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New Web Sustainability Guidelines Report

Graphic with text reading 'Introducing the Web Sustainability Guidelines'. Beneath the text are five graphic icons. Below those are text reading 'W3C Sustainable Web Design (SustyWeb) Community Group'.

We’re excited to share that a draft report of this group’s Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSGs) has been published. 

Inspired by W3C’s work on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the specification includes 93 guidelines with 232 success criteria, references, examples, and more. It represents nearly two years of work from about 50 volunteers across five different committees:

  1. UX Design
  2. Web Development
  3. Hosting & Infrastructure
  4. Product & Business Strategy
  5. Metrics

The guidelines reflect ESG principles outlined in the Sustainable Web Manifesto. They also align with GRI standards to help organizations more easily incorporate the impact of digital products and services into broader sustainability reporting initiatives. 

Review the WSGs

Here are the details:

Want to help us spread the word about the WSGs? Please consider sharing the links above with your networks, writing a blog post, or including them in presentations you give. 

To that end, we’re presenting a guidelines walkthrough followed by a Q&A session on Wednesday, September 13th at TPAC. See the full TPAC schedule for details.

Feedback and Next Steps

We welcome your participation and feedback. Please post any issues you might find to our GitHub repository. 

Also, this work has just begun. The report is a first draft. We’re still conducting monthly meetings about how best to improve and promote the guidelines. Everyone is welcome. Hope to see you at the next meeting on September 27th at 8am CT/3pm CEST.

Finally, and most importantly, a massive thank you to all who contributed. This is a monumental leap forward in advancing web sustainability. It wouldn’t have been possible without the help of those who volunteered their time and expertise. 

With gratitude,

Alexander Dawson & Tim Frick

Sustainable Web Design CG Co-Chairs

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