Series: Exploring the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG), Part 1 🌱

Welcome to the first post in a multi-part series on the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG). In this series, I aim to highlight the significant work being done to develop these guidelines and underscore their relevance in reducing the environmental impact of the internet 🌍. Additionally, I’ll provide insights to help developers, designers, and digital creators better understand the WSG and how to apply them in practice to create more sustainable digital products 💻.

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The web plays a crucial role in modern life, but it also has a significant environmental impact. One estimate suggests that data centers, networks, and the devices we use — like smartphones and computers — account for around 3.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with this figure expected to increase. In comparison, the aviation industry is responsible for about 2.1% of global emissions (IEA, The Shift Project). To address this, the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) were developed by the Sustainable Web Design Community Group to help developers, designers, and digital creators minimize their environmental footprint.

These guidelines are based on three foundational principles: Planet, People, and Prosperity (PPP). By integrating these principles into user-centered design, performant development, and renewable infrastructure choices, the guidelines offer a starting point for reducing the carbon footprint of digital products​.

What Are the Web Sustainability Guidelines?

The WSG 1.0 provides a broad range of recommendations for reducing the environmental impact of websites and digital services. These guidelines are structured into four key areas:

1. User Experience Design

2. Web Development

3. Hosting, Infrastructure, and Systems

4. Business Strategy and Product Management

Each area offers a mix of principles, guidelines, success criteria, and advisory techniques, allowing developers and organizations to make informed, sustainable decisions throughout the lifecycle of a project​.

Key Aspects of the WSG:

User Experience Design: The WSG encourages a lightweight experience by default, minimizing unnecessary assets such as large images and complex animations. This not only improves performance but also reduces the energy needed to load web pages​.

Web Development: Sustainable development practices focus on code efficiency, such as minifying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and removing code that blocks rendering. The guidelines also recommend adopting a mobile-first layout, which can lead to lower energy consumption.

Hosting and Infrastructure: The WSG recommends selecting sustainable hosting providers and compressing files to reduce data transfer, as well as using asynchronous processes to lower the server load.

The Web Sustainability Guidelines are critical because they provide a roadmap for reducing the digital industry’s environmental footprint. The guidelines are designed to make sustainability measurable, and include a unique impact and effort rating system:

Low, Medium, High Impact: Guidelines are rated based on their potential environmental benefits.

Low, Medium, High Effort: They are also rated based on how much effort is required to implement them, allowing developers to prioritize changes​.

How to Get Started with the WSG:

The WSG encourages a methodical approach to adopting sustainable practices. Rather than trying to implement all guidelines at once, users should prioritize based on their skill set and project needs. Sustainable change is measured through progress over perfection: incremental improvements that contribute to long-term sustainability goals​.

By following these guidelines laid out for us by the WSG, developers, designers, and businesses can make informed, eco-friendly decisions throughout the entire product lifecycle. In my next post, I’ll explore the User Experience Design section in depth and discuss how to create a lightweight, user-centered, and sustainable web experience.