The Le Havre start-up founded by Mathieu Cottard brings businesses a game-changing tool to measure and reduce their website’s carbon footprint.
Mathieu Cottard has run his own web design agency for 10 years and developed hundreds of shopfront websites, e-commerce and blogs for small and large companies. “There’s no denying the advantage of digital in terms of access to knowledge, healthcare, services etc. But it does come at a cost to the environment,” he says.
With fewer resources and land available, greenhouse gas on the rise, overconsumption of water and energy, digital pollution has become a hot topic, especially in France. “It currently accounts for 6-8% of CO2 emissions worldwide. That’s twice as much as air traffic. And those figures increase as you digitalise procedures and communication tools,” says Mathieu Cottard.
Technology to help combat digital pollution
With that in mind, the eco-friendly entrepreneur and his team began working on a tool capable of measuring and reducing the carbon footprint of websites. Greenoco launched in 2021. The green tech solution audits a website in a matter of clicks to calculate its impact on the environment and give it an eco-score.
Better still, it automatically identifies improvements that could reduce the carbon footprint. “We don’t want to get rid of functions or content, we just want to improve certain technical features such as image compression or file formats. That way we can reduce a website’s carbon footprint by 25% on average as well as improve its technical performance: loading speed, “natural” ranking, user experience and more,” explains Mathieu Cottard.
A one-of-a-kind green tech tool
There’s nothing like Greenoco on the market. “Ecoindex-style tools only allow you to test one page at a time. Then you need to use other software to identify areas for improvement…“
Result: large companies (i.e. La Poste and Savencia), SMEs, e-commerce websites and associations are already using the tool. They can track their website’s carbon journey and publicise what they’re doing to reduce their CO2 emissions.
The idea behind Greenoco is to design a positive impact tool that other people can use to address ecological transition challenges. I could have just carried on designing websites just like I have been for the last 10 years… But doing something, doing your bit to make the world better, just makes sense.
Normandy, land of innovation
Greenoco is based at the Cité Numérique in Le Havre and supported by Normandy’s innovation services: Normandie Incubation, NWX, Pôle TES, AD Normandie, BPI, French Tech network etc.
“Pioneering projects in Normandy have the advantage of being easier to get noticed than in big cities. That means start-ups can get financial and management support from an entire, well-structured ecosystem throughout their journey,” says the entrepreneur.
The green tech start-up can now tackle its business development stage with peace of mind…
#VivaTech2024
Greenoco was one of 18 start-ups chosen to represent Normandy at the trade fair.
“It’s the second year that Greenoco has attended VivaTech as part of #Wearenormandy. The major innovation event has seen us connect with clients and test out our tool on different profiles and business requirements. We’re going again this year to identify potential investors to speed up our growth. We’re also proud to fly the flag for Normandy and prove that pioneering projects can happen outside Paris!”
Thematics
