Designing and developing a Drupal site while limiting its environmental impact requires a rigorous and cross-functional approach across all functional and technical layers of the project.

Drupal is a very flexible CMS, which can be risky if you're not careful. The fundamental principle is to use Drupal's power to implement a minimalist approach .

Strategy and functional sobriety

Eco-design begins well before the first line of code. It is rooted in functional simplicity: each feature must be justified by a real and measured user need , and not by a technological trend or an unverified "good idea".

The principle is to systematically question the usefulness: "Is this feature essential to the user's main task?"

In the Drupal ecosystem, the temptation is great. There's a contrib module for almost everything. Functional restraint means resisting the urge to activate a module "just in case" or because it "looks modern".

Features to challenge (high power consumption, low added value)

Here are some common examples of features that put a heavy strain on performance (CPU load, bandwidth, client-side JS) for a user benefit that is often minimal, or even nonexistent: carousels, autoplaying videos, mega-menus, etc.

Design (UX/UI) and content

The way the service is designed in UX/UI design has a major impact: choice of fonts and how to configure them, media content and especially image optimization, number of list items, streamlining of styles…

Technical development and configuration (backend/frontend)

This is where fine-tuning Drupal's configuration makes all the difference. For the backend, prioritize a custom theme based on the D11 starter kit, avoid large CSS frameworks and optimize the use of stylesheets, and use modern JavaScript without a framework.

On the backend, configuration elements contribute to the optimization of CSS and JS files. Enable and optimize caching functions. Consider Drupal's cache tag system, which is much smarter than a complete cache clear.

Hosting and maintenance

Infrastructure is also a key area of focus for limiting impacts. Prioritize committed and ISO-certified hosting providers; implement and optimize a Varnish cache (important to avoid replaying PHP calls or SQL queries); and use a CDN.

Conclusion

We support our clients throughout the entire production chain, from the audit, design, and development phases to our finOps/GreenOps approach. We also train content contributors to continue their efforts to reduce the environmental impact of published content. Furthermore, we offer an optimized web application architecture using our Sobki installation profile , which reduces implementation costs.