Less JavaScript = Cooler Computers

Plain old HTML and CSS continue to evolve, making JS redundant in a lot of cases. This brings a host of benefits, but focusing on heat: reducing JS means the browser doesn’t have to work as hard to render the page. Which means your computer will use fewer watts (probably).

Also, reducing library dependencies means fewer kB per website, so less energy is used on the network.

Not to mention there’s less chance of JS-fueled China Syndrome.

The low-JS approach lines up with the Web Sustainability Guidelines, even though there isn’t an explicit “use CSS instead of JS where possible” criterion (3.14 Use the most efficient solution for your service is close).

• Common JS patterns that can be replaced with HTML or CSS and no/little JS: Aaron Grogg’s No/Lo JS. Aaron talks about no/loJS at Performance Observer.

• How much time would this CSS-only content filter have saved me back when I was working on eCommerce sites?

• CSS does functions now btw.

• Josh Comeau on CSS vs JS animation performance (“it’s complicated”).

Cool your house with cheap shade

During the last heatwave I was inspired to try some of The Guardian’s cooling tips (From yoghurt to luxury sails: how to shade your home from supercharged UK heatwaves). In short: add shade to the outside of the house, especially over windows. You might prevent 4+ degrees of heating in your home.

🪟Window blinds and curtains are of limited use, as the heat is already in the house.

Methods range in cost and difficulty from nailing up cardboard to installing automatic shutters. Tom Greenhill’s Heatwave Toolkit has a handy breakdown of the cost/benefits of different methods.

Since we rent (and I’m lazy) I tried some of the cheapest and least-destructive options: yogurt, tinfoil, and cardboard. I was going to do this as an experiment, shielding some rooms but not others, but this was vetoed by my sweltering family. So I just threw everything at the window to see what would stick - literally.

Tinfoil

🦺The foil goes on the OUTSIDE of the window. Otherwise they may break from heat.

• Pretty great until it tries to flap off. Having clean edges helps prevent this.

• A squeegee is a huge help here.

• Try to get foil that is the same width as your windows.

• £1.30 of foil covered a lot of windows. It’s reusable, sort of.

• Measure and cut it properly - I didn’t, and it looked like crap.

• Tinfoil will stay up on it’s own if you spray the window with a little water first, but…

• …it left a nasty residue that wouldn’t shift, possibly because my myster had a residual water-vinegar mix. Fortunately the application of induction hob cleaner and elbow-grease solved the problem (thanks Reddit).

• Taping the foil up might be a better option, if you use the right tape (see Cardboard, below).

• …how much tinfoil would we need to pause global warming - by wrapping some mountains in foil and bouncing the IR back into space? (Similar idea, but space mirrors).

Yogurt

Yeah, yogurt. One tablespoon of yogurt was more than enough for one window and it went on easily with a wee paint roller.

• Not nearly as effective as adding actual shade, but might save you a degree or two and it’s super-quick to do.

• Washed off easily after 3 days.

• Didn’t smell (probably - it was outside, my nose wasn’t).

• Didn’t seem to attract insects.

• Ashamed of your yogurty house? Tell people it’s Greenhouse Shading (same idea).

• Apparently oat yogurt will work fine (not tested).

• I’m sticking with the US spelling, “yoghurt” looks wrong

Cardboard

Cut it out, tape it up.

• Cut it out neatly (I didn’t). Rough edges make it look sketchy AF, and increases the chances of it blowing away due to increased aerodynamic drag.

• Don’t use the wrong kind of tape. I did, and it left a hard-to-shift residue on the window-frame.

• Unfortunately we didn’t start a trend in our village, and now have a reputation.

• Basically, do a better job than me and it will probably work out great.

That’s it for house-cooling tips for now, but expect more of this in future as I refine my methods for each heatwave.

Cooling your PC

Are you cooking yourself as you work? Standard internal CPU temperatures regularly idle between 60°C and 80°C, which results in hot air getting blasted out the back of your PC.

To see how this plays out in the home office, I hooked up my energy meter to my over-specced desktop PC to track its consumption under different workloads.

While multitasking it pulled a steady 110W (not good). That means it is radiating >300 BTU/hr of heat into the room. Add in human body heat (another 350 BTU/hr) and a well-insulated home office can heat up by a couple of degrees Celsius in an hour (although this will plateau because of physics, apparently you won’t get an additional 2 degrees every hour).

🍏 Mac Users: macOS an energy meter built in to Activity Monitor under the Energy tab.

What can you do:

• Go laptop: If you have the option switch to a modern laptop. Laptops often pull closer to 10W to 15W - one tenth of the PC.

• Turn off Zoom camera: This saved me 10w/h, even running in the background.

• You are the heat: Your office has a high thermal load (you + your hardware), so heats up faster than the rest of the house. Use a fan to blow the hot air out of your workspace, or set up a clear cross-breeze.

• Do all your gaming in winter: If your GPU gets involved, prepare to get cooked: trying Satisfactory on medium settings tripled my electricity use. Sidenote: thanks to Steam’s history view, I can see I’ve played 100hrs of Satisfactory at 300w/h, equal to 108m joules or burning a gallon of petrol.

• Tweak your power settings for sleep, screen off.

Other observations:

• Closing unused tabs and apps didn’t make much impact.

• Opening Figma caused a 100w spike, but it returned to baseline after 20 seconds. Using Figma didn’t seem to use extra watts.

• I didn’t do any testing with onboard AI, but I assume it’s power-hungry.

Use your laptop to cool your house

Links

hotcarbon.org (h/t Chris Adams)

HotCarbon aims to bring together researchers and practitioners in computer and networked systems to engage in a lively discussion around sustainability throughout the entire computing lifecycle, focusing on both the operational and embodied impact of computer systems.

Skews heavily academic, but intriguing stuff - “Dirty Bits in Low-Earth Orbit: The Carbon Footprint of Launching Computers”, for one.

Computing within limits (h/t Chris again, how does he keep up with all this)

Another academic conference with lots of intriguing titles: “Modest, artistic, and radical solutions to the environmental impact of image-generating machine learning”, which features an ethical imagegen running on a Raspberry PI. See also: AIxDesign.co.

Small File Media Festival

…invites makers to create videos that stream at no more than 1.44 MB/minute…

Wonderful glitchcore stuff. A trailer.

Enough

It’s too hot to keep working on this newsletter. Stay frosty out there, ttfn.

• UK gov doing cool things with digital sustainability (GDSA)

• Fight through AI fatigue - 3 punchy articles

• Other, mostly relevant, stuff.

What’s going on at … the Government Digital Sustainability Alliance (GDSA)

The GDSA recently had a summit - some highlights from the coverage:

Procurement is a powerful lever. Government spends around £14 billion on ICT each year, and how we buy shapes what industry supplies. Defra is already leading by example as the first government department to adopt refurbished devices as default.

We need to look beyond carbon. Water consumption, critical minerals, land use and social risks throughout supply chains all demand attention. Servers contain 23 raw minerals that are difficult to recover, and we are mining at an unprecedented rate.

Digital inclusion matters. 1.6 million people in the UK live offline. There are 800 million unused devices in the UK. Sustainable technology procurement has a real role to play in closing the digital divide and creating social value.

There’s so much good stuff on the GDSA website. For now, I’ve been geeking out on water policy:

GDSA Report: Water use in AI and Data Centres

… AI is predicted to lead to an increase in global water usage from 1.1bn to 6.6bn cubic metres by 2027. This is equivalent to more than half of the UK’s total water usage.

Data centers are now classified as Critical National Infrastructure in the UK. One negative implication of this is that the water authority cannot cut off data centers in the event of a water shortage.

AI pushback

The following articles aren’t anti-AI per se, but between them they do paint a picture of how many companies are getting it not quite right.

UX works through social relationships. AI tools are erasing them [product picnic]

…what’s left of the design process is now in tatters. We already talked about the “brain fry” associated with checking an endless stream of AI outputs in a prior issue. But when design is the designated janitor, all that brain fry becomes concentrated in ourselves; the pain of using AI tools is invisibly displaced onto people told that they should be happy to still have a job.

The LLMs might be able you help you with production work. But skipping straight to the production work, because that’s where the magical tools live, is doing yourself a disservice.

A beef with Claude [Crown and Reach]

How the product folk at Claude are gaslighting the entire UX industry.

On a related note, Anthropic’s drawing of product, design, engineering as sequential vs overlapping with the claim that “now with AI, it can all collapse” also struck us as bananas:

A.I. Isn’t People [today in tabs]

…what possible reason could there be for comparing the unknown depths of the human psyche with the workings of an algorithm that can be expressed in 200 lines of Python?

Can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em: Claude for Designers

Greener 3rd party services

Decarbonising your websites means investigating the tacked-on 3rd party services modern sites rely on, like AI and analytics. A couple of newish companies caught my eye:

GreenAI

greenai.cloud - not to be confused with greenai.services, green.ai or the greenai.institute. Their key claim: “…Green AI Cloud reduces 33,3 gram of CO₂ per kilowatt-hour (kWh)”. I haven’t unpicked this yet but here’s a helpful white paper.

Green analytics - Cabin

Describes itself as “The most ethical privacy-first analytics alternative for conscious companies”. It has a built-in web carbon tool that calls out the most carbon-intensive assets on your site.

Assorted links

Pasting them here so I can finally close their tabs.

Decarbonizing the media, broadcast, and streaming industry [BBC White Paper]

Published March 2026. One thing I learned - the footprint of TV production is something like 22.7 tCO2e (per hour of Drama content).

Exit Interview: 20 Years of Tech, One Very Big Bet, and a Lot of Heat Pumps

On replay at the Rosenverse: Sarah Conklin walked away from her senior UX career and became Customer Operations Manager at a California-based heat pump installation company.

Greenhushing - Are Companies Actually Scaling Back Their Climate Commitments? [HBR]

Seems like many companies are quietly getting on with climate, or even extending their commitments. But even so, being quiet is a problem:

…the visibility of retrenchment headlines and collapse of coalitions create a false signal for the market. For executives already weighing political and reputational risk, it can look like the tide is turning away from climate action.

Climate Designers infodump on Circular Economics

Successful circular interventions rely not only on careful design, but systemic and behavioral interventions to ensure the intended outcomes are achieved.

How to grow strawberries

Spicy career advice from Mike Monterio.

Environmental (in)considerations in the Design of Smartphone Settings

No, I didn’t read it. But it does have some promising-looking graphs.

Lastly, something delightful: Webcurios

Newsletter with hundreds of carefully-selected interesting links that harken back to the golden age of the web.

It’s impossible to pick a few favorites because the lists are so well curated to begin with. But from just one issue:

• The HTML review

• Shoot men into space

• Obsolete sounds

• How to Google in 2026

Major time-stealer this, but also (for me) a sense of optimism - people are still coming up with new and interesting things on the internet.

Thanks for reading. Ciao for now.

But first, self promotion:

Witness me

I’m speaking at BookNet Canada Tech Forum on Feb 3rd (remote). Deets.

Small websites: an appreciation

In the beginning there was the WWW Project homepage, and it was small, at 4 kilobytes. Fast-forward 35 years and the average web page weighs 2903kB (HTTPArchive).

In the web’s golden age there were some valiant attempts to stop the bloat - see the 10kb webpage competition by A List Apart (2007) and The 5k award (2001-2005).

There are plenty of people still practicing the craft of light-weight web design today; you can find directories of them collected by 215kB.club, 512kB.club, mdibaiee, and others.

Some every-day useful lightweights sites

Search: Wiby.me, 9kB, and DuckDuckGo Lite. Also see below for tips on making Google Search slimmer.

Weather: wttr.in. 11 times smaller than weather.com (6.8MB).

Wikipedia is already optimized with a typical page weight of 632kB.

Website carbon calculator.

News: Text-only NPR and CNN Lite.

Social: Facebook Lite.

Video: Youtube Go disappeared in 2022. You can still Enable Data Saver Mode: In the YouTube app, navigate to Settings > Data Saving and toggle “Data saving mode”.

Lucky dip

Art in 10kB…Tic-tac-toe in under 3kB…Global Discovery Network…HTTP Status Codes…The no-js club…Rectangles…Web Performance Leaderboard…HTML.Earth (a lite site generator)…and of course This Is A Web Page (and it’s sweary friend).

Make Google Search light by default

A few months ago I shared the UDM=14 querystring trick for Google Search. Add UDM=14 to your querystring and Google will serve a stripped-down results page minus sponsored content, ads, content snippets, or AI summaries.

Applying UDM=14 could reduce the data overhead of search by as much as 2/3rds. And that’s just on the data transmitted; presumably there is less draw on the data-centers, too (no need to generate those AI article summaries).

Wouldn’t it be nice to bypass the normal result page and go straight to the cleaned-up version? Easy-peasy - make a bookmarklet or just modify your browser’s search settings.

Go to Settings -> Search Engine -> Manage Search Engines and Site Search (for Chrome or Firefox).

• Under “Site Search,” click Add.

• Shortcut: Give it a keyword like gw (Google Web).

• URL: Use this exact string:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&udm=14

• Make it the default.

What a savings

Using the UDM=14 trick strips about 3MB from the results page.

Let’s pretend everyone did this:

• There are 16.4 billion Google Searches a day.

• 3MB average savings (UDM=14 vs. a regular SERP).

• 16 Billion searches x 3MB = 492,000,000MB (492 petabytes); 14 exabytes monthly.

• Total internet traffic is 272EB monthly, so UDM=14 cuts internet traffic by 1/20th. Which saves [big number] of tons of CO2.

Admittedly my maths is riddled with dodgy assumptions, but it’s fun to dream. And you can always switch to Ecosia or DuckDuckGo.

Links of interest

All Tech is Human’s 2025 review & Climate Action Tech 2025 review.

A day in the carbon life of an LLM prompt [Green IO Paris 2025].

Nearly 7,000 of the world’s 8,808 data centers are built in the wrong climate - Tom’s Hardware.

CDP Review - Sustainability leadership is increasingly translating into financial outperformance, but only for a relatively small group of companies. Most progress: Japan.

Microsoft buys another 3 million tons of carbon removals, as part of a larger set of purchasing agreements.

eBay has a new transition plan for net zero by 2045. Here’s the plan (PDF). Sounds like they are already 100% renewable electricity for offices/datacenters. Lots of bullish predictions about diverting waste via “recommerce”.

The Year in Cheer (Reasons to be Cheerful).

What I’m up to

I’m still adjusting after our move back to the UK. Doing some consultancy and trying to figure out the UK UX scene after 15 years away.

• Listening: Moisturizer (Wet Leg)

• Reading: The Museum Accessibility Spectrum and The Future by Naomi Alderman

• Playing: Arc Raiders (job training for the post-apocalypse). Don’t shoot.

• Watching: I’m stuck half-way through ep 1 of Pluribus.

Get in touch

Reader mail lets me know I have readers - get in touch if you want to chat digital sustainability, or to share your favorite light websites, etc.

That’s it for this issue, thanks for reading.

“Good for the Planet, good for the wallet: how AI can heat our water”

During one of my favorite presentations from London’s GreenIO conference, Mark Buss (OVO) and Charlie Beharrell (Heata) presented a solution to data center heat management: move the heat to where it can do some good - domestic boilers.

Slides.

Consumer benefits:

• The heat from one AI data centre could provide hot water for >100,000 homes.

• Up to £340 / year from offsetting electricity.

• Each unit saves up to 750kg of CO2e / year.

Karmic downside: the boiler/server is a black box - the householder has no idea what the server is working on. You could be heating your home with AI slop climate disinformation memes, or worse.

BBC coverage. Same idea, but swimming pools. Trending towards The Machine Stops?

Accessibility overlays - a waste of data (probably)

Accessibility is my day job so this master’s thesis caught my eye - The Impact of Web Accessibility Overlays on the Usability and User Experience for People with Permanent Visual Impairments.

Top line result:

The research shows that accessibility overlays, in their current form, do not effectively improve the usability or UX for individuals with permanent visual impairments.

There’s a sustainability downside too - most overlays add a hefty chunk to page size. I found that one common overlay added at least 1.15MB to page size.

For a better approach, take a gander at the www.mightybytes.com site - it has a minimalist set of accessibility controls implemented holistically with their CSS, adding hardly any appreciable page weight.

Free web sustainability benchmark tool from James Chudley

Massive, useful, massively useful: the Digital Sustainability Resources Miro board.

“Determining the digital carbon footprint awareness of pre-service teachers “(Nature)

The study’s purpose was not to measure the teachers’ digital footprints, but rather to measure their awareness of the concept of the digital carbon footprint.

Concepts introduced:

• Digital Carbon Footprint Awareness Scale

• “Digital sobriety” (using digital tools wisely and moderately) into teacher education programs.

Results:

Participants had significantly higher awareness of the environmental impact of electronic device usage (the physical component) than they did of data transmission (the invisible component).

I’m uncomfortable with anything that makes the carbon footprint of digital the responsibility of the consumer. Especially since it will always rank fairly low in terms of carbon impact compared to food, travel, other consumption.

Giant AI infrastructure Map

Interesting job at HSBC

Product (Sustainability) Awareness Manager, Sheffield UK

Reporting to a Sustainability Practice Lead, the role will drive adoption of sustainability as a topic and product within Technology.

The Latest From Corporate

Facebook “Design for Sustainability: New Design Principles for Reducing IT Hardware Emissions”

Meanwhile.

The Amazon Wooden Warehouse

“…a living laboratory where Amazon plans to test more than 40 sustainability strategies that could reshape how the company builds its next 1,200 delivery stations worldwide…”

Meanwhile.

Newsletter / Podcast roundup

Curiously Green #66b looks at recent roll-backs in Google’s climate commitments.

GreenIO talks about the truth behind Big Tech’s carbon numbers.

AllTech has a lot of AI-related webinars coming up.

More, more, more

Update your understanding of Web Performance (Smashing); Patagonia releases a novel warts-and-all sustainability report; lots of recent talk about UX metrics - time to get sustainability on the score card as well.

EnergyAssessment.eco by Google - “lower omissions across your supply chain”; AI used to lower CO2 in Aluminum recycling; everyone hates data centers; renewables continue to surge; more “your streaming is killing the planet” noise.

Talk to me

Want to chat UX / sustainability / other? As an experiment, I’m opening my calendar for 30-min calls through the rest of the year. Book me here.

What it means for the newsletter: probably not much, except possibly a greater focus on UK/EU topics.

Green IO 23rd & 24th September

Yes, that’s today and tomorrow. I’ll be there tomorrow. I enjoyed speaking at the NYC event back in May, it’s a well-run event with good speakers. The NYC speakers did a great job of breaking down technical topics and I came away buzzing about data center optimization and GreenOps and whatnot.

Good things in small packages: Tiny Web Awards

Remember when the internet was a fun and creative place? When did that stop? Was it in 2004, when Facebook was founded? 2009, when Geocities (archive) went dark? Anyway, the Tiny Web Awards celebrates “the best of the small, poetic, creative, handmade web”.

“Tiny” doesn’t necessarily mean low-bandwidth in this context. For instance, one of my favorite 2025 entries, The Historical Tech Tree, has a (justifiable) page size of 2.5MB.

So here’s my prize-within-a-prize: The SustainableUX Award for Lightest Website in the Tiny Awards Finalist List goes to … 10,000 Drum Machines, at 151kb.

And special shout-out to one of 2023’s finalists, Solar Protocol. “..[a website ] hosted across a network of solar powered servers and is sent to you from whichever server is in the most sunshine.”

Rosenfeld’s growing collection of case studies on Climate UX

Rosenfeld Media has been doing sterling work showcasing climate design work. Check out this collection of case studies and interviews:

1. Tristin Oldani: Turning Awareness into Action at Intel (January, 2025): case study / interview recording*

2. James Chudley: Decarbonising User Journeys: How minimizing enables us to do more with less (February, 2025): article / interview recording*

3. Tim Frick: The journey of building a sustainable design practice (April, 2025): article / interview recording*

4. Chris Hammond: Embedding Sustainability in Design at IBM (April, 2025): article / interview recording*

5. Amy Parness: Scaling Sustainability: Complementary strategies that drive long-term success (May, 2025): article (forthcoming) / interview recording*

6. Sarah Conklin: A UXer’s 12-Month Journey from Climate Concern to Climate Credibility (June, 2025): article (forthcoming) / interview recording*

* To view a recording, you'll need a Free tier Rosenverse subscription.

Louis Rosenfeld added: “… if you know anyone who'd also be interested in presenting their own climate UX case study, please get them in touch with us.”

That’s all we have time for.

Got to go pack my backpack & make a playlist for my train trip to GreenIO tomorrow. If you are also going to be there, please say hi.

ps: I’m doing a bit of freelancing while looking for a new full time gig. So, uh, gimme a job?

I’m speaking at Green IO, NYC this week

Doing 25 mins on the Web Sustainability Guidelines, DOGE, and Sean Connery.

You can get a free ticket with my code: https://ticket.apidays.global/event/apidays-nyc-2025/207d2df0-83d4-4511-a6ae-3e1229e584b8/cart?coupon=IKNOWJAMESCHRISTIE

Conference website.

Declutter your Google search with udm=14

Add udm=14 to your search string, wave bye-bye to AI summaries, knowledge panels, and ads.

Let’s try it out and compare the number HTTP requests used.

AI summary on (default): 66 requests

With UDM=14 : 18 requests

“Best kitchen mixer” : 83 requests, tons of ads

UDM=14 version: 31 requests.

Verdict

Not a huge difference in overall bytes sent, but the number of requests is consistently half. Plus, it’s so much more usable. Try it yourself!

Most companies remain committed to sustainability and climate reporting

Via Green Digest

The report found that 85% of executives plan to continue disclosing GHG emissions, regardless of political changes, and 97% believe integrated sustainability and financial reporting provides a competitive advantage.

Design Whine Issue #16 with Tim Frick

Tim Frick on Web Sustainability and Building a Greener Digital World

Yale CCC update - Global Warming’s Six Americas, updated

Useful info on how to communicate with the very different Americas - Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful, and Dismissive.

Different audiences in the Six Americas have different knowledge needs. Alarmed and Concerned Americans are most interested in learning about solutions to climate change, and may be most responsive to messages asking them to get involved. The Cautious and Doubtful, in contrast, want to know more about the causes and evidence that climate change is happening, and may be most responsive to messaging that explains the scientific consensus around global warming.

Read the whole thing here.

Decarbonise user journeys

James Chudley has released this handy toolkit for UX strategists.

Deliver faster, simpler, and more effective user journeys that are better for people, prosperity, planet and performance.

Get the whole thing here.

Event: Design & Climate: Less is More

Friday, May 23 · 1:30 - 8pm GMT+1. Manchester UK.

Exploring how we can (and must) use less with more as we design solutions that are better for our people and planet.

Get tickets.

AI Corner

“Within Bounds: Limiting AI's environmental impact” (greenscreen.network)

Signed by over 130+ organizations. If you share our concerns and demands that AI systems be made compatible with our planetary boundaries, and are a civil society organization, can you can sign on here.

Sign on here.

“OpenAI’s Sora Is Plagued by Sexist, Racist, and Ableist Biases” (Wired).

The future looks homogeneous.

No AI on this website

Remember humanstxt.org? A template for a personal site AI statement.

(Via CuriouslyGreen)

Fill in this form to enter the draw for a ticket. I’ll give preference to people who are pretty certain they’ll be able to attend, and who aren’t traveling far.

My talk: “Escape from the forbidden zone”

It’s at 2.25pm on Thursday 15th. It’s about “being ethical and getting away with it”, which is something I used to talk about way back in the mists of time (early 2010s). The backdrop is our current political mess, and how using certain words or concepts can get your Federal funding cut.

Fortunately, there are myriad methods for applying forbidden concepts (like accessibility, inclusion or sustainability) to your work without tripping the alarm and getting you added to some sort of list.

It’ll be a fun time!

SustainableUX side event at GreenIO?

If we get a few SustainableUX readers at GreenIO, we could do some sort of get-together. Let me know on our LinkedIn Group page (or just send me an email).

Or just come say “hi” on the day.

Ciao for now,

James

It’s taken me 4 months to get through post-election Kübler-Ross. Except “acceptance” isn’t the right emotion. Grim determination? Something like that. Here’s a short guide to reclaiming some sanity through positive action:

1. Find your tribe

• Responsible Tech Community report (Alltechishuman) includes “curated list of over 100 orgs”.

• Another list of communities (ClimateAction.tech).

• The SustainableUX LinkedIn group…but it hasn’t achieved critical mass yet. Also on Bluesky.

• SUX has a Slack.

2. Tune in

Navigating Chaos Webinar Series (MightyBytes)

If you need to create a meaningful plan of action that drives impactful marketing or advocacy efforts throughout 2025, this series can help. Seasoned experts will share lessons learned from effectively balancing growth and impact during times of chaos.

The next talk is on Coalition- & Community-Building, March 11, 2025; 12:00 PM Central Time. Sign up.

Turning awareness into action with Climate UX (Tristin Oldani @ Rosenfeld)

Rosenfeld Climate UX series have shared their latest webinar, from Jan 16th this year. Also, Rosenfeld’s Climate UX Discussion Series is still recruiting speakers.

3. Volunteer

Volunteering improves mental health. It also helps pad your portfolio.

• Idealist. Tip: the search sucks so you need to dig a bit. For instance, a search for “design” had ~8 unrelated opportunities at the top of the results. Also, smaller non-profits often don’t know what they need - so try “website” as well as “user experience” or product.

• Volunteer Match is also worth a look. There are also UK postings.

• TechJobsForGood have a long list of volunteer-matching sites.

• Viz for Social good is great for UI/infographic enthusiasts.

• Help develop the Web Sustainability Guidelines - join the W3C interest group.

• What will happen to Volunteer.gov? Sounds like everything climate-related will be purged.

4. Find a climate job

• SustainableUX’s guide to climate job boards

• The Design4Good slack

5. Look after your mental health

• NRDC: “Time to talk about climate anxiety”

• Vox: “How to get through this”

• Dan Sinker: “Write it down.”

Links

Predicting the performance of climate change Facebook ads (Yale CCC)

Posts that evoked either a strongly positive or negative emotional response were shared more often than emotionally-neutral posts.

Google Bad: Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance (WaPo)

In 2018, the company introduced policies that excluded applying AI in ways “likely to cause overall harm.” Now that promise is gone.

Google Good: reducing the carbon intensity of AI systems

This google-sponsored paper establishes a new standardized way to measure the carbon intensity of AI. They also claims a x3 improvement in efficiency over the last 4 years.

AI-Generated Slop Is Already In Your Public Library

This Goodreads list gives you a flavor:

Andreessen Horowitz hires Daniel Penny (Bloomberg)

The investors behind everything from AirBnB to Slack make an interesting hiring choice.

Here Come Consequences: Sales of Tesla’s electric vehicles have fallen sharply across many of its key European markets

Tesla SwasticCar sales fell 63% in France; only 17% in the UK. Could we make it 100%? And profits have fallen 70%.

Edward Zitron: Never forgive them

A stronger take on enshittification.

These people want everything from you — to control every moment you spend working with them so that you may provide them with more ways to make money, even if doing so doesn’t involve you getting anything else in return. Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and a majority of tech platforms are at war with the user, and, in the absence of any kind of consistent standards or effective regulations, the entire tech ecosystem has followed suit. A kind of Coalition of the Willing of the worst players in hyper-growth tech capitalism.

Can’t get it out of my head

I keep thinking about - “The world at your fingertips, the ocean at your door”.
Shared by Today in Tabs - The "That Funny Feeling" Coup

This issue is about web footer badges (or “web trust marks”). Here’s an example:

How many of those icons do you recognise? How many can you define? You probably recognise the comforting “grumpy cyclops” B Corp logo. But Race to Zero? We Declare a Climate Emergency? What do they mean?

What’s the difference between Certified Climate Neutral and Climate Neutral Certified? Or Carbon Neutral and Net Zero? Does it matter?

I made this guide to educate myself on the topic. And many of my assumptions about these labels were wrong.

The four varieties of climate-related trust mark

I spent a rainy afternoon in December collecting trust marks from a mix of ethics-led design agencies and sustainable product companies, and split them into four buckets.

Certified / Auditied

Logos earned by being a paid member of a certification program. Includes B Corps and the various “carbon neutral” accreditations.

Paid membership schemes

Logos paid for by donation or subscription to a particular scheme, usually a non-profit. Includes 1% for the Planet.

Manifestos / Declarations

All you have to do is sign a declaration, pledge or manifesto. These aren’t audited.

Misc Neat Things

Other footer widgets that caught my eye.

Certified / audited

Certified B Corp

To get the Certified B Corp badge, you have to pay between $500 and $50,000, then pass a rigorous audit process that cover all aspects of your business - from governance to workforce policies. This means a company can get certified by being great in a few categories while scoring poorly elsewhere. In other words, a B Corp logo is not a guarentee of good climate policies.

• B Corps aren’t required to be carbon neutral, or even to measure emissions, or have a climate plan.

• Half of young Americans recognize the B Corp logo, and are “significantly likely” to be positively influenced.

• B Corp web agencies examples: MightyBytes (a Chicago Digital Agency), Torchbox UK.

• …Nespresso is also a B Corp.

  

B Corp Climate Scores

To see how a company measures up on climate, find them in the B Corp Directory and look at Impact Score > Environment > Air & Climate. Companies can earn between 7 and 15 Impact points (depending on their industry and other factors). I couldn’t find the complete scorecard, but “carry out a comprehensive GHG audit” is worth about 3.7 points.

Criticisms

Some companies may be using the standard as a form of greenwashing (“The B Corp standard is at risk”). The Nespresso example shows that you can adhere to the standard and while having a questionable overall impact.

ISO certified 14064

“[ISO] Standards define what great looks like, setting consistent benchmarks for businesses and consumers alike — ensuring reliability, building trust, and simplifying choices.”

The venerable ISO organization have helpfully tagged their standards against UN Sustainable Development Goals, including 14064, the standard for reporting GHG. This is earned by adopting carbon accounting practices and working with an accredited 3rd party to audit your gasses.

Certified Carbon.. Climate Neutral Certified…?

They sound alike but are not interchangable - they differ in how they measure CO2 and how they account for offsetting.

Compare against Scope 3

One rough & ready way to compare these labels is to look at how they account for Scope 3 Indirect emissions, such as employee travel and commuting. There are ~15 Scope 3 categories. Not all apply to all businesses, but it seems reasonable to say that the more categories included, the better.

CarbonNeutral: “Certified CarbonNeutral” badge

• Owned by climateimpact.com, a vendor of voluntary carbon credits.

• Clients: over 400, including Microsoft, Logitech, Yorkshire Tea.

• Scope 3 categories: 1/15. “Third party transport of solid goods to first customer”. Ref.

Climate Label: “Climate Neutral Certified” and “Climate Label Certified” badges

• Run by The Change Climate Project non-profit, founded by partners from Peak Design and BioLite. Charity Navigator rates them 85%.

• Clients: 290, including Peak Design, REI, Allbirds.

• Scope 3 categories: 8/15. Ref.

“ClimatePartner Certified Company”

• Munich based for-profit.

• 6000 clients. And a partnership with Volkswagen.

• Scope 3 categories: 9/15. Ref.

“Carbon Neutral” - Stripe Climate

I’ve ranted about Stripe Climate at length already.

Paid membership schemes (minimal auditing)

1% for the planet

• Started by Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard.

• Fees range from $500 to $50,000 (for $100m+ companies).

• Requirements: “Donate 1% of your annual sales directly to organizations in our environmental partners network.” 1% is the minimum - businesses can give more.

• Raised $691 million to date.

• Charity Navigator likes them (98% rating); so does Guidestar / Candid.

Mossy Earth Rewilding Membership

Their org statement. Transparency Dashboard.

Ecologi

UK based for-profit with a suite of climate-related services from impact funds to eCommerce-integrated offsetting. When you see the ecologi badge on an agency website, it probably refers to their employee climate action workforce offering.

Is it good value? Depends on how much they pay to plant a tree.

Ecologi has a nice & simple impact LookerStudio dashboard.

Creatives for Climate / Ethical Agency Alliance

A connection hub. Free and paid memberships. Funded by the EU. Linked to RaceToZero (UN).

Declarations & Manifestos

Voluntary self-declarations. No audit or compliance checks, no fees.

Sustainable Web Manifesto

Hosted by Wholegrain Digital. 4,266 signatories. Simply declare that you will uphold the manifesto principals - clean, efficient, open, honest, regenerative, resilient.

Design Declares (UK)

UK-based scheme. See also: a nice case study of web carbon reduction by MEK.

Clean Creatives pledge

“Our agency will decline any future contracts with fossil fuel companies, trade associations, or front groups.”

They host this handy list of fossil companies and fronts.

The Sustainable Creative Charter

Free. 250 members. Nice looking badge.

Misc Neat Things

ClimatePerks

…the employee benefits scheme which gives staff the opportunity to take extra days off work if they choose low-carbon travel rather than flying when they go on holiday.

A nifty idea and a great employee benefit.

Website carbon counters

Get yours: websitecarbon.com/badge/ . I love the 90’s internet vibe.

ClimateClock.world

Stray thoughts

• Do users notice trust marks? Maybe. People do look at footers, for instance to find contact details.

• Do users care about trust marks? I found spotty evidence - for instance, younger users recongise and respond positivly to a B Corp logo. And this from Nielsen: “…81% of global respondents felt strongly that companies should help improve the environment, and 73% said they would change their consumption habits to reduce their environmental impact.

Other newsletters to follow

Victor Lombardi’s Climate Design

Tom Greenwood’s Oxymoron

All Tech Is Human

Wholegrain Digital’s Curiously Green

Or go the other way, dress like literal trash. But, real classy-like.

Job skills - “all jobs are climate jobs”

Two new-ish resources for applying sustainability thinking in your job.

Climate Product Management Playbook

Receive 33 nature-positive best practices to enhance your product management skills and contribute to the fight against climate change and biodiversity crises.

Looks useful to roles other than PM, too. You have to give them an email to get the PDF. Here’s the TOC if you are wondering whether it is for you.

Drawdown Job Descriptions

Learned about this one at last month’s Rosenfeld climate conversation.

The Drawdown Labs Job Function Action Guides are practical and shareable resources that highlight specific, high-impact climate actions employees in common corporate professions can take at work.

The product design guide is here. If you regularly read this newsletter, you have probably seen links to more complete guides than this one. What I found useful is the glimpse you get into sustainability from other perspectives - from HR and Sales to Legal and Procuring. For instance, if you are in Legal, you should care about the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) - which I’d never heard of.

Jobs

Handprint.io - find ethical jobs

Handprint is a new kind of hiring platform with an orientation towards justice, opportunity, and genuine employee engagement.

Not a lot of roles posted atm, but the company list is interesting. I like how each company is labelled by their main impact goals (pegged to UN Development Goals, I think).

Reader projects

Got a project you want to share? Comment or send me a mail.

Solar Hosting by Scott.ee

Extremely nifty article on self-hosting with solar (distinct from solar.lowtechmagazine.com). Raspberry Pi, downloadable code, and an interesting digression on battery sustainability.

When we moved to Sweden two years ago, I quickly realised that full time solar hosting wouldn't be possible. During our first winter here, we didn't see the sun for over five weeks (it even made the news). In contrast, during summer we can get a good twenty hours of daylight. Although it's not always sunny and certainly not always strong enough to charge something.

[…]

This means I needed to design my system for resilience and have a plan for my solar host going offline. I needed some kind of monitoring and potentially a backup host. Worst case, I wanted to show a simple page explaining why my site is offline from time to time.

Articles

Concerned Citizens Seek Transparency About Data Centers In Virginia

Two factoids from the article:

• By 2029 Virginia will have 26,000 acres of data-centers

• Half of all renewable energy is used to power data centers (?!) - via Wired

From the wired article:

Solarpunk Meets Better Business: Reimagining a Sustainable Digital Future

ClimateVoices: Featuring Holly Alpine (VIA CAT)

"In this issue, I'm pleased to be interviewing Holly Alpine (née Beale), who founded, developed, and led the global Community Environmental Sustainability program for Microsoft's Datacenter Community Development team. Holly also co-founded and co-led Microsoft's Sustainability Connected Community (SCC), a group of 10,000+ employees leading positive environmental change at every level of the company."

Optimistic cli-fi bookclub

I’m working on a post about my favorite optimistic climate fiction. Here’s a preview of my list - let me know any I’ve missed that you recommend.

Earth, David Brin (1990)

A straight-up romp, highly recommended. First 7 chapters are free on Brin’s site.

The Ministry for the Future, KS Robinson (2020)

Really a long policy document with a light coating of fiction, but though-provoking and fun. And very optimistic. Basically, what if (as a society) we started doing everything right, right now? Plus a little bit of eco-terrorism.

"If there’s any book that hit me hard this year, it was Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, a sweeping epic about climate change and humanity’s efforts to try and turn the tide before it’s too late." ―Polygon (Best of the Year)

He has since walked back some of the pro-crypto stuff, fyi.

Termination Shock, Neal Stephenson (2023)

I’ve fallen out of love with Neal Stephenson since Reamde, and tbh I don’t like this book very much either. But his take on the geo-political implications of geoengineering is interesting. If I have to re-read it I’m skipping all the stuff about feral hogs and horny Dutch royals.

One man—visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D.—has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied?

• Climate Conversation Recap (Web Sustainability Guidelines Rosenfeld Media)

• Reader survey - UX best practices

• Live SustainableUX workshop - sign up

Last week I was a panelist on the latest Rosenfeld Climate Conversation, along with Ayaia Bodi from DrawDown and Marc O’Brian from Climate Designers. Most of this issue is a recap & extension of my short talk.

“You are probably already using most of the Web Sustainability Guidelines”

My slides.

The Web Sustainability Guidelines (previously, previouslier) details “how to design and implement digital products and services that put people and the planet first”. This is a big document: there are 93 guidelines, including 29 UX-specific guidelines. That might seem overwhelming.

The good news: you are likely already following many of the WSG UX guidelines - even if your team has never heard of the WSG. For instance, several of the guidelines are pretty close to parts of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Which begs the question, how often are UX teams able to follow best practice recommendations? Horror stories abound: businesses cutting accessibility as a “nice to have”, stressed-out product owners nixing research in order to hit arbitrary deadlines, or your company cutting research altogether.

To try and understand this, I asked the audience how often they are able to apply best practice. From there, we can get a sense of how many of the WSGs are commonly being met through business-as-usual design.

Results below, plus a chance to take the new & improved survey.

UX Recommended Practices Survey 2.0

This is a slightly improved streamlined version of the survey - feel free to forward it to other UX folk. I’ll link to the results in the next newsletter.

Preliminary survey results on best practices

• Accessibility: Do you / your team adhere to WCAG? 72% say yes, partly, or sometimes.

• Performance: Does your team optimize the front-end experience? Only 23% answered “no.”

• User and stakeholder research: Are teams generally able to carry out research? ~50% said yes (which isn’t awesome).

Bonus questions - what sustainability practices are you / your team already using?

• Applying sustainable design principles at work: 14% yes, 52% no.

• Green hosting: 23% yes, but most don’t know / unsure.

Comparing WSG guidelines to best practices

Accessibility: 5 matching UX guidelines (+6 from other sections of the WSG)

Caveat: WSG and WCAG guidelines can sound similar but may have important differences.

The WSG guidelines:

• 2.8 Ensure Navigation and Way-Finding Are Well-Structured. Compare to WCAG: 3.2.3, Consistent Navigation

• 2.9 Respect the Visitor's Attention: a close match to WCAG 2.2.4, Interruptions

• 2.10 Use Recognized Design Patterns

• 2.19 Provide Suitable Alternatives to Web Assets

• 2.21 Support Non-Graphic Ways To Interact With Content

• possibly others, like 2.6

WCAG also maps to WSG Section 3 - Web Development.

• 3.5 Ensure Your Solutions Are Accessible

• 3.8 Use HTML Elements Correctly

• 3.11 Validate Form Errors and External Input

• 3.12 Use Metadata Correctly

• 3.13 Adapt to User Preferences

• 3.14 Develop a Mobile-First Layout

…and maybe others.

Performance: 7 UX guidelines (+11 web and infrastructure)

I count 7 relevant UX guidelines, 4 in the Web Dev section, and 7 in the Infrastructure section.

“Don’t be an asshole”: 3

I didn’t ask the audience about the level of user-hostile design in their products, but lets assume most of us adhere to these principles most of the time:

• 2.9 Respect the Visitor's Attention

• 2.11 Avoid Manipulative Patterns

• 2.14 Write With Purpose, in an Accessible, Easy To Understand Format

• see also: much of Section 5, Business Strategy and Product Management

Research: 6

Including stakeholder interviews, up-front research, and formative usability.

It’s easier to count the guidelines you AREN’T following

If you are following a robust UX process, regardless of sustainability guidelines, you could be meeting 26 out of 29 UX guidelines in the WSG. The remainder:

• 2.1 Undertake Systemic Impacts Mapping

• 2.3 Research Non-Visitor's Needs

• 2.4 Consider Sustainability in Early Ideation

More on these three soon.

Looking at the whole of the WSG

The survey was focused on the UX section of the WSG, which accounts for 29 out of the 93 guidelines.

Looking at the entire list of 93 guidelines, I see maybe 60 that are accepted best practice outside of the sustainability world. To check, I polled a couple of developer friends on which guidelines looked like recommended practice.

• Web development: 23 out of 24 guidelines would be familiar to front-end teams already. The one exception: “3.21 Align Technical Requirements With Sustainability Goals”.

• Infrastructure: 11 out of 12. The exception: “4.1 Choose a Sustainable Hosting Provider”.

Unfortunately…

• Section 5: Business Strategy and Product Management. 0 out of 29 (pessimistically). If you are a B-Corp, you might hit on several of these, but for the average (American) company, the score will be much lower.

Some thoughts

We can’t always follow best practice

As the poll results show, even when we know about best practices, we don’t always follow them, for a variety of reasons. That’s normal.

Where you work makes all the difference

A full one-third of the guidelines are difficult or impossible to meet unless your business adopts certain sustainability policies. How designers are meant to influence business is a whole other topic.

Stealthy sustainability

The great thing about best practices is that they are typically evidence-based. They might save teams from rework, they might be legal requirements, they might be great for users and profits, and so on. Therefore, it should be much easier to get your business to adopt them - you don’t have to mention sustainability.

Survey reminder

I have a fresh version of the survey for readers to try: UX best practices survey

SustainableUX Live event signup: WSG implementation workshop

I feel like throwing a workshop - wanna come? Topic: how to implement the WSG. It would have a strong focus on those parts of the WSG that UX folks might be less familiar with. How do we “Undertake Systemic Impacts Mapping”? What do non-visitors need, anyway? What does an end-of-life plan look like, for a website?

Express your interest.

Thanks for reading!

Upcoming issues: the long-delayed conclusion to my newsletter migration story.

This session will showcase three essential initiatives—Project Drawdown, SustainableUX, and Climate Designers—that UX designers, researchers, and writers interested in addressing the climate crisis absolutely should know about. We won’t just inform you; each panelist will offer you a small yet concrete way you can help them achieve their missions. Join us for this hour-long session and discover how your participation can drive meaningful change in the fight against climate change.

Featuring:

• Aiyana Bodi - Manager, Employee Engagement, Project Drawdown

• Marc O’Brien - Co-founder / Strategist, Climate Designers

• Louis Rosenfeld -Principal, Rosenfeld Media

Sign Up via Zoom

For my bit I will be talking about sustainableUX (briefly) then introducing the Web Sustainability Guidelines (previously).

Hope you can join us! I’ll be running a simple live activity about making the WSG a little more approachable.

More Climate from Rosenfeld

The fine folks at Rosenfeld have been running this conversation series for a while. You should definitely check out some of the other talks online.

Climate / internet stuff first, “Other” second. And conferences in the middle.

If you like this sort of thing, please consider upgrading your subscription. The more who do, the more incentive I have to do this sort of thing (sad, I know).

Subscribe now

Google’s carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand

Emissions up 50% compared to 2019. Figures are taken from Google’s 2024 environmental report.

Electricity demand is forecast to grow as much as 20% by 2030, with AI data centers alone expected to add about 323 terawatt hours of electricity demand in the U.S.

According to Google, it’ll be worth it:

AI holds immense promise to drive climate action. In fact, AI has the potential to help mitigate 5–10% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030
- Google Environmental report, introduction

Their source for the 5-10% figure is the Boston Consulting Group rather than an academic study.

I asked Notebook LLM to summarize the report’s findings on AI:

For laughs, I asked it to assess the quality of the sources:

So what are we using AI for?

What do people really ask chatbots? It’s a lot of sex and homework. (WaPo)

Mainstream coverage of internet emissions pt xxiv

Excess memes and ‘reply all’ emails are bad for climate, researcher warns (The Guardian)

Cites the usual “data centers = 6% electricity” figures, but this article is mostly about data waste or “dark data” : “68% of data used by companies is never used again”.

Good points here about the money and time wasted by consumers from backing up everything unnecessarily.

These days, I’m more interested in the mental cost of having a humongous uncurated personal data cloud. I know that somewhere I have thousands of unsorted photos; my dropbox is a shitshow; my gmail is almost out of storage, etc. I can’t bring myself to declutter because I don’t know where to start. I just checked and the internet says this is bad for my health.

[Article idea: digital de-cluttering for your mental health (and some climate gains too probably)]

Events

Copied from the ClimateActionTech newsletter.

BBC Climate Creatives: October 2nd, Online

Green IO: London, Sept 19th

Other things I clicked this month

Public Work image search

“The Search Engine for public domain works”. I think I’m in love? Part of Cosmos.so - a pinterest alternative - “where ideas are sacred”.

Life anti-check list

87% :(

Gamergate at 10 (Links I would gchat you…)

Gamergate was the point where I started getting super-depressed about the probability that the internet will do far more harm than good. Thankfully, this retrospective has a section titled “Did anything get better as a result of Gamergate?” which made me feel a little happier. Quotes:

• Both Twitter and Reddit made substantive changes to their content and harassment policies in the wake of Gamergate.

  • …but then Elon broke the moderation team at twitter.

• …there are far more women and non-binary people working in gaming today than there were 10 years ago, according to the International Game Developers Association. Admittedly, “far more” is still not “a lot”.

• The games researcher Adam Jerrett has argued, for instance, that video games grew more “values-conscious” in the wake of Gamergate.

• DEI teams come standard at most large U.S. and Canadian development companies.

• Less tolerance within the industry for the type of rhetoric that defined Gamergate 10 years ago.

But:

That’s inside the video game industry, though. Outside, the legacy of Gamergate looks a lot more durable. And next week, I’m talking to Elle Reeve about one of the scariest aspects of that legacy: the rise of the internet-incubated alt-right and the larger white nationalist movement. 

Follow Caitlin’s newsletter for more fun internet topics.

Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends

A newsletter for curious, thoughtful readers who miss the “old” internet.

By Caitlin Dewey

Personal update

I’m back from a long family vacation and returning to freelance work + job hunting. If you know of anywhere that needs a climate-adjacent UX designer / strategist, please let me know.

ttfn,

James

Reading time: 3 minutes (not including the appendices).

Wanted: newsletter platform, renewable powered, no nazis.

The candidates:

• Ghost Pro: powerful features, non-profit, climate neutral (or…is it?)

• Ecosend: “Our mission is to eliminate the carbon footprint of email marketing”

• Beehiiv: several newsletters I follow moved there, and the co-founder said “no nazis ever”

• Buttondown: looks cool

• Wordpress.com Newsletter : they do newsletters now

Results

Who won? … it depends!

• How do you feel about Amazon Web Services? It’s greenish, but it’s Amazon (more below).

• Do you think Direct Air Capture is a priority climate solution? I don’t. But startups can’t get enough of it.

• Features and price.

I’m deferring a decision while I do more evaluation. Which means I have to write a part 2 of this guide.

Category winners

Cheapest: Beehiiv

Best for no nazis: Can’t tell. It all comes down to how each platform chooses to interpret their Acceptable Use Policy.

Best for green hosting (non-AWS): host it yourself. If AWS isn’t a deal-breaker, then any of them.

Best non-AWS green-hosted with integrated billing:

Best if I was leaving Mailchimp, not Substack: Ecosend - seems a great Mailchimp replacement, but isn’t the same sort of product as Substack.

Best climate policy: Buttondown … or Ecosend … or maybe Wordpress.

Evaluation

Pricing

Most use tiered pricing based on subscriber count. SustainableUX has a modest ~2,300 (growing steadily - thanks, y’all!).

Cheapest for me now: beehiiv ($0).

At 5,500 subs: 3 way tie between beehiiv - buttondown - Ghost ($~80ish).

Note that most of these also have a cheaper starter tier:

• Buttondown: $0 for first 100 subs

• Ghost Pro : Starter tier (500 subs): $9

• Ecosend’s cheapest tier is $37 for 1000 contacts.

Green hosting

Most of these platforms use Amazon Web Services (AWS) for hosting.

AWS: Ecosend, Beehiiv (report), Buttondown (at least partly).

Not keen on AWS? Wordpress.com’s own data centers are 50% renewable - or self-green-host (Ghost, Wordpress).

Why Amazon Web Services isn’t my cup of tea

• AWS is mostly renewable hosted.

  • But not in all regions. See this Green Web Foundation post.

• Amazon is not seen as a good climate citizen. Ref: Amazon's climate pollution is getting way worse (The Verge), Amazon is failing it’s own climate pledge (Amazon Employees for Climate Justice)

• Many people just don’t want to do business with Amazon because ethics.

More: Green Digest Review deep dive into Amazon’s environmental impact.

I’m not sweating green hosting too much

At most, my newsletter has an annual footprint of 3kg, same as two rolls of toilet paper. I can buy a quality offset for $20 and cover that carbon cost for 333 years.

But, this is the SustainableUX newsletter, and we have a principle to uphold. So I’ll keep looking for a renewable-powered option.

Climate stance

Aside from green hosting, how do these platforms engage with climate change issues?

Buttondown might contribute the largest share of revenue to climate overall.

Ecosend and Automattic (wordpress.com) have a lot to say about climate - I’ll unpick that later.

Stripe Climate: a big bet on Direct Air Capture (or, kicking the can down the road)

Buttondown and Ghost use Stripe Climate to meet their climate commitments. Stripe Climate’s approach is all about carbon capture, including direct air capture. I’m persuaded that there are better and more impactful ways to fight climate change. See appendix A for details, or just read this piece by MIT Tech.

Content policies

None of the platforms I reviewed had an upfront “here is what we do and do not allow” statement.

Buttondown and Beehiiv’s CEOs both made anti-nazi statements in public, but not on their websites.

As an experiment, I tried to find far-right newsletters hosted on each platform (this was not fun). The only one I found was on Buttondown - who took it down immediately.

Legal eagle eye

Ghost, Beehiiv and Buttondown have standard TOS / AUP language about not inciting violence. But then, so does substack:

Substack left the door open for the far-right authors, as long as they don’t openly call for violence. So, it comes down to how each platform chooses to interpret their legal terms.

Coming in part 2!

I blew past the word limit, so let’s stop here. Coming next:

• feature evaluation

• comparing values

Thanks for reading!

Reader interest poll (please do this)

Did anyone make it to the bottom of this essay? Please click so I can get a sense of whether to keep doing this sort of thing.

APPENDIX A: STRIPE CLIMATE

I don’t love Stripe Climate because it only looks to the “capture” part of avoid-reduce-capture. Carbon capture is unproven and distracts from cheaper methods that prevent CO2 in the first place (according to the U.N.).

How it works: Stripe Climate passes money through to Frontier Climate, who invest it with their portfolio of carbon removal startups. The startups make a pledge that they will then store a certain amount of CO2, in the future, once they have figured out how.

These projects might store carbon in the future, they might scale, and they could possibly become cheap enough to be worth it. Or, not. Sez Frontier:

Because the carbon removal industry is in its early stages, it’s likely that some suppliers will be delayed or fail to deliver. Accordingly, Frontier cannot provide specific dates, protocols, annual amounts of carbon removed, governing standards, registry names, and other details until the carbon removal tons are verified and delivered. - Frontier’s Disclosure

In other words, a gamble.

And it’s expensive. Frontier has collected $277.4M, and delivered 1,716 tons CO2 - with another 510,205 tons “contracted”.

The math sucks (but not CO2 lol). You can buy traditional offsets for 1,716 tons CO2 for $34,000. Conversely, $277M would buy 13,850,000 tons of quality offsets.

Offsets are also problematic, true. One solution: invest in carbon avoidance projects directly. For instance - food waste reduction initiatives, insulation for low income housing. Or just build one giant solar farm - like this $200M, 134 megawatt example. Which would avoid 25,000 tons of CO2 a year, every year.

The priority is cutting emissions, now. Stripe’s projects don’t do that.

• The case for carbon avoidance technologies: A megaton of prevention is worth a gigaton of cure (World Economic Forum)

• Carbon removal hype is becoming a dangerous distraction (MIT Technology Review)

And another thing: deceptive design

The consumer-facing version of Stripe Climate is borderline deceptive. Customers clicking the “donate for carbon removal” are probably thinking that they are somehow offsetting the CO2 associated with their order. Which isn’t what is happening.

Climate careers series introduction

70% of the readers of this newsletter want a climate job1 . This short series summarizes the research I’m doing while looking for my own role.

Job boards! There are several climate-related boards with names like Climatetechjobs.jobbies or GreenJobs.wow — but which ones are worth our time?

Future issues may look at other pathways to employment, such as volunteering, specialist recruiters, and manifesting.

For the 10% of readers who already have a climate job - get in touch if you have tips to share.

The Short Version

Probably the useful places to look for UX / Product jobs are the Designing for Good Slack jobs channel and the Climate Base website. However there is no one aggregator collecting all the UX climate jobs, so it’s worthwhile checking the rest of the list.

There are also several closed/paid communities that promise climate recruitment opportunities, like TeraDo. I haven’t checked them out yet.

Subscribe now

JOB BOARDS LIST

Score note: The score next to each site is the count of UX or Product jobs I found listed between April 1st and May 5th. (Thanks to Mathijs Sterrenburg for suggesting some of these.)

Top 2 sources

Design gigs for Good — Slack (18)

I was surprised that a Slack group came out top tbh. It’s straightforward to join — just send a request.

Climate Base (11)

Nice feature: search by specific drawdown solutions. Want to work on biogas or blue hydrogen?

Tip: the Role Type selector is a little odd. UX roles seem to be spread across different categories.

About Climate Base:

• A for-profit company

• Upload a profile, get reviewed by recruiters

• Salary shown in about 50% of ads

• Ethics: the Climate Base about page had this gem: “We care deeply about our mission, our community, and our team mates, and we work very, very hard. If you want a chill, cushy job, this we won't be the right fit for you.” Hustle porn?

Sample roles:

• Product Design Director at EcoVadis (business reporting)

• Senior UX researcher, Monta (an EV company)

Other boards worth checking

Not all jobs go to the Top 2. I found plenty of roles in the list below that hadn’t been cross-posted.

Climate tech list (“many”)

This one is more about researching organizations, not a list of jobs. Means you have to drill down to the matching job. Their Airtable iFrame integration makes this process slow and awkward.

Don’t trust the job count. For instance, several of the 34 hits for “UX designer” led to dead ends.

Climate draft (~10)

“Your free on-ramp to climate tech”. Lots of startups and European companies.

• Product design for a net zero homes company

• Product design for a food waste reduction firm

• Some jobs don’t seem relevant - Director of UX at Beekeeper for example

ClimateAction.tech Slack (2)

• #jobs-and-volunteering Also, their newsletter.

• Mostly posts developer jobs, but 2 UX / Product roles were mentioned recently.

Women and Climate Slack (?)

Social impact job boards

Idealist (7)

All sorts of social impact jobs including climate.

• User research at Illinois Legal Aid ($68k)

Tech jobs for good (7)

• UX strategist at Threepoint: an agency working with impact orgs.

• Head of Product at Archive.org ($140k).

• UX designer at Get Well network ($100k).

Big tech

I didn’t find any specifically-climate related UX / Product jobs at the big 2. Seems the best bet is to look for general UX jobs, and then drill down to the more climate-focused parts of their business.

Google

Try Cloud roles.

Microsoft

The “sustainability” keyword performed best, finding 429 roles — none product or design. Departments to watch: Microsoft Sustainability, Sustainability Cloud.

Bubbling under

• creativesforclimate.community

• Terra.do : 6 UX roles

• All Hands : ~ 3 roles

• greenjobsboard.us Non-profits like Environment Defense Fund endorse this, but zero hits for UX or design.

• environmentjob.co.uk- UK focus. One UX job, but it’s for the RSPB.

Hall of shame

www.climatejobslist.com - misleading counts

This site will return a result like below (24 hits for product design), but the actual result might just show one job, or none.

Trad boards bad

LinkedIn (0 -♾️)

I haven’t found a way to filter results down to climate-relevant jobs. “UX + climate” just returns regular non-climate UX jobs. Shame they don’t have a way to filter by “social impact” or similar.

LinkedIn profile-driven job recommendations

Despite my portfolio having a few mentions of sustainability and climate change, LinkedIn’s algorithm hasn’t served me any climate-adjacent roles yet.

Indeed (???)

A “UX Climate” search worked better than on LinkedIn. First result for a Strategy Lead at a climate solutions firm. The rest of the results were just general hits on the word “climate”, as in “we operate in a climate of fear and suspicion”. Or this posting for McDonalds, which came up under “sustainability”.

Closed communities & fellowships

Work on Climate

As of April 2023, WoCl has helped more than 1,900+ members find work in climate and grown a community of more than 20,000 members in less than three years.

Fellowship boards

Typically selling 12 week courses, these boards offer a closed community, networking opportunities, expert speakers, yadda yadda.

I have no idea if these offer value or not.

• Terra.do - 12 week course. “Over a thousand alumni have found their climate solution”. $1,990.

• Climatebase fellowship. Also 12 weeks, also $1990, what’s going on ?!

• OnePointFive $1,190.

Stray thoughts

UX at a climate org OR “Climate UX”

Are you looking for regular UX work, but at a more ethical climate-focused org? Or are you hoping for “Climate UX” (which I may have made up). Climate UX, if it exists, would combine sustainability principles with UX. An example would be defining Desgin Ops along ESG lines.

Non-profit, for-profit, start-up, other?

So far it looks like there are many more UX / product jobs at startups than anywhere else.

Social enterprise & greenwashing

S-corp, B-corp, 1%-for-planet, Green Web Label… there are a lot of ways for a company to signal that they are operating on ethical values. I’ll need another issues to dig into this, but my advice is investigate all claims.

Agency route

There are agencies with a good record on climate projects: MightyBytes in the US or WholeGrain in the UK to name two.

Trends

I noticed a lot of jobs at ESG / CSR reporting startups, responding to pending legislation requiring more robust ESG accounting. Good news for folks looking for enterprise UX roles in climate.

Much more

So you want to work in climate

From Nicole Kelner a massive spreadsheet of job boards (83 are listed), communities, recruiters, educational resources.

Good luck

We’re all counting on you.

That’s that me, laid off

I’ve been absent from sustainableux for a while: my last job got complicated, and a bunch of us found ourselves out of work. I’ve spent the time since trying to find safe harbor for my team, personal stuff, and procrastinating.

Anyway, time to make some lemonade:

Looking for a climate career: this time for serious

I’ve often shared climate job resources here, with the intention of trying to get a climate-related job myself…some day. Now I’ve finally got the chance to put up or shut up.

I haven’t had to apply blind for a job in 15 years, so I’m having to learn all about how job hunting works in the age of algorithmic candidate screening and LLM-written cover letters. It’s a lot! So, I’m turning it into another newsletter post.

Already got a Climate UX job?

Share your story with other readers - email me.

Evaluating newsletter platforms

I’ve been dragging my heels on transitioning away from Substack, overwhelmed by the number of choices. Fortunately some green web folks have kindly shared recommendations and I can start planning to migrate. First, I’ve got to assess the different platforms. Current shortlist:

• Buttondown - except I’d have to relearn markdown. I never get the brackets right.

• Brevo - sounds like an Italian vacuum manufacturer

• EcoSend - “Green Product of the Year”

• beehiive.

  • Pro: some of my favorite newsletters moved there, good ethics (no nazis) .

  • Con: beehiiv links break in my browser because they don’t work with my routers ad filter.

I’m going to rank these for eco-friendlyness, nazi% (0% is the only correct answer), pain-in-the-arseness, and other.

I’ll be at UXPA Boston (May)

I’m popping into UXPA Boston conference this year - hopefully running a table topic & mentor session or two. Love to chat to any sustainableux people, don’t be shy.

Stuck in draft

I’ve got a bunch of posts piling up in my drafts folder.

• WSG cheatsheet - simplifying the WSG for new folks

• Finding a UX career in climate (ahem)

• Green checkout: evaluating Stripe’s climate checkbox

• Green footers, site labels: you know those “1% for planet”, “this is a green website” badges you see on the bottom of some sites? An investigation. Pairs well with the featured greenwash guide linked below.

Links

LINK OF THE WEEK

Digital Greenwashing Guide (Mightybytes)

Recommended reading, because if you are trying to get sustainable digital initiatives going in your organization, its important to do it in an honest and transparent way. Otherwise, you end up with greenwashing - which is becoming illegal.

New regulatory guidance on greenwashing in the European Union (EU) and the United States may change how organizations can talk about their sustainability initiatives. In some cases, failure to make true claims could lead to potential fines or penalties. 

How might this impact your digital marketing or digital sustainability efforts? In this post, we dig into the details and share several digital greenwashing examples. 

The article points to some concrete examples of digital greenwashing in action, including

• bogus “this is a green website” badges

• misleading digital footprint calculators

• the COP 28 website (lovely takedown post here)

Team America! Climate Corps !

www.acc.gov

Actually this looks great:

“…a workforce training and service initiative that will ensure more young people have access to the skills-based training necessary for good-paying careers in the clean energy and climate resilience economy.”

So, more like the Peace Corp than Code for America I guess?

They currently have 270 open placements, only 2 hits for a search for “Design”:

• Learn urban planning and get paid $10 an hour (Duluth)

• Honouliuli National Historic Site AmeriCorps (Hawaii)

Learn about negative emissions through videogames

Scope of Work is making a game about Negative Emissions Technology. The post gets into a lot of the detail about what NET is, why it is controversial, and seaweed.

Interesting things I learned:

• It costs $600 to capture a ton of CO2 using Direct Air Capture. This has to drop to 1/6th the cost before it becomes remotely worthwhile;

• The current leading DAC plant captures as much CO2 as 200 cars, i.e. F.A.

• DAC is very power intensive. Killer sentence: “Heirloom paid a local utility to add more renewable electricity to the grid, but that begs an important question: Why use renewable energy to remove carbon from the atmosphere when you could use it to eliminate emissions in the first place?”

• (Sargassum CO2 capture sounds cool though)

• There are lots of NET ideas in development, none of them are significant yet, and the fossil industry loves to use them as a fig leaf.

I had a dream once where someone invented a machine that turns atmospheric CO2 into sheets of diamonds, and diamond became the most popular building material, and climate change was solved. Also DeBeers went bankrupt. I think this was the plot of 2061 - Odyssey 3? Anyway, sounds about as realistic as NET.

Designing sustainable services / School of Good Services / 2024

Registration and details.

Social

• LinkedIn SustainableUX group

• Bluesky at jcux

Misc.

Using AI For Neurodiversity And Building Inclusive Tools (Smashing)

This article illustrates how AI can be leveraged to build tools that can be inclusive with a little bit of an additional effort.

How I know when to quit my job, every single time (UX Matters)

It’s getting increasingly difficult to get a design or tech job; there are more steps involved when hiring for a position, and as if to quietly discourage quitting or a lack of appreciation for employment, companies are intentionally keeping a minimum difficulty level for their interviews before offering employment contracts.

We are no strangers to the circus show that is the tech hiring scene in general. But there are hints that this would be the norm moving forward.

HEATED

Nobel Prize-winning economist calls for climate tax on billionaires

For the first time, the world’s most powerful countries are considering a proposal that would tax the super rich and send the money directly to the people on the front…

Read more

2 years ago · 159 likes · 7 comments · Arielle Samuelson

Getting cars out of cities

…a deep dive into those 24 studies, which covered 26 car-reduction efforts implemented by 23 different European cities, revealed 12 different types of interventions to reduce car use, the researchers report in Case Studies on Transport Policy.

Web sustainability grows up

The WSG are here and they are rocking our world. To better understand the new guidelines I sat down with three of the authors of the WSG to learn how to start applying the WSG to UX work. View the presentation below (with handy time-stamps).

Event details.

About the WSG:

• UX-specific guidelines

• User-friendly guidelines at SustainableWebDesign.org

• WSG quick reference

• The Full WSG guidelines

• SustainableUX coverage of the WSG (November newsletter)

Meet the Web Sustainability Guidelines: video

Skip my rambling intro and dive into the action:

Meet the speakers (4mins)

Thorsten Jonas: WSG (what is it, why we need it) (4:30min)

Tim Frick (14mins): more background, especially the frameworks around ESG (Environmental Social Governance) (14min)

• Tim Frick’s Introduction to the WSG slides at Google Slides.

Anne Faubry: examples of how to apply the WSG. (starts at 23mins)

Questions and Answers

Q&A (starts at 53min):

“Will the WSG line up with legislation, similar to the story of WCAG?”

Answer:

• Paraphrasing Tim: To become a standard that legislation can use, first the WSG needs to be fully adopted by the W3C. The W3C membership needs to vote. This may happen in 2024 or 2025.

• See also: Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (EU)

• Many opportunities to leverage the WSG for similar reporting initiatives.

Estimating emissions and energy - are there tools that help us estimate impact based on our UX decisions?

Questions we didn’t get to:

• “Existing tools for estimating energy and emissions such as the commonly used SWD method have very broad system boundaries. Are there any tools to estimate the emissions more specifically around the impact of the UX decisions we make?”

  • Tim: Why web perf tools should be reporting website carbon emissions (Web Performance Calendar)

  • Anne: only really possible by doing a full life-cycle assessment. But there are tools for estimating.

  • UX choices: no specific tool for estimating climate impact of UX decisions. But there is lots of evidence for which design decisions have a positive impact (for example, static vs dynamic pages; the impact of ad-tech)

  • Thorsten: see the “sustainable user journey” as a decision-making aid.

• “Any recommendations when it comes to choosing non-human persona ? When I tried to do it for a digital product I was working on found it difficult to narrow down to who and what all can I consider?”

  • My take: to me this doesn’t feel that different from the approach for picking all the user/stakeholder personas - deciding how wide and deep to go depends on time, budget and other project factors. For finding out which non-humans are even relevant - that’s where exercises like consequence scanning (PDF) can come in handy.

Other links that came up:

Tarot cards of tech (Artefact)

Harmonising Language Use for Sustainability Approaches in Digital Advertising: Recommendations from IAB Europe’s Sustainability Standards Committee

Keep up with our speakers

Tim Frick (Mightybytes)

• Speaking at UX Camp on the WSGs, Feb 10th

• Hosting What Does Sustainable Marketing Mean for B Corps? webinar on March 5th (a conversation with the authors of this great book, registration is open to anyone)

• Just published this post on redefining sustainable digital marketing for 2024, also based on the book above and with some recommendations relevant to UX designers.

Anne Faubry

• "The Intro Guide to Digital Eco-Design"

• designersethiques.org

Thorsten Jonas SUX Network.

• SUX Podcast

• “Become a sustainable UX Designer” course - coming soon

Replatforming - in progress

It’s well-reported that Substack has a Nazi problem. Like many others, I’m in the process of migrating this newsletter somewhere less appalling. There are a couple of green email newsletter providers that I’m checking out.

I’m hoping this process will be seamless for all, and to get it done in the next month. Thanks for bearing with me.

SustainableUX’s social media strategy was limited to occasional Tweets but that seemed to work ok. I’ve abandoned X (because reasons), so where should I post my invaluable knowledge nuggets? Tell me now:

The poll wouldn’t let me include “Metaverse lol” or “social media is dead”.

ps I’d be grateful for a bluesky invite if anyone has a spare.

pps We have a sustainableUX linkedin group and a (neglected) slack.

SustainableUX live event! December 14th!!

The Future of Digital Sustainability, with the Authors of the Web Sustainability Guidelines

The official Web Sustainability Guidelines are here and they are poised to change everything about how we do green digital. [Check out our latest SustainableUX newsletter for comprehensive coverage].

In this special 1hr live event, three of the WSG authors will walk us through the most UX-relevant parts of the guidelines, complete with tips on how to start applying parts of the WSG to your everyday work. I’ll then moderate a Q&A with questions from the audience (via Zoom or the SustainableUX slack).

Zoom registration link

Thanks to MightyBytes for hooking us up with proper webinar-grade Zoom.

Data Center news

Data centers keep energy use steady despite big growth

DW.com

Today nearly all the world's IP traffic goes through data centers. It is not just captured once. "For every bit of data that travels the network from a data center to end users, another five bits of data are transmitted within and among data centers,"

Streaming services alone could make up 87% of consumer internet traffic this year, says the report.

The good news: data-center energy efficiency has more than kept up.

The study expects consumption to reach 3.2% of total demand in 2030. Underlying calculations exclude cryptocurrency mining and data transmission networks themselves.

The European Union is not ignoring the problem. To fit in with its digital strategy, they have set the goal of climate-neutral data centers by 2030.

Trust the EU to actually do something about this (Energy-efficient Cloud Computing Technologies and Policies for an Eco-friendly Cloud Market). Thanks, EU!

Google’s new geothermal energy project is up and running (The Verge)

Mainstream coverage of Google’s geothermal ambitions. Google’s own take: Operating on 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy by 2030 (Google).

Aside: see Google’s nifty blog for feel-good sustainability/tech stories.

Private Report Shows How Amazon Drastically Undercounts Its Carbon Footprint

Will Evans, Reveal News

Holiday season means I’ve (reluctantly) had to buy a few things on Amazon. It’s been a while so I was pleasantly surprised see climate-stuff everywhere on the site - from “green shipping” options to products labeled as “climate pledge friendly”. Could this mean that Amazon is using its vast market power to make green ecommerce the new default? (Leaving aside the whole “there can never be green ecommerce” argument).

Heck no.

Amazon takes responsibility for the full climate impact only of products with an Amazon brand label, which make up about 1% of its online sales.

Poop. The article gives a great overview of how corporates can use selective reporting criteria and subtly nuanced language to puff up their green cred.

Kicker: they don’t count their commute footprint either.

…Target, Walmart and The Home Depot estimate the gas their workers burn while driving to and from work, Amazon counts emissions only from its own corporate shuttles. Asked about the discrepancy, Amazon’s Davila said: “Employees can use public transportation to get to the office, and if they live nearby, they can walk or bike.”

Ugh. Probably amounts to a tiny % of their overall footprint, but Amazon end up looking pathetic for trying this fudge.

Aside: remember Amazon Employees for Climate Justice? They got justice (some of them, anyway).

There’s a backstory to the company’s climate marketing. It’s faced intense pressure from a group of inside agitators, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice. Bezos’ [climate pledge] announcement came on the eve of an employee walkout protesting the company’s lack of action. Less than a year later, two of the group’s organizers were fired in what the National Labor Relations Board determined was illegal retaliation, leading to a settlement last year.

So that’s nice?

Good news / bad news: Over half of global tech firms lack net zero plan, study finds

Glass half full or half empty.

The report also found that for those tech leaders that have a Net Zero plan in place (53%), a third are due to achieve their target by 2030, with a further 18% setting their sights further into the future. For those who have set themselves a target, over half (59%) expect to reach it.

Although, see the amazon example above for a sampling of the ways corporations can obfuscate their true footprint.

Bits and pieces

Rise of the Robot Farmers

I got strong A Psalm for the Wild-Built vibes from this headline: Farm robots ripping out weeds the old-fashioned way to reduce herbicide use, strengthen harvest

Bonus robots at the end of this email.

Yet another climate/design job board: climatebase.org

The jobs featured show high relevance for eco-minded designers. Sample job (which may be gone by the time I publish):

• Senior Product Designer at Optera: “We build software to help the world’s largest companies stop climate change.” Work on their ESG platform.

UX - Resource Collection & Event Calendar (from SustainableUXNetwork )

Our namesake has put out a great resource collection, check it out.

Holiday subscription sale!

For a limited time you can get the best value SustainableUX subscription. Only 0.5% of SustainableUX readers have a paid subscription, but the fact that I have any paying readers at all gives me extra motivation to keep at this.

Subscribe now

Paid subscribers don’t get anything extra except my appreciation and thanks. The whole point of doing this newsletter is to encourage designers to do more for the climate, so I’m not going to hide content behind a paywall. Still, it would be nice to do something for paid subscribers and I’m going to explore some ideas in 2025.

A tune with “climate” in the lyrics

Via the consistently interesting Today in Tabs.

Bonus: eco-robots in the popular imagination

Explore the Future of Digital Sustainability with the Authors of the Web Sustainability Guidelines

The official Web Sustainability Guidelines are here and they are poised to change everything about how we do green digital. [Check out our latest SustainableUX newsletter for comprehensive coverage].

In this special 1hr webinar, three of the WSG authors will walk us through the most UX-relevant parts of the guidelines, complete with tips on how to start applying parts of the WSG to your everyday work. I’ll then moderate a Q&A with questions from the audience (via Zoom or the SustainableUX slack).

Where: Zoom (registration link)

Thanks to MightyBytes for hooking us up with proper webinar-grade Zoom.

When: December 14th at 9am ET / 2pm GMT / 3pm CET (World Time reference)

Speakers

Tim Frick

Tim Frick is the founder and President of Mightybytes, a digital agency and Certified B Corp located in Chicago. He is also a speaker, community organizer, and author of four books, including, Designing for Sustainability: A Guide to Building Greener Digital Products and Services, from O’Reilly Media.

Anne Faubry

Anne is an independent UX/UI Designer who designs digital services with a strong emphasis on frugality, ecodesign, inclusion, and accessibility. Anne's portfolio includes work for NGOs, public services and small businesses focused on sustainability.

She co-authored "The Intro Guide to Digital Eco-Design" as a part of the association Designers Ethiques. Anne has also contributed to the French standard AFNOR Spec and served as the Committee co-chair for the UX chapter of the W3C Sustainable Web Design Guidelines.

Thorsten Jonas

Thorsten is a sustainable product, UX and innovation consultant, keynote speaker and founder of the SUX Network. He is guiding teams and companies in crafting sustainable, responsible and ethical digital products and co-leads the UX committee for the UX chapter of the W3C Sustainable Web Design Guidelines. As co-host of the SUX Podcast, he interviews thought leaders from around the globe and shares insights and strategies for integrating sustainability into product design processes. His passion for the outdoors and mountaineering drives his commitment to making sustainability a fundamental aspect of user experience and digital design.

thorstenjonas.com

Links

Event registration (zoom)

Intro to the WSG

WSG quick reference

The Full WSG guidelines

SustainableUX coverage of the WSG (November newsletter)

In this issue: the official Web Sustainability Guidelines are here and they’re ready to upend everything about how businesses approach digital. I took a tour and have Thoughts (spoiler: mostly very positive).

Update 11/30/23 - Tim Frick of Mightybytes sent me some updated resources for the WSG, and I’ve included them here.

• WSG Quick Reference + Checklist PDF

• New intro to the WSG

• Sustainable web design.org has updated to reference the WSG

• Sustainable Web Working Group Charter

Web sustainability grows up: meet the WSG

The Sustainable Web Design Community Group has published the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) v.1.0. This is a Huge Deal, because it collects and formalizes an entire approach to digital sustainability, for multiple audiences, in a business-acceptable way. For extra legitimacy, it’s hosted by W3C (as a draft report, with aspirations for becoming a standard).

The Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) 1.0 explains how to design and implement digital products and services that put people and the planet first. The guidelines are best practices based on measurable, evidence-based research; aimed at end-users, web workers, stakeholders, tool authors, educators, and policymakers. The guidelines are in line with the Sustainable Web Manifesto.

from WSG at a glance

The guidelines are the result of a ton of work by a lot of people. In numbers:

• 50 volunteers worked on this for 2 years, creating…

• 93 guidelines, supported by…

• 232 success criteria.

Aside: 2 things sustainableUX is doing about the WSG

1. Moderating a live event about the WSG with some of the contributors. Pencil it in for December 14th 2023. Details to come.

2. Making a my own cheat-sheet version of the WSG - see the end of this newsletter.

What’s in the WSG?

The WSG breaks web sustainability into 4 big pieces:

• User Experience Design: “research and ideation, journey design, content and assets, and quality assurance.”

• Web Development: “development approach, code minimization, code coherence, and code security.”

• Hosting / infrastructure: “environment commissioning, minimizing environment and data, and minimizing human disruption.”

• Business strategy / Product management: “reporting, disclosure, strategy, and policies from both an organizational and website / product level.”

Go beyond optimizing jpgs and green hosting

The guidelines are deep and broad. They consider the entire lifespan of a digital product, from ideation to sunsetting. They also consider the wider business context, from the business model, ESG, governance, and culture change. In other words, it’s a lot.

Thankfully, the guidelines are underpinned by supporting success criteria that are both concrete and actionable (well, mostly), making it easier for designers and developers to follow along and create greener products.

Not just about CO2

The guidelines take into account the impact on people (users and non-users and non-humans), as well as workers, the supply chain, accessibility/inclusivity. This is a much broader view of sustainability than just measuring CO2 impact.

In fact, the guidelines are so broad that it doesn’t seem a stretch to see how the WSG could become a complete ethical design standard.

Credible & business-ready

The authors have been smart about aligning the guidelines to recognized standards. This makes it feasible to connect a sustainable digital project to an organization’s wider goals. Specifically, the WSG references Environmental Social Governance standards. These are used by more than 90 percent of S&P 500 companies.

Convinced yet? Let’s dip in:

The WSG for UX designers

UX designers are probably going to want to focus on the 29 guidelines in Section 2 (User Experience Design). For this article I’ve put the guidelines in buckets that roughly correspond to project phases: upfront research & ideation; design philosophy, design principles, interaction design; content & UI design; and governance.

1. Research and ideation

The value of research is demonstrated in at least 5 guidelines. As well as the needs of users and stakeholders (GL 2.2. and 2.5), the guidelines ask the designer to take into account the broader impacts of a service on non-users (2.2) and society & the environment (2.1 - “undertake systemic impact mapping”).

The guidelines spell out the value of good UX process in the context of sustainability - for example GL2.4, reminds audiences of the value of wireframes and prototypes in lowering the risk of poorly-conceived features and rework. With many product teams skimping on good UX research & process, it’s nice to see this reminder.

2. Interaction design & design principles

Ever get tired of sweating out yet another Design Principles statement? The WSG handily pre-supplies several universal principles for you.

• 2.6 Create a Frictionless Lightweight Experience by Default

• 2.8 Respect the Visitor's Attention

• 2.10 Use Recognized Design Patterns

• 2.11 Avoid Manipulative Patterns

• 2.13 Use a Design System To Prioritize Interface Consistency

Pithy version: be Fast, Honest and Predictable.

At the next level of specificity, guidelines that help you plan your interaction design:

• 2.20 Provide Accessible, Usable, Minimal Web Forms

• 2.21 Support Non-Graphic Ways To Interact With Content (see also: accessibility)

• 2.22 Give Useful Notifications To Improve The Visitor's Journey

Some of these may seem like a stretch. For example, 2.9 “Respect the Visitor's Attention” rules out tactics that “unnecessarily lengthen the time they spend using the product or service.” This is a good ethical and humane stance to take (Tristan Harris would be proud), but where’s the CO2? The authors have astutely preempted the question:

Economic [benefits]: Organizations that monetize visitor attention strive to keep it as long as possible, therefore increasing their product or service's environmental impact.

Still, this could be tough to implement in an environment where product owners are obsessed with retention, time on page, and other short-sighted KPIs. But worth it.

3. UI specifics: lean = green

7 of the 29 guidelines are aimed at reducing unnecessary assets (so lowering the energy cost of fetching a web page). The image assets section (2.15) is particularly well-supplied with success criteria and methods, but there is plenty to say about other media (2.16), animation (2.17) and documents (2.23). Many of the suggested techniques are already established best practice (optimize your images!); others will probably cause some head-scratching (see Raising the Bar, below).

These guidelines nicely complement the web development guidelines (Section 3), many of which relate to shaving bytes.

4. Governance & process

The WSG has plenty to say about how to implement these strategies and maintain them. 4 Guidelines cover post-release testing (2.25, 2.27, 2.28, 2.2.9) and monitoring, 2.12 gives guidance on documentation.

My Thoughts

Raising the bar… a little too high?

Dig into the various success criteria that underpin the guidelines and you’ll find a mixture of established best practices and more advanced techniques, but also a bit of WTF.

An established best practice:

Optimize Images

Resize, optimize and compress each image (outside the browser), offering different sizes (for each image) for different screen resolutions.

Web designers have been taught to do this since the advent of responsive web design or before. Modern site-build toolchains usually include tools that will take care of the optimizing automatically. This criterion should be easy to meet, and you may already be meeting it.

But the next Success Criteria is a different animal:

Sizing And Deactivation

Let the visitor select the display size, and provide the option to deactivate images.

Can you picture mainstream sites offering “image options” control to users? Although I can imagine highly carbon-conscious individuals using browser controls & plugins to block images directly. Borrowing again from WCAG, I’d describe this as a “AAA” criterion - nice to have, unlikely to be implemented outside of specialized sites. Nice segue though:

The WSG isn’t WCAG

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines have had an incalculable positive effect on the accessibility and inclusivity of the web. I hope that the WSG will have a similar impact on sustainability. But don’t lose sight of the differences.

Difference 1: WCAG is legally-required (by the ADA, DDA, 508, EEA), whereas there aren’t any laws that cover digital sustainability. So far, anyway.

Difference 2: WCAG is pass/fail, WSG isn’t (I think?). With WCAG, a site either conforms to level A, AA or AAA, or it does not (fuzzy requirements aside).

The WSG does not have a matching conformance model. In any case the guidelines are so comprehensive that a 100% pass seems improbable, unless you were designing a personal site specifically with WSG in mind (prove me wrong).

Use what you can, learn from the rest

I’ve mentioned a couple of times that the WSG is, like, super-big. My advice to anyone finding them overwhelming: start with the overview, then skim section 2 (UX design), digging deeper on any new concepts. Getting a grasp of Section 2 will give you a ton of ideas on how to apply sustainable design principles in your own work. With luck you’ll find that you are already following much of section 2 by simply following good process and practicing ethical design.

Once you’ve got a grasp on the design guidelines, take a gander at the product strategy & business sections - these will help you sell sustainable design work to your organization. We’ll take more of a look at these in a future issue.

Three cheers for the WSG Community

Guidelines like these take a long time to come to fruition, and clearly the WSG required a ton of work to come into being. It’s not glamorous work and it’s entirely volunteer. So send them some positive vibes - better yet, start promoting the WSG where you can.

My own WUH-CAG for the WSG

W3C guidelines are often long and technically precise in a way that can be off-putting to the busy designer. For instance the WCAG 2.2 is 21,000 words long and would take over an hour to read. In response, people started publishing their own WCAG cheat-sheets to get straight to the actionable stuff. My favorite: WUH-CAG.

The WSG is almost twice as long as WCAG. Fortunately, the WSG comes complete with a “At A Glance” section that does a nice job of giving a digestible overview.

Update 11/30/23: the WSG has new summary resources: WSG Quick Reference + Checklist PDF

For folks who like checklists, I’ve started my own cheatsheet. Take a look at my draft attempt. I don’t have a name for it yet. How about Wuh-SG, or WTFSG?.

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Thanks for reading!