almanac.httparchive.org
almanac.httparchive.org copied to clipboard
HTTPArchive
Sustainability 2022
Sustainability 2022
If you're interested in contributing to the Sustainability chapter of the 2022 Web Almanac, please reply to this issue and indicate which role or roles best fit your interest and availability: author, reviewer, analyst, and/or editor.
Content team
| Lead | Authors | Reviewers | Analysts | Editors | Coordinator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| @ldevernay | @ldevernay @gerrymcgovernireland @tpgreenwood @timfrick | @mrchrisadams @cqueern @Djohn12 @hanopcan @imeugenia | @fershad @camcash17 @4upz | - | @tunetheweb |
Expand for more information about each role 👀
- The content team lead is the chapter owner and responsible for setting the scope of the chapter and managing contributors' day-to-day progress.
- Authors are subject matter experts and lead the content direction for each chapter. Chapters typically have one or two authors. Authors are responsible for planning the outline of the chapter, analyzing stats and trends, and writing the annual report.
- Reviewers are also subject matter experts and assist authors with technical reviews during the planning, analyzing, and writing phases.
- Analysts are responsible for researching the stats and trends used throughout the Almanac. Analysts work closely with authors and reviewers during the planning phase to give direction on the types of stats that are possible from the dataset, and during the analyzing/writing phases to ensure that the stats are used correctly.
- Editors are technical writers who have a penchant for both technical and non-technical content correctness. Editors have a mastery of the English language and work closely with authors to help wordsmith content and ensure that everything fits together as a cohesive unit.
- The section coordinator is the overall owner for all chapters within a section like "User Experience" or "Page Content" and helps to keep each chapter on schedule.
Note: The time commitment for each role varies by the chapter's scope and complexity as well as the number of contributors.
For an overview of how the roles work together at each phase of the project, see the Chapter Lifecycle doc.
Milestone checklist
0. Form the content team
- [X] May 1: The content team has at least one author, reviewer, and analyst
1. Plan content
- [X] May 15 The content team has completed the chapter outline in the draft doc
2. Gather data
- [x] June 1: Analysts have added all necessary custom metrics and drafted a PR (example) to track query progress
- June 1 - 15: HTTP Archive runs the June crawl
3. Validate results
- [ ] August 1: Analysts have queried all metrics and saved the output to the results sheet
4. Draft content
- [ ] September 1: The content team has written, reviewed, and edited the chapter in the doc
5. Publication
- [ ] September 15: The completed chapter and all required metadata and figures are converted to markdown and submitted to GitHub
- September 26: Target launch date 🚀
Chapter resources
Refer to these 2022 Sustainability resources throughout the content creation process:
📄 Google Docs for outlining and drafting content 🔍 SQL files for committing the queries used during analysis 📊 Google Sheets for saving the results of queries 📝 Markdown file for publishing content and managing public metadata 💬 #web-almanac-sustainability on Slack for team coordination
@cqueern @gerrymcgovernireland you've expressed an interest in a sustainability chapter before. This chapter could use coauthors, reviewers, and analysts if you still have the interest and time!
@ldevernay has stepped up to author the chapter 🎉
@tunetheweb @rviscomi I'd love to put my hand up as an analyst, though will need guidance when it comes to querying the dataset.
@mrchrisadams would you also be interested in contributing?
Yes, definitely interested if there’s any way I can help
From: Rick Viscomi @.> Sent: Thursday 14 April 2022 04:41 To: HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org @.> Cc: gerrymcgovernireland @.>; Mention @.> Subject: Re: [HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org] Sustainability 2022 (Issue #2910)
@cqueern https://github.com/cqueern @gerrymcgovernireland https://github.com/gerrymcgovernireland you've expressed an interest in a sustainability chapter before. This chapter could use coauthors, reviewers, and analysts if you still have the interest and time!
@ldevernay https://github.com/ldevernay has stepped up to author the chapter 🎉
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org/issues/2910#issuecomment-1098678347 , or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AQGRE3ZFULNGNUUXK3M5LE3VE6HVJANCNFSM5TMP2RQA . You are receiving this because you were mentioned. https://github.com/notifications/beacon/AQGRE37NPZDAONV53A2JD5TVE6HVJA5CNFSM5TMP2RQKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOIF6IASY.gif Message ID: @.*** @.***> >
This enthusiasm is awesome! I will look into the outline to offer some details today.
I'm really eager to work with you all!
Hi folks.
I'd be happy to contribute as a reviewer at least, given those timelines. I'll ask internally to see if there's anyone who might be able to contribute in other roles.
@cqueern @gerrymcgovernireland you've expressed an interest in a sustainability chapter before. This chapter could use coauthors, reviewers, and analysts if you still have the interest and time!
I'd love to support as a Reviewer. Thanks. Looking forward to working with everyone.
In my opinion, the point would be to start with insights on the environmental footprint of digital then focus on sustainability applied to websites. Which tools to use to monitor/measure, where to find best practices (and how to prioritize them). Based on this, analysis of the main proxy metrics for environmental impacts : page weight and number of request (most often use to calculate environmental indicators through various models), explore how to use proxy metrics (such as Core Web Vitals) and finally which other metrics could used to check on sustainability best practices (image format, inclusion of third-party, minification, compression, cache, lazy-loading, etc).
The idea would also be to highlight the links to other topics (Performance, Accessibility, Privacy, etc) and briefly explain how to go further (design reviews, measuring other metrics, setting an environmental budget, etc).
Also : state of the art regarding repositories of best practices and tools to calculate the environmental impact (and where to go from here).
These are all great points to cover. Some possible added suggestions:
- If there was some way we could identify page ‘waste’ that could be useful. This might include unused CSS, JS, poor coding that is slowing things down and thus wasting energy, poorly optimized images, etc. We could give good tips on reducing such waste.
- In the analysis I’ve been doing, over 90% of the energy impacts are either in the creation of the page or during its use. In popular sites, the vast majority of energy occurs during the page use.
- There have been interesting studies on the energy impact of various computer languages, with JavaScript being found to be 4.5 times more energy intense than C, for example. I wonder might there be a way to create and energy hierarchy for JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. In this way we could guide designers and developers to use the least energy intense option if given a choice. I wonder are there ways to identify design elements that are typically done in JS, for example, that could be done in, say, CSS
- This is probably out of scope, but typically 80% of CO2 and other negative impacts are caused during the manufacture of the digital devices and network architecture. I think if we wanted to deliver a true and total figure of the environmental impact of the Web, we should consider some accounting for the devices.
Tim Frick of Mightybytes and Tom Greenwood of Wholegrain Digital are two people who huge pioneering work in this space. Perhaps it would be worth reaching out to them.
From: LaurentDev @.> Sent: Thursday 14 April 2022 15:27 To: HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org @.> Cc: gerrymcgovernireland @.>; Mention @.> Subject: Re: [HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org] Sustainability 2022 (Issue #2910)
In my opinion, the point would be to start with insights on the environmental footprint of digital then focus on sustainability applied to websites. Which tools to use to monitor/measure, where to find best practices (and how to prioritize them). Based on this, analysis of the main proxy metrics for environmental impacts : page weight and number of request (most often use to calculate environmental indicators through various models), explore how to use proxy metrics (such as Core Web Vitals) and finally which other metrics could used to check on sustainability best practices (image format, inclusion of third-party, minification, compression, cache, lazy-loading, etc).
The idea would also be to highlight the links to other topics (Performance, Accessibility, Privacy, etc) and briefly explain how to go further (design reviews, measuring other metrics, setting an environmental budget, etc).
Also : state of the art regarding repositories of best practices and tools to calculate the environmental impact (and where to go from here).
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org/issues/2910#issuecomment-1099243158 , or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AQGRE3Y652DV7FUFNV4Q2CTVFATKHANCNFSM5TMP2RQA . You are receiving this because you were mentioned. https://github.com/notifications/beacon/AQGRE36HBI5F7TM65UN3LJ3VFATKHA5CNFSM5TMP2RQKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOIGCR5FQ.gif Message ID: @.*** @.***> >
Great points @gerrymcgovernireland ! Here is the complete outline :
Introduction Environmental impact of digital Understanding the impact Main figures, resources Studies : https://www.greenit.fr/environmental-footprint-of-the-digital-world/ https://www.greenit.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/EU-Study-LCA-7-DEC-EN.pdf
Most of the impact comes from user devices, mostly because their fabrication is very impactful. What we can do about that is to reduce the impact of digital services (and change the way we think about digital as being immaterial and environmentally friendly by default). Bonus : Insights from Gerry McGovern (World Wide Waste)
Evaluating the environmental impact of websites Tools (EcoIndex, website carbon, etc) : https://marmelab.com/blog/2022/04/05/greenframe-compare.html => Understanding the choice of metrics + what’s to expect from tools in the coming years
Reducing the impact Coupling best practices and measuring (via tools). Repository of best practices (115 best practices, INR, etc). Books and websites (sustainablewebdesign.org, etc)
Analysis by Metrics Monitoring the impact Page Weight Number of requests (and their distribution)
Checking for the usage of sustainability best practices on the web Cache Image Optimization => Lazy-loading, responsiveness, format, quality JS/CSS :Compression/minification, Unused code Video : preload, etc. Animations? "Those pages people will never open"? Third parties Bonus : web performance VS sustainability. Where they meet, where they differ Conclusion
This covers most of your points, I think.
On best practices, we should add "limit/avoid animations" with a focus on avoiding JS in favor of CSS for "essential" animations.
I sent a message to Tom yesterday and another to Tim this morning, hope they will have some time for this!
On the impact being mostly on devices, I totally agree and that's what the studies mentioned on my previous comments illustrate. This is why, in the company where I currently work, we also gather metrics on real devices. On smartphones, this is a good way to measure the depletion of the battery, which allows us, through an environmental model, to evaluate the global environmental impact of a digital service and the share that is due to device manufacturing. As of today, this is still (unfortunately) a proprietary methodology and model. More details here : https://greenspector.com/en/environmental-footprint-methodology/
Hi All,
Just getting caught up here. Look forward to collaborating with you all. Per some of the points brought up earlier in this thread:
For the Sustainable Web Design model, we based our consumer device use numbers mostly on the Andrae study, which estimates that at 52% of the system with repeat visitors using 25% and loading 2% of data: https://sustainablewebdesign.org/calculating-digital-emissions/
I believe this is reflected in the Green Web Foundation's CO2.js as well, correct @mrchrisadams?
Per @gerrymcgovernireland's suggestion to tag waste, we're doing this in the new version of Ecograder by identifying how much of a page's emissions impact is due to uncompressed images, unused code, animations, etc. Happy to discuss details if anyone's interested. Our goal is to launch that a week from today, though work on this will be ongoing.
@timfrick : great to have you onboard!
This new feature from Ecograder sounds awesome! I would love to have more info on this.
I somehow missed the article on calculating digital emissions, I will read this.
Dear contributors, here is the document containing the outline (WIP) : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g1ACWRTAzTlcaKKODNASLkXe4zquF-XR5oHh0GfayP8/edit#heading=h.orr5h1m9v3cm You should request edit access since we will be working on this document to write this chapter.
Hello All.
Most of the impact comes from user devices, mostly because their fabrication is very impactful.
Are we suggesting an analysis and discussion of the sustainability or environmental impacts of hardware used to browse the web? I don't believe that would be in scope as the Archive focuses on how websites are built. We don't collect and have data about the fabrication of user devices (or even user agent data) for us to comment on.
But perhaps I misunderstand your suggestion.
This should not be the aim of the analysis (other studies do that pretty well) but we should keep this fact in mind because it is a huge part of the reason why digital services should be as sustainable as possible.
The reasoning here is :
- Most of the environmental impact of digital comes from manufacturing our devices
- This gets worse because people around the world own lots of devices and change them too often
- Why do we change our devices? Most of the time, because they lag
- How do we prevent that? By making digital service more sober and efficient => sustainability
This makes Web Almanac the best place to study if websites today are sustainable and show how to reduce their environmental impact with sobriety and efficiency considerations.
That’s great to hear about the messages to Tom and Tim
Sounds fascinating that you’re gathering this data on the devices. I read the article from your link. It’s very impressive. I know Caleb has pointed out correctly that the device is out of scope for this project, but I would love to chat with you more about it as a side conversation, if you had time.
From: LaurentDev @.> Sent: Friday 15 April 2022 08:30 To: HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org @.> Cc: gerrymcgovernireland @.>; Mention @.> Subject: Re: [HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org] Sustainability 2022 (Issue #2910)
I sent a message to Tom yesterday and another to Tim this morning, hope they will have some time for this!
On the impact being mostly on devices, I totally agree and that's what the studies mentioned on my previous comments illustrate. This is why, in the company where I currently work, we also gather metrics on real devices. On smartphones, this is a good way to measure the depletion of the battery, which allows us, through an environmental model, to evaluate the global environmental impact of a digital service and the share that is due to device manufacturing. As of today, this is still (unfortunately) a proprietary methodology and model. More details here : https://greenspector.com/en/environmental-footprint-methodology/
— Reply to this email directly, https://github.com/HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org/issues/2910#issuecomment-1099928218 view it on GitHub, or https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AQGRE36R7X7GXA2JECDEEL3VFELI3ANCNFSM5TMP2RQA unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you were mentioned. https://github.com/notifications/beacon/AQGRE36AIBGY3JI35EQ4ADLVFELI3A5CNFSM5TMP2RQKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOIGHZFGQ.gif Message ID: < @.> @.>
These are good contextual points. I think we can note that heavier and more processing intense pages often contribute to forcing people to upgrade their devices sooner than they would if the pages were lighter and less processing intense. I think this would be good context, without having to go into any research or analysis of specific device impacts.
From: LaurentDev @.> Sent: Friday 15 April 2022 14:50 To: HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org @.> Cc: gerrymcgovernireland @.>; Mention @.> Subject: Re: [HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org] Sustainability 2022 (Issue #2910)
This should not be the aim of the analysis (other studies do that pretty well) but we should keep this fact in mind because it is a huge part of the reason why digital services should be as sustainable as possible.
The reasoning here is :
- Most of the environmental impact of digital comes from manufacturing our devices
- This gets worse because people around the world own lots of devices and change them too often
- Why do we change our devices? Most of the time, because they lag
- How do we prevent that? By making digital service more sober and efficient => sustainability
This makes Web Almanac the best place to study if websites today are sustainable and show how to reduce their environmental impact with sobriety and efficiency considerations.
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org/issues/2910#issuecomment-1100121483 , or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AQGRE32FW5GVRGSTDNUCOOTVFFXYFANCNFSM5TMP2RQA . You are receiving this because you were mentioned. https://github.com/notifications/beacon/AQGRE32NV5K4W63H36AR6I3VFFXYFA5CNFSM5TMP2RQKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOIGJILCY.gif Message ID: @.*** @.***> >
Great to see you involved, Tim!
And it would be great to hear more about how you’re identify page waste
From: LaurentDev @.> Sent: Friday 15 April 2022 13:24 To: HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org @.> Cc: gerrymcgovernireland @.>; Mention @.> Subject: Re: [HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org] Sustainability 2022 (Issue #2910)
@timfrick https://github.com/timfrick : great to have you onboard!
This new feature from Ecograder sounds awesome! I would love to have more info on this.
I somehow missed the article on calculating digital emissions, I will read this.
— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/HTTPArchive/almanac.httparchive.org/issues/2910#issuecomment-1100074261 , or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AQGRE37CWTKWZ5BPB3YMRHDVFFNUHANCNFSM5TMP2RQA . You are receiving this because you were mentioned. https://github.com/notifications/beacon/AQGRE3354FTK2DWANURAFMDVFFNUHA5CNFSM5TMP2RQKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOIGI42FI.gif Message ID: @.*** @.***> >
For the Analysis by Metrics section of this chapter, I feel we could also look at aligning with the CMS, eCommerce, and Jamstack chapters to examine how the different (top??) platforms in those categories perform in terms of sustainability. Could look at median size of pages, and also hosting options (can self-host? does managed hosting use known green web hosts?).
FYI we've created a #web-almanac-sustainability channel on Slack if you'd like a higher bandwidth place to brainstorm content.
I'd also encourage everyone to request edit access to the planning doc and iterate on the chapter outline there.
This should not be the aim of the analysis (other studies do that pretty well) but we should keep this fact in mind because it is a huge part of the reason why digital services should be as sustainable as possible.
The reasoning here is :
- Most of the environmental impact of digital comes from manufacturing our devices
- This gets worse because people around the world own lots of devices and change them too often
- Why do we change our devices? Most of the time, because they lag
- How do we prevent that? By making digital service more sober and efficient => sustainability
This makes Web Almanac the best place to study if websites today are sustainable and show how to reduce their environmental impact with sobriety and efficiency considerations.
I think you are making some assumptions here that have no research to back them up. People don't always change devices because of lag. I think the regional factors and many other have an important role. So IMHO this assumption is just speculation.
Making your digital service, in our particular context here the web, more sober and efficient doesn't translate into improved sustainability.
I think we need a proper definition on what sober and efficient actually means. Or what do we mean exactly by sustainability.
@timfrick and the team behind https://sustainablewebdesign.org/calculating-digital-emissions/ are able to calculate a number based on volume of data over the wire. I think this is wrong.
If you build the most performant website with LH scores in 100s and under 2s load time for 3G connections doesn't mean that is sustainable.
Sustainability is the ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time. This is not just about CO2 emissions. It is about everything. You can be performant, but if each change to the digital service requires a full rewrite, that means is not sustainable. And so on, this can be applied to the entire life cycle of a digital service.
If we are to think about CO2 emission, because this is where most people look at when they think about sustainability, I think we are focusing on the wrong thing. As I mentioned above, data volume over the wire doesn't have a direct correlation with energy consumption.
A persons router uses more or less the same amount of energy under heavy traffic vs normal / idle. Even the Anders-Andrae study says that.
From 2020 the improvement of kWh/unit/year for devices is assumed 3% as in [10]. The difference is that Wi-Fi is added to the consumer devices section. Wi-Fi is overestimated in [3] as the Wi-Fi modems electric power use is actually rather independent of handled traffic
There is also a study from Cisco that reaches the same conclusion, volume of data is not a major factor in energy consumption.
There have been articles around how Netflix is killing the planet using the same metric of volume of data over the wire, that have been debunked .
@ldevernay As you said most of the environmental impact of digital comes from manufacturing our devices among many other things.
When thinking about the actual digital service, a website, the device screen is the biggest energy consumer. Which means in a simplistic way that there are only 2 ways to fix it, improve the energy consumption of those screens or keep your users away from them.
First can't happen in a "sustainable way" due to adoption and cost, the other it is in our hands to fix. And this is where web performance is critical. Make it fast and you are one step closer. But if your UX is poor you are negating your performance improvements, as the user spends more time using that digital service to fulfil a task. Fixing the UX also is not the end of the road as there are other factors in play.
Imagine if TikTok was a web app, highly optimised with an amazing web perf grade (images and videos compressed in an ideal world). Would we call that digital service sustainable for the environment (energy consumption to be more precise)? I would say not, because spending hours with your screen ON watching videos drains your battery and so on.
On the same note, if I have a poor performant web site, but all my users power their devices with solar, would you still consider it as performing poorly on a sustainability index? All studies done in the past, don't factor enough how energy production looks like in the future. And when they do they need to guess what will happen. For the first time, wind power eclipsed both coal and nuclear in the U.S for 1 day in March. In the UK is happening more often.
IMHO Sustainability should not be a chapter in itself for web almanc. Perhaps it can be included into various chapters in that particular context.
Another example where I think that volume of data over the wire is wrong
@gerrymcgovernireland posted this a while back https://twitter.com/gerrymcgovern/status/1494225017839697920
An analysis of top 1 million websites found 21 million tracking cookies belonging to 1200 companies. Every month, 197 trillion cookies move across this deceitful network, resulting in 11,442 monthly metric tonnes of CO2 emissions. Just cookie CO2. https://carbolytics.org
The assumption here is that if those tracking cookies disappear overnight 11442 metric tonnes of CO2 emission would be gone. This is unrealistic considering the devices that were moving those cookies behind the scenes will still be using the same amount of energy because as it was said before electric power use is actually rather independent of handled traffic.
@radum, I appreciate reading your perspective. As you noted, it's about everything. That's one of the reasons we included Business Operations and Client & Project Ethos as categories on the Sustainable Web Design site. That doesn't encompass everything, but it's a start.
Also, we noted on the Calculating Digital Emissions post you referenced that there is not yet broad scientific consensus on the kWh/GB approach. We're definitely open to other ways to consider this. The information in that post is based on the most recent studies we could find. We're also updating it as new publicly available information comes out. If it turns out that a different approach reaches broader consensus, we're more than happy to change it.
With that being said, The Green Web Foundation's CO2.js is an attempt to standardize estimates using this approach, even if they are imperfect. Tools like Ecograder, Website Carbon, and EcoPing are all using it moving forward so that if people run a URL through each tool, there's at least consistency in the results. You have to start somewhere...and, given the ticking clock, sooner rather than later is better.
From my perspective, the majority of our clients (those who hire us to build websites and digital products) don't even know that this is a thing. Anything we can do to broaden their awareness of this topic—while also reducing emissions and improving a lot of websites in the process—is good. Tools like those mentioned above can help with this, even if they need to be revised or otherwise updated moving forward.
@timfrick Thank you for your reply. I totally understand from where you are coming from in terms of clients and awareness. My main concern is that we are rushing to quantify something that is not possible to quantify, at least for now. And this becomes a marketing tool.
I have met companies and clients that want to be more sustainable with their web presence and ask for help to stick a label. In order to show improvement the tools you mentioned are starting to be more and more mainstream in showing progression, even though the reality could be quite different.
Same goes for CrUX data, I have seen people improving their CWV and validating the work with CrUX, but the reality in the field was quite different as CrUX doesn't reflect ones entire user base.
I understand the need of doing something rather than nothing, but I think this way is not it and will be hard to turn around later when something better appears. And lets be honest, quantifying CO2 emissions and energy consumption for websites is a very hard problem so I am not seeing a solution in the near or distant future. There are way too many variables in play here.
I love how https://www.sustainablewebmanifesto.com/ and part of https://sustainablewebdesign.org/ explain how the sustainable web should be. But the need to add a KPI to it IMHO negates the main goal. The calculators will be taken at face value and the core will be lost in translation. I think it is our duty to educate first that sustainability is not a score from 1 to 100.
I have helped clients with poor results in the tools we mention here to create a design system for their websites and that unlocked a whole new world of possibilities, where the entire process of creating new content didn't need to use loads of systems again and again but composition and reusability fixed that. I can argue that in a way they are more sustainable now.
Web performance (with everything that we can quantify for it) is about accessibility, what we can do to make a digital product accessible for everyone (low end devices, poor network conditions, small screens, small data plans, etc) not about CO2 emissions. We improve images size, page speed, page weight and all that to make it more accessible not more sustainable (especially around energy usage).
Thinking also about data transmission and energy consumption of the equipment that is used for transmission you can say (following the assumptions in the kWh/GB approach) that the more data comes in the more energy will be used and poses a critical problem for the entire infrastructure. But devices that need that infrastructure are coming online at almost an exponential rate and the network still holds. Cell towers are built for coverage and not for capacity and so on.
Just hack a kickoff meeting with @ldevernay. One idea that came up was to look into installing the Sustainability plugin for Lighthouse in HTTP Archive. Need to look into what stats that plugin unlocks and whether we're able to derive them from the metadata we already have, and any overhead it would add to the crawl.
cc @pmeenan @tunetheweb FYI
@radum : thanks for this insight. Regarding the fact that lagging often leads to buying a new device, I in fact don't have scientific studies or stats but this is based on the fact that digital services are getting bigger and bigger. https://www.greenit.fr/2010/05/24/logiciel-la-cle-de-l-obsolescence-programmee-du-materiel-informatique/ https://tonsky.me/blog/disenchantment/
Hence Wirth's Law : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law
As of today, heavy website have an impact on the devices. You should not look only at the page weight but also HTTP requests, battery discharge speed, CPU consumption and so on. The battery alone is a great indicator because heavy websites (not only in size but also in scrolling, animations and such) deplete the battery quickly. The more you charge a battery, the more capacity it loses, which is a nuisance for most users and leading them to change said battery (best case scenario) or changing the device.
As you said, you can't estimate only CO2 because it could lead to some rebound effect (Jevons Paradox) and you should keep in mind that it is really tough (and, as of today, impossible) to map all environmental impacts. Only LCAs can do something almost exhaustive. But you can rely on emission factors from said LCAs and other studies to build an environmental model which results in multiple factors (such as water consumption, field occupation, metal consumption, etc). The priority is to set a group of proxies and standards and make sure everyone talks about the same thing so that calculations for different websites, from different persons, remain comparable. That's why there is an AFNOR norm planned to be released tomorrow and a W3C working group being created. This is also the reason why you need to combine best practices (with resources, priorities and enough info to prioritize them) and measurements (to make sure you're going in the right direction). Which often goes with monitoring and establishing an environmental budget.
I don't think you should distinguish performance / accessibility and sustainability.
In my opinion, Sustainability is a whole set of domains that intersect to design digital services in order not to harm people and the planet. You get benefits in accessibility from performance and sustainability. You also get benefits for sustainability from accessibility (making the user journey smoother results on less time spent on the website, for example). But you should also consider privacy (cookies, analytics, trackers and such have an environmental impact), security, the attention economy (dark patterns have an impact on environment but also often on performance and privacy) and ethics.
For a more precise definition, sustainability focuses on designing digital services that are both sober (focused on user needs, not abusing their attention or cognition) and efficient (this is where sustainability intersects with performance, even if both domains disagree on some topics).
@gerrymcgovernireland : I'm sending you an email, thanks!
@rviscomi : I think you should check on @mrchrisadams for more info on this plugin.
Hi there,
really interested in giving a hand but not sure where to start nor if my technical background and English level best fit Reviewer or Editor role.
I see no Editor has been designated yet, let me know if you'd like me to fill in the blank :)
