We’re in the midst of conference season, with many major digital platforms having their yearly gathering to discuss the future. I’ve been very pleased to read that many of these conferences featured digital sustainability as a topic. Even better, a number of companies have not only pledged changes, but have gone right ahead and established working groups to push forward these pledges.
WordPress, Drupal, and Wagtail are just a few large CMS platforms that now have dedicated digital sustainability working groups. Google, Microsoft, and AWS, major players in the cloud hosting space have them too. W3C and BIMA also have dedicated groups and channels for discussing the topic – both working towards settings industry standards.
There is still a way to go
However, there are still many major platforms across the spectrum of digital design and development that do not have these groups, or even talk about green initiatives. Config, Figma’s yearly conference, had nothing on the topic this year. Such an influential company and digital design platform should be talking about these issues. They should be doing their bit to help change things for the better. They shouldn’t just talk about how they are adding AI to the design process.
Join in and make a difference
Whether you are interested in being a part of the groups mentioned already, or setting one up within your company, I’d suggest joining groups such as Climate Action Tech, as well as checking out The Green Software Foundation and The Green Web Foundation as good starting points for learning and discussion.