Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) 1.0

As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative. The main normative content of WSG 1.0 is composed of guidelines and success criteria, which define requirements that impact conformance claims. Non-normative material provides advisory information to help interpret the guidelines, but does not create requirements that impact a conformance claim.

This section lists requirements for conformance to WSG 1.0. It also provides information about how to make conformance claims, which are optional.

The WSG's approach to conformance differs from WCAG in that in preference to having conformance levels, these guidelines are robustly built so that they can be implemented over time, in a non-specific order, and each will provide some measurable sustainability benefit. As such, conformance is measured upon the implementation of each guideline (and its success criteria being met) across the whole website or product.

Although total conformance can technically be achieved by meeting every guideline within the specification, not every website or product, as a general policy, will likely be able to satisfy all Success Criteria. In such situations, it is not recommended that authors prioritize conformance over other important website features.

Conformance claims are not required. Authors can conform to WSG 1.0 without making a claim. If a conformance claim is made, then the conformance claim must include the following information:

1. Date of the claim.
2. Guidelines title, version, and URI "Web Sustainability Guidelines 1.0 at https://w3c.github.io/sustyweb/".
3. Conformance: A concise description of Sustainability commitments and list of the guidelines adhered to.
4. Other: In addition to the required components of a conformance claim above, provide additional information to assist visitor's such as additional steps taken (beyond the specification) to improve sustainability or statistics (metrics) that show the effect of changes which have already been made.

The WSG 1.0 document is designed to meet the needs of those who need a stable, referenceable technical specification. Other documents, called supporting documents, are based on this document and address other important purposes, including providing further techniques regarding implementation strategies, guiding authors through the guidelines which apply to their use-case, and how WSG 1.0 would be applied to new technologies.

WSG 1.0 meets a set of requirements for WSG 1.0 which, in turn, inherit requirements from any prior versions. Requirements structure the overall framework of guidelines and ensure backwards compatibility. The Community Group also used a less formal set of acceptance criteria for success criteria which is based around evidence supported practices grouped by their impact and implementation upon the Web ecosystem. This allows for further expansion in future versions while maintaining a strict grouping of related (and overlapping) guidelines.

WSG 1.0 was initiated with the goal of improving Web Sustainability guidance. As no prior version exists, the initial draft was created through initial Community Group meetings, proposals (laid out in meeting minutes), and early draft guidelines were drawn up and refined, leading to the guidelines included in this version. The Community Group considers that WSG 1.0 incrementally advances Web Sustainability in numerous areas, but underscores that not all potential environmental improvements are met by these guidelines.