Participate / where to discuss more: WSG Issue tracker / Impact Ratings issue tracker / Sustainable Web Interest Group / #sustainability channel on W3C Slack
The digital industry has a significant sustainability impact, which affects people worldwide:
- responsible for between 2-5% of global emissions [ICT-IMPACT] [EUC] [8BT] [UN] [WB], more than those of the aviation industry.
- since the Paris Agreement, average web page sizes have increased by over 100% on desktop and 180% on mobile [PAGE-WEIGHT].
- between 2015 and 2021, internet users increased by 60%, whilst internet traffic increased by 440% [DATA].
There is plenty of opportunity to reduce that impact, and many organizations want to do so. Reasons include cost-saving, legal compliance and corporate responsibility.
Hands-on advice on how to make digital products and services more sustainable is not currently available in a systematic, widely reviewed, openly developed, and standardized format.
Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) help design and implement digital products and services that are more sustainable.
WSG are designed to put people and planet first. They are best practices based on measurable, evidence-based research. They are also cross-referenced with other industry best practices such as the General Policy Framework for the Ecodesign of Digital Services and GR491.
The guidelines can be used by individuals and organizations to improve products, and to show progress in their road to becoming more sustainable (the aim is "progress over perfection").
| Audience | They can use WSG to… |
|---|---|
| People making digital products and services (including web developers, user experience designers, infrastructure and system engineers, business strategists, product managers) | …make their products and services more sustainable. |
| Organizations responsible for digital products and services, sustainability program leaders | …track their progress in improving sustainability. |
| Authoring Tools and User Agents | …build tooling that helps improve sustainability into their products. |
| Regulators and policy makers | …have a standardized way to understand what improving sustainability looks like. |
n/a
For content organization, currently by discipline, we previously considered organising by what's tested (website, system, tool), and by principle, like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines’ POUR principles. We decided against those, as we considered a filtering system to be the best way for people to find what they want.
Where applicable, accessibility, internationalization, privacy, and security have been considered throughout the development of Web Sustainability Guidelines. A list of guidelines to these areas is available.