Introducing the Web Sustainability Guidelines!
It's a very exciting time in the sustainable web community!
First, some quick facts:
The digital industry is now responsible for between 2-5% of global emissions. (Lancaster University)
If the Internet were a country it would be one of the top five polluters. (Greenpeace)
Website carbon calculators exist and account for a range of known issues, but they cannot consider every variable and won’t replace real-world testing.
So how can we make the web more sustainable?
Well, we've been trying, and we're not the only ones. This month a new draft W3C Community Group guideline on Sustainable Web Design became available. It offers a series of guides for creating a greener and more sustainable web, including best practices and recommendations for like minimizing data transfer, optimizing images, using green hosting, and more.
Over 50 people participated in the creation of W3C's guidelines, including web developers, designers, environmentalists, sustainability experts, academics, and business leaders. The new draft includes 93 guidelines and 232 success criteria in over 250+ pages! Don't worry, you can read the guidelines at-a-glance version.
What makes this draft especially exciting is that the guidelines align with existing international laws, are tied to sustainability standards, and are weighted by evidence to provide the most accurate advice possible.
Check out the new draft W3C Community Group guideline on Sustainable Web Design here and stay tuned for more updates!
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