Why a website has a carbon statement
Every page view moves data, and moving data uses electricity. Most retail sites weigh several megabytes and load dozens of third-party scripts. That is a design decision, and it can be decided differently.
This site was built to a page-weight budget agreed before a single page was designed, not audited after the fact.
The budget
| Item | Budget | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Median page, uncached | 450 KB | All assets, first visit |
| Hero image | 140 KB | WebP now, AVIF at launch; responsive, preloaded |
| Product image | 55 KB | AVIF/WebP, lazy-loaded |
| CSS, total | 45 KB | No framework |
| JavaScript, total | 15 KB | No framework, no jQuery |
| Fonts | 90 KB | Three families, subset, self-hosted |
| Third-party requests | 0 | No trackers, no ad tags, no embeds |
Target: 95% or better on the Website Carbon Calculator. We have not published a measured figure yet, and we will not claim one until the live site has been tested — see the honest list at the bottom of this page.
Hosting
Hosted with Raidboxes on EU infrastructure running on 100% renewable electricity. Data stays in the EU, which is good for carbon and good for GDPR.
How the site stays light
- No framework, no page builder, no jQuery. Custom code, deferred, in kilobytes not megabytes.
- Navigation, product gallery and accordions are CSS-only — no script needed to browse or buy.
- Images in modern formats at the size actually displayed, lazy-loaded below the fold.
- No analytics, no advertising pixels, no social embeds, no chat widget, no video.
- System-adjacent font loading with
swap, subset to the characters we use — including Irish diacritics. - Dark interface by default, which on OLED screens genuinely draws less power.
The products
- Made to order. Nothing is mass-produced into a warehouse and later written off.
- Made locally. Formed, printed, trimmed, framed and boxed in Galway. No intercontinental supply chain.
- Packed in card. Paper tape, moulded pulp corners, kerbside-recyclable throughout.
- Built to last. A formed relief map holds its shape indefinitely. The greenest object is one nobody replaces.
What we have not solved
Honesty is worth more here than a badge.
- The sheet material is a plastic. We are testing recycled-content and bio-based alternatives, and none yet forms to an acceptable level of detail.
- Shipping emissions are real, particularly outside the EU. Not currently offset; under review.
We would rather list these than claim to be carbon neutral.
What we have not measured yet
The figure in our footer badge is an estimate from the build, not a measured result, and we would rather say so than let it read as fact. It links here, to this page, precisely because there is no test result to link to yet. Once the site has been formally tested we will publish the measured number here with its date, link the badge to the result itself, and re-test after any significant change.
Verify it
Do not take our word for it, and do not wait for us. Run terraform.ie through the Website Carbon Calculator or the Green Web Foundation check yourself. If the number you get is worse than the one in our footer, we would genuinely like to hear about it.