Latest Trends in Sustainable Web Design

My Column titled, "Sustainable Web Design", and the first on that theme, was published in January 2020. Less than three years have passed since then, and, in that time, I have written the following related Columns:

1. Initiatives Toward Achieving the SDGs and Web Design (October 2020)
2. Looking beyond the Great Reset (December 2020 (in Japanese))
3. The DX & SX Era (June 2021)
4. Web Quality in the Era of Sustainability Management (February 2022)

In addition, the theme featured on our Mitsue Tech Radio show #11 titled "Sustainable Web Design" that was initially broadcast in March 2021, and we have also held related seminars about once a year.

Relatively recently, there have been two developments regarding sustainable web design that I would like to share.

"Sustainability" Enters the Web Almanac

Since 2019, the HTTP Archive has published an annual report titled the Web Almanac. Based on a vast amount of statistical information, the interesting report on offers comprehensive insights into the state of the web.

The Web Almanac's 2022 Edition was recently released, and while the Accessibility -related section was introduced in our Accessibility Blog (in Japanese), what caught my personal attention was the addition of "Sustainability" to Part 3, "Content Publishing".

This theme has not been included in previous editions of the Web Almanac, however, its inclusion is logical, as it reflects a global society which continues to intensify its commitment to the SDGs and, by extension, to sustainability. Tim Frick, author of the book "Designing for Sustainability," was among the authors who compiled the section.

The section includes information on an environmental impact assessment based on the total amount of files that need to be loaded for a web page to be displayed, as well as a summary of various best practices for reducing the impact.

In Japan too, companies are becoming increasingly active in their efforts to meet the SDGs and address sustainability issues, so this Web Almanac is a must-read for those responsible for public relations, PR, and marketing who are using the web in their business activities. (Although the table of contents of the Web Almanac has been translated into Japanese, much of the content only remains available in English at this time......)

Companies that are working to align their business activities with the SDGs and sustainability initiatives naturally cannot afford to be unaware or indifferent to the environmental impact of their websites. As mentioned on our Sustainable Web Design Solution service page (in Japanese), reducing such environmental impacts can have a positive impact for both users and the business.

W3C's Sustainable Web Design Community Group Becoming More Active

In May of this year, I wrote an article, that was published in our Front-End Blog, on the movement to establish guidelines on sustainable web design. In relation to this, the W3C's Sustainable Web Design Community Group, which I mentioned in that article, has now become more active.

As far as I am aware, several meetings have been held this year, including one during TPAC in September, and a Sustainability Community Group Charter has been developed. The "Mission" of the Charter reads as follows:

This group will create guidelines, tools, and resources for web and digital professionals to incorporate environmental sustainability and related principles into their workflows and work practices. Our goal is to make the process of creating digital products more sustainable, while the use of digital products should also encourage better practices for users.

Recently, the Community Group's wiki has been rejuvenated, and the References page, which compiles related resources, is particularly impressive. At this time, the page appears to be written entirely in English. Still, for learning and understanding more about sustainable web design, the resources are more than ample.

Our Approach to Sustainable Web Design

In my first Column on sustainable web design, which I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I wrote the following:

In other words, the realization of sustainable web design is a culmination of our efforts to improve the quality of our products.

The following series of detailed articles, which, since last October, we have been publishing on our Web Quality Blog, may be of interest regarding our past efforts to improve the quality of our development work. Please note that all articles are in Japanese.

1. The Pursuit of Quality (Part 1) Web Standards Compliance
2. The Pursuit of Quality (Part 2) Diffusion of Web Standards Compliance
3. The Pursuit of Quality (Part 3) Accessibility Standards Compliance
4. The Pursuit of Quality (Part 4) Evolution of Standards and Diverse Accessibility Initiatives
5. The Pursuit of Quality (Part 5) Responsive Web Design
6. The Pursuit of Quality (Part 6) Verifiication of Responsive Web Design
7. The Pursuit of Quality (Part 7) Display Performance as an "Expected Quality"
8. The Pursuit of Quality (Part 8) Systematization of Display Performance Measurement

From 2023 onward, we intend to continue our existing efforts and strengthen our quality improvement initiatives thereby contributing to higher levels of economic, social, and environmental sustainability. In other words, we will standardize sustainable web design within our company, which will, naturally, play an important role in delivering on our SDG initiatives.

As part of our initiatives, as an important quality standard, we will also contemplate compliance with any future guidelines issued by the above-mentioned W3C's Sustainable Web Design Community Group. Going forward, as much as possible, I intend to participate in the activities of the Community Group.