Chatting about sustainable web on the W3C sustainable web list
I recently had the chance to talk about building a more sustainable web at JSConfEU, and one nice thing about the conf was that lots of useful people to speak to were in one place, but also I learned something about making it easier for larger orgs to get onboard in discussions. I'll share it here.
First, getting a platform to talk about Sustainable Web at JSConf
First of all, I'm really grateful to get a space to talk about this at a mid-size conf in my home city, and to actually have people turn up to it at the event.
Introducing the W3C Ethical Web principles
I had a 10 minute slot to talk about the OMG Climate unconferences, and greening the web in general, and it gave me a chance to highlight something that caught my eye in the recent W3C Ethical Web Principles:
The web must be an environmentally sustainable platform
The web, as a whole, is a big consumer of power. New web technologies should not make this situation worse. We will consider power consumption when we introduce new technologies to the web.
from the W3C Ethical Web Principles, by Daniel Appelquist and Hadley Beeman
Having principles like this from the W3C is useful , but what else was interesting was some advice I received, about making it possible for larger groups to get involved.
Making it easier to contribute and discuss sustainable web
I knew that the W3C has specific terms about contributing IP when declaring specs for browser makers to follow, but I hadn't really internalised that this largely applies for the community groups too, making it easier for groups to contribute, without going to legal departments all the time.
There's a sustainable web design community group, and I've posted the occasional message to it, but never really saw it as a more useful place than a slack group like climateAction.tech, or SustainableUX - this changes me opinion now.
I think in future, it makes sense to if not share thing there, syndicate posts or content there to make it easier for others to comment, and if nothing else, it builds a body of work, and evidence that's publicly accessible.