W3C Establishes a Sustainable Web Interest Group

I have introduced topics related to sustainable web design and related trends several times, and this Column will be the latest installment. As noted in the November 4th W3C Blog post, Sustainable Web Interest Group is Formed, the Sustainable Web Interest Group has been established to develop the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) and related documents.

Within the W3C, three differing group types have been defined as platforms for creating web standards, guidelines and other supporting materials: they are Working Groups, Interest Groups, and Community and Business Groups. In a column I wrote last September, titled Guidelines for Implementing Sustainable Web Design – Now Available, I noted the following:

Depending on future developments, there's a possibility that the forum for formulation will be advanced from a Community Group to a Working Group, and that, in accordance with the standardization process, recommendations will be presented as official W3C guidelines.

Contrary to my above expectations, the reasoning behind commencing activities as an Interest Group rather than a Working Group is explained in Tantek Çelik, of the Mozilla Foundation, proposal titled "A SustyWeb IG would work better to publish a WSG Statement sooner".

Rather than a working group (WG), a Sustainable Web Interest Group (IG) with open participation would better enable the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) to have a larger impact sooner, with broader support.

In short, compared to a Working Group, an Interest Group allows for broader participation and a simpler, faster process for developing guidelines. Given the increasing urgency of environmental issues, this can be seen as a wise decision to enhance the effectiveness of the WSG as quickly as possible.

Given our plans at Mitsue-Links to adopt parts of the WSG as quality standards for development work, I promptly joined the Sustainable Web Interest Group. At the time of writing this article, including myself, the Group comprises 21 members - eight of whom are "Invited Experts."

Going forward, I plan to stay informed of Group discussions and actively participate in its activities. For detailed information about the Group's scope, activities, and how to get involved, please refer to the Sustainable Web Interest Group Charter. I encourage anyone interested to check it out.