# Sustainability Audit of University Websites in Poland:
## 2 Background
### Related Work
#### 2.3.2 Website Sustainability Audit and Green SEO  
In general, an environmental audit is an assessment of an organisation's environmental impact. It identifies emission sources, analyses consumption of resources (water, energy, materials), evaluates legal and environmental compliance, and offers recommendations to control adverse environmental impact. An environmental audit provides organisations with insight into the scale of their environmental footprint, along with suggestions to mitigate it [36]. The website sustainability audit, also known under different names, such as website emissions audit or green website audit, plays a similar role in the digital domain. It analyses the website's impact on the natural environment. The primary objective of a website sustainability audit is to analyse factors that generate a carbon footprint and suggest practices to control it. The audit focuses equally on regulations and ethics. There are various motives for having one's website audited, ranging from compliance to CSR PR gains to a heartfelt need to mitigate adverse environmental impact [37]. Moreover, institutions that engage in website sustainability audits are often driven by a growing public pressure to deploy environmentally friendly solutions and align their organisations to the sustainable development policy [17]. As the analytical toolbox expands and the public awareness of the influence of digital technologies on the environment grows, specialised website sustainability audits emerge that focus on specific aspects of website functioning. One of them is Green SEO. It combines traditional search engine optimisation and sustainability goals. The concept of \"Green SEO\" remains unclear and underdiscussed in the literature. Although it is rarely seen in academic publications, its presence in popular science and the press, sectoral blogs, marketing texts, and copies from SEO agencies is undeniable. Green SEO concerns primarily ecological practices in website design and optimisation to reduce resource intensity and carbon footprint. As the public becomes increasingly interested in sustainable development and the environmental aspects of the Internet, Green SEO is mentioned more frequently alongside concepts such as sustainable web design and eco-friendly websites. As a result, new tools have emerged recently to empirically evaluate Green SEO attributes, like the environmental impact of websites. Some of the tools are Ecograder, Website Carbon Calculator, Digital Beacon, Kastor, and the Green Web Foundation Checker [38]. The literature on the subject exhibits a growing interest in website optimisation and the influence of digital technologies on the natural environment [38]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [39] demonstrated that sustainable website design practices are being employed more often at the design stage, reducing energy consumption. On the other hand, [PERSON] and colleagues [40] revealed that a low level of awareness and incomplete deployment of sustainable design by web developers continue to limit the spread of Green SEO practices. [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] [41] investigated stakeholder attitudes and behaviours in the context of digital environmental responsibility and found declarations and practices to diverge (Table 1). [PERSON] and [PERSON] [42] emphasised the significant role of end users in shaping sustainable ICT use patterns and the need for monitoring their behavioural dynamics. In a broader view, [PERSON] et al. [43], along with [PERSON] et al. [44], presenteddigital transition as having the potential to both curb and aggravate environmental impact. [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] [45] proposed to systematise approaches to sustainable software design and maintenance, pointing out the need for tools to optimise digital resources as early as the coding and interface design stages. Technically, a Green SEO audit is the assessment of a website's environmental impact, specifically focusing on carbon (CO\({}_{2}\)) emissions resulting from its use. The primary goal of