page view
27%
Only 8% of agency homepages hit an A rating. Nearly 1 in 3 scored D — meaning their homepage produces more than 3x the industry average CO₂ per page view.
What's Driving the Emissions
Across the sites that scored C and D, three patterns appeared repeatedly:
Showreel and background video
Autoplay video is the single biggest driver of heavy agency homepages. A 15-30 second background loop adds 15–50MB to the first page load. We found autoplay video on 61% of D-rated agency sites.
Unoptimised portfolio images
High-resolution case study images served at full desktop resolution even on mobile. A portfolio grid with 8 images, each at 800KB, adds 6MB before the user has scrolled. Most weren't converted to WebP or AVIF.
Accumulated third-party scripts
Analytics, heatmaps, chat widgets, and retargeting pixels. The average C-rated agency site had 7 active third-party scripts. Each adds its own weight, latency, and carbon cost.
Why This Matters for Agency Businesses
This isn't just an environmental story. It's a business story.
Enterprise clients are beginning to include sustainability criteria in procurement decisions. An agency that can walk into a pitch and say "here's our site's carbon footprint, here's our clients' carbon footprint, and here's how we've reduced it" is in a categorically different position than one that can't answer the question at all.
Of the agencies we scanned, fewer than 5% had any public sustainability data on their website. Most had vague statements about "caring about the planet." None had a tracked, time-series carbon score they could hand to a client.
The agencies getting ahead of this now — building a tracked baseline, adding it to client reports, using it in proposals — are building a differentiator that takes time to establish. Waiting until a client specifically asks is the wrong order of operations.
What an A-Rated Agency Site Looks Like
The 8 agencies that scored A shared a few traits:
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No autoplay video — hero sections used static images or CSS animations
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Images served in WebP, sized appropriately for viewport
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Minimal third-party scripts — typically just one analytics tool
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Total page weight under 800KB
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Fonts subset to used character sets only
None of these are difficult changes. Most can be implemented in a focused half-day sprint. The agencies scoring D aren't doing so because they lack the skills — they just haven't measured it yet.
How to Check Where Your Agency Stands
Run a free scan on your homepage. You'll get a CO₂-per-page-view figure, an A–D rating, and a comparison against the industry average — in about a minute.
If you want to monitor your score over time, track client sites, and generate PDF reports you can hand to clients or include in proposals, that's what MyCarbonScan is built for.
See How Your Agency Site Scores
Free carbon scan. CO₂ per page view, A–D rating, full PDF report delivered to your inbox in under a minute.
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