Ecobranding
ReportRoyalties
Ecobranding
Greenspector

As with most human creations, brands leave a carbon footprint that damages ourenvironment. By using principles of ecobranding, we are cutting down on the
resources our brand uses and manifesting our company’s purpose: to become aleader in secure and decarbonized digital. We are making digital moreaccessible and user-friendly to remove the need to print, but we’re also choosing
design elements that are inherently more sustainable. These practices will be
improved and adapted over time: ecobranding is an ever-evolving discipline andwe’re only at the ﬁrst stage. Proof is a crucial part of our journey to responsible
digital technology. Our independent partner, Greenspector, is an expert inmeasuring digital energy consumption and has veriﬁed each one of our changes.
In this document you will ﬁnd an overview of our ecobranding philosophy, asummary of our very ﬁrst energy savings and a detailed report by Greenspector.

3

01. Ecobranding philosophy at Atos
02. First results at a glance
03. Greenspector’s method
04. Dark mode
05. Eco Illustrations
The report is split
into 10 chapters

06. Eco photo ﬁlters
07. Eco logo
08. Eco font
09. Carbon impact projections
10. Summary of key gains

01

Ecobranding
philosophy at AtosEcobranding
philosophy at Atos

Somes losses
are wins

5

1. Towards
one big goal

Ecobranding is about reducing energy and carbon
consumption. Only a combination of diﬀerent
actions can help us achieve this goal. Sometimes,
if considered in isolation, some actions can seemcounter-productive, but if we put them in a global
context, we realize that they contribute to a bigger
ambition. For example, our colors are brighterto make dark mode a possibility, which in its turn,helps us to achieve energy savings. We accept tolose somewhere to have bigger gains elsewhere.

Ecobranding
philosophy at Atos

Ecologicaland accessible

6

2. Finding
a balance

We want to achieve carbon reduction,
but also make sure our brand is accessible.
We give people a choice as we are awarethat not everyone can work solely withecobranded principales.
For example dark mode can pose a problem
for people with impaired vision. Anotherexample is that we use the Atos Globe(‘small logo’) on some channels but to makeit more visible and accessible we haveremoved the gradient (gradient in our designs
helps us to save energy and ink andrepresents our ambition to move to net zero).

Ecobranding
philosophy at Atos

Think big7

3. Scale thinking

Some of the carbon gains from our brand mightseem tiny. But when they are applied on a big scale
the diﬀerence becomes signiﬁcant.
Just imagine the diﬀerence between one person
loading atos.net and 1 million people loading it.

Ecobranding
philosophy at Atos

It’s a journey8

4. First steps
are the hardest

It is always possible to do better and to save more.
And it is easier to notice imperfections than
improvements. In fact, every brand ingredient canbe challenged as not being ‘eco’ just for the very factof its existence. But we need to start somewhere.
Yes, it won’t be perfect, but at least
we can say we are doing something.
And we are also setting an example to others!

Ecobranding
philosophy at Atos

The big part of theanswer is every
one of us!

95. It’s a mindset,
not just a setof tools
With ecobranding it is not enough just to havethe right ingredients – they need to be appliedin the correct way. For example, if you use
the static and not variable version of your fonton a website, it won’t be very useful.
Or, if you upload your images in a JPEG format
instead of the SVG format, you will continue
to use a lot of space on the server. Ecobranding
is not a magical tool that changes everything
overnight without cooperation.

Ecobranding
philosophy at Atos

Look ahead

10

6. Future-oriented

We anticipate technological changes
and encourage them if they bring positive
improvements. For example, dark mode brings
more savings on OLED screens than LCD screens.
Instead of adapting to LCD screens, we needto promote dark mode and encourage the transition
to OLED screens.

Ecobranding
philosophy at Atos

Collaboration

11

6. Test and learn
together

Ecobranding is a constant work in progress:
there is a lot of space for improvement for eachof our ingredients and their usage. We encourage
every one of you to get involved, challenge what
does not make sense and make our brand stronger.

02First results at a glanceOur ﬁrst results show the potential of our methodology
To give results that we can meaningfully compare, for now we have used only tested one
device: Samsung Galaxy S7 (with an OLED screen*). The results, then, are only an indicationof the savings our new brand ingredients will make. They do not yet show the full complexityof our brand’s energy consumption on the internet, where numerous devices are used andthat will all react diﬀerently to the new ingredients.
The numbers in section 9 are based on the reductions we expect to see from external use of
the brand (website) and do not account for the use of the brand assets by the employees.
The % decrease is relative to the energy consumption of the old brand elements.
Moreover, this report does not cover the savings that we expect to see in the physicalresources that the brand uses, such as ink savings on print.
*Please refer to the page 23 for more information about OLED/AMOLED and LCD screens.

03Greenspector’s method

Greenspector’s method

What is all this about?

To make sure that we achieve real positive results with ecobranding and that our eﬀorts are backed
by science, we have partnered up with Greenspector - an independent company specializing
in optimization of energy consumption on digital devices.

Who is Greenspector?

Greenspector is a French company created in 2010, specializing in the efficiency and energy-resource
performance of digital services. Greenspector works with its own solution and metrics to measure andanalyze energy consumption, the quantity of data exchanged on the network and other metrics (CPU, RAM,
time to response) on real devices thanks to probes. With these measurement solution and a carbon impact
projection model, the company is able to estimate very precisely the carbon impact of the new Atos brandingredients.

What will you ﬁnd in

In this report you will ﬁnd the measurements that Greenspector has made for our new brandingredients. The report includes energy and carbon impact projections and a summary with key ﬁndings
and recommendations. We identiﬁed the conditions of tests for each measurement.
In some cases they were varied (e.g. screen luminosity).

the following pages?

Greenspector’s method

Test
proceedings

Methodology applied

1. Measure of a reference value that will serve

We consider the following metrics: energy

to each ingredientfor comparison of energy consumption for the otherconsumption, time to response on loading steps,

measured steps. This reference value is made withdata exchanged on network, CPU use and RAM.

a clean Chrome instance opened on a new tabwith no loaded content (empty tab).
2. Measure of the page load until the page at themeasured URL is considered loaded by the browser.
3. Measure of the screen consumption of the page17

evaluated with a 30 sec. measure once every load
is ﬁnished (also called PAUSE foreground).

Greenspector’s method

Comparisonof energy impact

To understandEnergy consumption for the page load is the total

Battery discharge speed for the screen consumption.

the energy evolution

consumption of the smartphone’s battery during

To compare the diﬀerences between the old and the newof each ingredient

the time needed for the page to be loaded. It takes into

interface and evaluate the screen consumption,

we consider theaccount the possible energy peaks during a page load

we measure the average speed of the discharge

following indicators

due to energy consuming tasks (network exchanges,of the smartphone battery over 30 seconds.

animations, CPU calculations) and page load duration(long tasks running, delay.) which also add to the energy
consumption.
18

Greenspector’s method

Comparisonof energy impact

The unit used for energy

There is a link between both metrics: the battery

For each measure analysis, as the energy consumption

consumption is the mAhdischarge speed is the derived value of the energy

may vary a bit between measure iterations, we will

while we use the μAh/s

consumption in a given time. For example if the energy

provide you the diﬀerent statistics of these measures:for the battery discharge

discharge speed is 100μAh/s, it means that in 1 minute

minimum, maximum, median and average values.

speed

the energy consumption applied on the smartphone’s
battery will be 6mAh (100μAh/s x 60 seconds =The average value will be the value used

6000μAh). Most of the smartphones on the market

for comparison.

have a 3000mAh battery capacity.
19Greenspector’s method

Measureof network
exchanges

The unit used for data

To evaluate the network exchanges, we measure

In our particular case, we don’t have any script that delay

exchange comparison

the total amount of data exchanged on the link HTTP

network exchanges after the webpage is loaded or thatis the kB (kilo Byte).

layer for the monitored Android package. In our casetriggers periodical communications after

the monitored package is Chrome.

the page is loaded. Therefore, we will only analyze
the network exchanges for the page load.

20

04

Dark mode

Some terminology before we go into detail on dark mode
OLED stands for ‘Organic Light Emitting Diode’. The OLED display contains a LED which
is made out of an organic material that emits light when the current is passed through it.
It is used to display vibrant colors. The OLED is much smaller, ﬂexible and relatively thin
as compared to the traditional LEDs.
AMOLED stands for ‘Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode’. It is a type of OLED display
device technology. Since 2007, AMOLED technology has been used in mobile phones,
media players, TVs and digital cameras, and it has continued to make progress toward
low-power, low-cost, high resolution and large size applications.
LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display and reproduces colors quite diﬀerently
to OLED/AMOLED. Rather than using individual light emitting components, LCD displays rely
on a backlight as the sole light source.

Dark mode impact depends on a screen type

OLED/AMOLED screens use less energy on dark mode because the pixels are completely
turned oﬀ, unlike LCD screens where power is required to display both light and dark shadesof a pixel. The measurements below were made on an OLED screen.
To factor this diﬀerence into our examples, the dark mode savings are proportionate
to the amount of users that will be visiting the Atos website on an OLED screen.

Dark mode

Measurement
conditions

Screen rendering

Smartphone used: Samsung Galaxy S7on the Samsung S7 used

(AMOLED)for measurement

Screen luminosity: 50%
Network: WIFI with high speed connection
Iterations: 12 measures per page
To measure the impact of the dark mode weused the theme of the Atos website in the light24

and dark mode for the same HTML page
and we measured the consumption of both.

BeforeAfter

Light mode

Dark modeDark mode

Page load energy
consumption

MeasureWe observed a small energy saving

observations

for the page load probably due tothe decrease of energy consumptionof the screen for the page load periodof around 2 seconds.

25

Dark mode

Page load
network
exchanges

MeasureThe diﬀerence between light mode andobservations

dark mode for network exchanges is reallysmall (=4.76kb, a percentage decrease ofless than 1,5%) so there is a small – but it
cannot be said that it is signiﬁcant – energy
saving for the page load on dark mode.

26

Dark mode

Screenconsumption

MeasureMeasuring the energy consumption of the device

observationsfor 30 seconds once the page has been loaded
allowed us to observe an average energy savingof 27,58% by using dark mode over light mode..
This is with screen luminosity at 50%.
Depending on the type of screen (LCD or OLED)and the screen luminosity, we may not obtain27

the same energy reduction. For more information
about this subject, you can read here.

Dark mode

Screenconsumption
variationwith luminosity

MeasureWe have varied the screen luminosity

observationsof the Samsung S7 and measured
the energy impact of the theme dependingon this luminosity.
With the AMOLED screens the gainin terms of screen consumption energy
saving with a dark mode increases

28with the screen luminosity. In short, darkmode is more eco-eﬀective when
the screen is bright.

Dark mode

Making dark mode work

Accessibility
on dark mode

Our colors receive good scoreson accessibility guidelines (WCAG) whichmeans there is suﬃcient contrast on dark
mode.

29

Dark mode

Evaluationof the dark mode

Using a dark mode for the website won’t change

Also, we know that screen brightness has a direct

the network exchanges a lot but the energy

impact on energy consumption for all screens.

consumption on devices (smartphones, tablets,

Therefore adapting a device with better color contrast

computers) using AMOLED technology for screenscan allow users to reduce screen brightness withwill be reduced.

the same level of readability.

We have made previous studies on light mode versus
dark mode themes on smartphones and tablets
30

and we know that dark mode can provide between 40%
and 60% energy gain on AMOLED and with full screen
brightness.

05

Eco Illustrations

32

Eco Illustrations

Evaluation

MeasureThe vectorial (SVG) format should be more suitable

The evaluation on the previous page shows a decrease

observations

for these kind of graphic elements. As these illustrationsof the ﬁle size but as vectorial format requiresconsist of geometrical elements, SVG can signiﬁcantly

a diﬀerent rendering than raster format (JPEG, PNG),

reduce the data exchanged over the network

then there could be an additional energy consumption
on terminals at page load.

Switching to SVG brings a total size saving of 74.3% (for33

previous style) and 74.1% (using the new style). So using

An assumption can be made that the use of our new

this new illustration style combined with SVG format is

simpliﬁed illustrations in an SVG format will allow

really interesting in terms of reduction of data

signiﬁcant reduction in network exchanges.

exchanged on the network.

However, more measures need to be made to conﬁrm
this assumption.

06

Eco photo ﬁlters

Eco photo ﬁlters

Measurement
conditions

MeasureSmartphone used: Samsung Galaxy S7 Screen

observations

Luminosity: 50%
Network: WIFI with high speed
Connection Iterations: 12 measures per pageFor the photo ﬁlter we created a template witha panel of pictures fetched from current Atos
website, we applied the ﬁlters on one of the35

two pages and we measured the consumptionof both.

BeforeAfter

Without ﬁlter

With ﬁlter

Eco photo ﬁlters

Page load energy
consumption

MeasureWe observe a small energy saving for theobservations

page load probably due to the decreaseof the number of packets to download.

36

Eco photo ﬁlters

Page load
network
exchanges

MeasureAfter applying the ﬁlter, the amount of data

observations

exchanged over the network decreased byaround 120kB (~10%).

37

Eco photo ﬁlters

Screenconsumption

MeasureApplication of the eco ﬁlters has little eﬀect

observations

on energy discharge speed for the screen
consumption (=0.28%) and does notconclusively prove a signiﬁcant energy
saving for the screen consumption.

38

Eco photo ﬁlters

Evaluation of
Eco photo ﬁlters

The use of blue gradient ﬁlters can reduce image sizes
by allowing a deeper image compression.
This is more evident with compressed image formats
like jpg or webp. The result is a small reduction in pageloading and page network exchanges.

39

07

Eco logo

Eco logo

Measurement
conditions

MeasureSmartphone used: Samsung Galaxy S7 Screen

observations

Luminosity: 50%
Network: WIFI with high speed connection
Iterations: 12 measures per page
In order to measure the eco logo, we compared
the energy consumption of the full Atos logowith the small logo (Atos Globe) on the same HTML41

template page.”

BeforeAfter

Logotype

Logo Icon

Eco logo

Page load energy
consumption

MeasureWe observed a small energy saving

observations

for the page load which is probably due
to the small decrease of the numberof packets to download.

42

Eco logo

Page load
network
exchanges

MeasureOn the network exchanges, the new logo

observations

allows a data saving of 3,9kB,
which represents a 17,65% saving on
the measured page (~22kB).
For comparison, the current Atos Website
size is around 5MB.

43

Eco logo

Evaluationof Eco logo

The use of reduced dimensions logo on responsive- the reduction of the image dimensions allows us to savepages could have a positive impact with multiple

space on the screen for smartphones.

advantages:

Therefore, it leaves more space for other content
and limits the need to scroll to access content for users.

- reduction of image size limiting network exchanges.

A small gain of energy is associated with this ingredient

The gain is however low compared to some bigger

but it brings an improvement in accessibility.

visual elements. Here the gain could be around 50%
on a original resource of around 15kB.
44

08

Eco fontEco fontMeasurement
conditions

MeasureSmartphone used: Samsung Galaxy S7 Screen

observations

Luminosity: 50%
Network: WIFI with high speed connection
Iterations: 12 measures per pageFor the variable font we compared the fonts of the Atos
website with the variable and non-variable version for thesame HTML page and we measured the consumption of46

both. For the non-variable font we used StagSans withversions: Medium, Light, LightItalic and Semibold. For thevariable font we used Raleway Latin Italic and Regular.

BeforeAfter

Non-variable fonts

Variable fonts

Eco fontPage load energy
consumption

MeasureWe observed a small energy saving for theobservations

page load probably due to the decreaseof the number of packets to download.

47

Eco fontPage load
network
exchanges

MeasureThe use of variable font brings

observations

a signiﬁcant data saving of around 177kB
which represents a 58,69% savingin the measured page.

48

Eco font

Evaluationof Variable font

Using variable fonts can allow to limit the numberof fonts to be downloaded on user side. Therefore if we
use a variable font, we expect network exchanges toreduce.

Note: that all fonts are not loaded on user side but only
the ﬁrst compatible one for each font deﬁnition.
You can use these font descriptions:
49

Normal.
Italic.

Browsers supporting variable fonts, for example, shouldn’t
load the alternative traditional formats. Nowadays, wetend to use Web Open Font Format 2.0 (WOFF2) for
websites, as it’s a vectorial format that scales well todiﬀerent sizes. A ﬁrst optimization should be to use
WOFF2 format for the fonts for the 92% of users who can
support it.

09

Carbon impact projection

Carbon impact projection

Our approach

Methodology

Computing has an environmental footprint that is far

The use of a digital service in mobility (mobile apps, webfor environmental

from being neutral. In 2020, it accounted for 3-4% ofsites) contributes to the GGE impact on diﬀerent aspects.

footprint evaluationworld emissions and is increasing by 6% every year

Among these aspects we selected the following:according to the Shift Project. In our studies, we evaluate

The battery consumption on the terminal is an energy

the environmental footprint of digital services on the

consumption (impact at usage stage) ;following criteria: greenhouse gas emissions (GGE)

This battery consumption brings a wear and tear of

expressed as g eqCO2. We do not know enough about

the device involving its early renewal of a phone (impact

other indicators, like water consumption, to include them at manufacturing stage); The data exchanges on
51

here.

the network by the mobile apps through many devices
which consume energy (impact at usage stage).

Computation steps

1. The measures are made on a real device
with energy and data volume. We also add
hypotheses on the infrastructure
characteristics.

2. The measures and hypotheses help us
to evaluate the unit carbon impact for
terminals, networks and data centers.

3. And we can use this unit impact (impactof 1 page view for each brand ingredient)to project a global carbon footprint basedon the number of pages viewed per month,year etc.

Carbon impact projection

Projection
hypothesis
and example

Methodology for

Hypothesis applied on Greenspector model

environmental footprint

for the carbon impact projection:

evaluation• Terminal repartition: 100% on smartphones• Server type: simple• Repartition of users: 100% around the world• Repartition of servers: 100% around the world• Number of requests: for each measure,
we consider an average of 20 requests

53• Scenario: page load and display of the pageduring 20 seconds

Carbon impact projection

Carbon impact
projection of thebrand ingredients

MeasureFor this carbon impact projection, we haveobservations

highlighted the gains that are signiﬁcant.

54

10

Summary of key gains

One more thing before we summarise everything!
The savings presented are conservative. They do not account for Atos employees. We also
expect the reductions to improve: the world is moving to OLED screens and the rate ofadoption has been increasing year on year (more information here). Our assets have been
conceived for a future where OLED dominates. At the point that most brands notice this shift
and begin to adapt their identity, Atos’s identity will be settled and its aims understood insideand outside the company.

Contact
Global Brand Teambranding.atos@atos.net