An impact framework for the Web Sustainability Guidelines

Last year I attended TPAC 2025 in Kobe. A big part of my time there was spent in conversations about the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSGs) with members of the Sustainable Web Interest Group who were there in person and online.

Through these conversations, it became apparent that the guidelines were lacking a means for people to assess their impact. At the time, there were over 80 guidelines, and the guidelines document was a long read (still is, tbh). A refrain I heard a lot was "People are asking 'where should I begin? what are the most impactful things I can do, now, with these guidelines?' I had been apart of a few metrics related calls earlier in 2025 which was trying to tackle this, though coming up with a single metric (or set of metrics) which could encapsulate the extremely broad scope of the guidelines proved tough.

In one of our Interest Group meetings at TPAC this topic came up again. During that, I put my hand up to create some kind of framework that could help give people coming to the guidelines some method for prioritisation so they might know where to start.

That work came together in a pull request in December last year with a first draft of an impact rating framework for the WSGs. This draft include impact scores for each guideline across the categories of "people", "planet", and "prosperity", as well as impact timeframe. For each, I also included a brief rationale for the scoring provided. That wasn't easy, given how broad the guidelines are. Plenty of time was spent head scratching.

Thankfully, with the PR published, we interest group swung into action. Over the next few months, that framework was refined thanks to the feedback from members of the working group - big shout outs to Siddesh, Susannah, Emma, Andy, Nick, Thorsten, and Tim for their feedback across the various sections. With the review complete, Tzviya, Hidde, Alex, and Rose turned what was a shoddily written Google Doc and messy spreadsheet into a web page ready to be published alongside the WSGs - the Web Sustainability Guidelines Impact Measurement document.

It should be acknowledged that there are still large gaps in our ability to assess and quantify sustainability impacts of digital activities. So there is a degree of "expert opinion" and subjectivity in these impact ratings. You probably will find some that you disagree with - that's fine. If you do, then give the rationale a read. If you still disagree, then there are a few things you can do:

• Get involved with the W3C and the Web Sustainability Interest group
• Raise an issue on GitHub with constructive feedback, suggestions, and proposed changes
• Share the impact ratings with others who might have domain knowledge and who can contribute through the two ways mentioned above

While opinions about individual impact ratings may differ, one thing I'm really proud of about this artefact is that it, in my opinion, has achieved what it sets out to - to make the WSGs as little bit more approachable by having a way to prioritise them based onimpact categories, timeline, or overall impact score. I've also heard on the grapevine that some other Interest Groups in the W3C have seen the document and wish they had something similar for what they're doing. I'm glad the Sustainable Web Interest Group was able to get this published, and hope folks find it useful!