W3C Sustainable Web Interest Group

Welcome to the repository for the W3C Sustainable Web Interest Group.

Mission

Digital Sustainability is an evolving field that is complex and undergoing significant change due to technological advances such as Artificial Intelligence and legislative shifts. The complexity of these rapid changes increases the need and urgency to provide guidance for those expected to meet climate-related goals and targets.

The mission of the W3C Sustainable Web Interest Group is to improve digital sustainability so that the Web works better for all people and the planet.

We do this through advancing the development of the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG), its supplementary materials, and advocacy work (in digital sustainability) to educate and advise on any implementations of our work and its importance in the context of their organizations.

History

Formed in 2013, the Sustainable Web Design Community Group brought together like-minded individuals from various backgrounds with a passion for sustainability. While it originally served as a method of sharing useful resources on digital sustainability, the need to do more for both people and the planet urged the group to start regular Zoom meetings, and a plan was formed.

Organizing into five committees (based on the four categories noted in the WSGs and a team focused on metrics), the community group spent three years carefully writing and cultivating the Web Sustainability Guidelines into its current Draft Report.

As a W3C Interest group we continue the work of this Community Group, further improving upon the hard work that has been achieved over this period.

Participate

Frequently Asked Questions

What work is the Interest Group producing?

We are currently creating a set of international guidelines that aim to advocate advisory best practices around digital sustainability. With coverage around user-experience design, Web development, development operations, and business/product strategy; the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) aims to prioritize people and the planet in the product creation cycle.

Using evidence-based methodologies, this set of guidelines will enable implementers to reduce their digital carbon footprint and practice sustainable design and development, meeting regulatory compliance targets as well as industry best practices.

Who should participate in this group?

The Sustainable Web Interest Group encourages active participation from a diverse community. You should consider participating in this Interest Group, in particular, if you are in one of the following communities:

Vendors of Web browsers seeking to improve the sustainability of the browsing experience.

Organizations and agencies that focus on marketing, web design / development, devops, and related digital services.

Individuals or organizations with a background or interest in promoting and / or implementing digital sustainability.

Sustainability-specific organizations, especially those looking to improve reporting and practices or those that serve our industry.

Software vendors or open source projects developing digital sustainability solutions utilizing the WSGs.

Government organizations seeking to standardize or develop policies around digital sustainability.

Academic researchers or scientists with an interest in digital sustainability and eco-design.

Industry association or standards body representatives.

How can I join the group as an official participant?

If you are affiliated with a W3C member organization, consider joining our Interest Group (you will require a W3C account to participate).

If you do not work for a W3C Member organization, please first consider whether your employer can join W3C and get the benefits of Membership.

If that is not an option and you think that you have the expertise and availability to participate, please check our Invited Expert Policy for becoming a member of our Interest Group.

Methods

If you wish to contribute, the below methods are how our group facilitates the delivery of our activities.

GitHub

This Interest Group primarily conducts its technical work through GitHub. We welcome contributions through issue-raising and pull requests on our publicly available repositories for both our Interest Group and the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG).

Issue Tracker (Interest Group / WSG)

Feedback

We welcome individuals who are unaffiliated with our group to provide feedback on our work through whatever means they feel will help encourage the improvement of our work or early adoption.

Examples of this may include:

Providing feedback and commentary through articles or blog posts.
Showcasing implementations, test cases, and early adoption of our work.
Speaking about or presenting materials that will educate and inform.
Creating tooling to enable implementations of the WSGs.

Meetings

Typically, participation in Face-to-face meetings and telephone conferences relating to the Interest Group is open just to W3C Members and Invited Experts. IG members can get details of meetings taking place through this calendar and by examining our meeting agenda, also available in Google Docs.

We use Zoom for meetings, and some people may use video. We also record meetings for those unable to attend. Please consider this if choosing to participate in our events.

Slack

We coordinate regularly over Slack. We have regular discussions in the #sustainability channel with other members who have an interest in the topic of digital sustainability. You can join the Slack community through this invite.

Note: If you have any questions regarding the Interest Group, feel free to DM a chair or editor and we will get back to you. We're friendly people, honest!

Mailing List

To keep up-to-date with our activity, make sure you're signed up to our public mailing list (as this is where major announcements get posted).

Events

Our Interest Group may on occasion choose to run workshops to help organizations, groups, and individuals better understand how to meet the targets laid out in the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG). In addition, as part of our outreach efforts participants may choose to speak at or attend various events to spread the word about or gain industry feedback on our work.

Participants

The co-chairs of the Sustainable Web Interest Group are:

Ines Akrap (Storyblok)
Tim Frick (Mightybytes)
Mike Gifford (CivicActions)

The editor of the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) is:

Alexander Dawson (Invited Expert)

The W3C Team Contact for the group is:

Tzviya Siegman (W3C)

See also the list of participants involved in the Interest Group.

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