The W3C has announced that it has formed a new group called the Sustainable Web Interest Group to tackle improving the sustainability of the Internet.
According to the W3C, “if the Internet were a country it would be one of the top five polluters,” and its resource demands are only going to continue to grow each year.
The new group will publish Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) on how to design digital services in a way that puts people and the planet first, the W3C explained.
“Following these guidelines which utilize planetary, people, and prosperity (PPP) principles throughout the decision-making processes, you can minimize your environmental impact through a mixture of user-centered design, performant web development, renewable infrastructure, sustainable business strategy, and (with metrics) various combinations of those mentioned,” the WSG’s draft states.
According to the organization, these guidelines are based on evidence-based research and are aimed at a number of different groups, including end users, web workers, stakeholders, tool authors, educators, and policymakers.
The Web Sustainability Guidelines are also aligned with the Sustainable Web Manifesto, GRI Standards, and UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Beyond laying out best practices for design, the WSG will help organizations better incorporate digital products and services into general sustainability reporting, which will give a better understanding of how the Internet impacts overall emissions.
Additionally, the Sustainable Web Interest Group will work with different regulatory bodies to improve compliance targets. “The membership of the community group from which this IG grew has excellent relationships with many organizations that will enable open discussions,” the W3C said.
The group will be chaired by Tim Frick, president of Mightybytes; Ines Akrap, solutions engineer at Storyblok; and Mike Gifford, open standards & practices lead at CivicActions.
