Re: Ethical Web Principles

Hey gang

If you’re looking for nicely structured information about life cycle emissions, like use-phase versus production-phase, the data from Boavista is well structured, open and about as fun as playing with LCA figures gets right now.

Have a play below, with a few devices, and see how many years of use you might need for your use phase emissions from electricity to match the energy embodied in making it

https://dataviz.boavizta.org/ <https://dataviz.boavizta.org/>

Then switch the figure to somewhere like France, or Poland and see how the numbers change :D

Life extension, outside the lighthouse scoring cycle

This something you don’t have so much direct control over as a developer, especially in a sprint cycle, but it’s likely that one of the higher leverage actions in this field will be some boring policy actions like these ones mentioned below, which are entirely focused around the factors enabling the extension of device lifetime.

https://grist.org/technology/apple-just-launched-its-first-self-repair-program-other-tech-companies-are-about-to-follow/ <https://grist.org/technology/apple-just-launched-its-first-self-repair-program-other-tech-companies-are-about-to-follow/>

Microsoft and Apple are committed now allowing user servicing and repair of devices, partly down to clever use of shareholder resolutions to force action that otherwise wouldn’t happen - previously there was a lot of push back against these measures internally, but I know Microsoft has now commissioned research that supporting repair is likely to have a measurable impact.

The only certification I’m familiar with  that might be worth referring to is the Blue Engel one in Germany. They deliberately test on 5 year old hardware as part of the testing process to get a release of software certified.

https://www.blauer-engel.de/en/productworld/resources-and-energy-efficient-software-products <https://www.blauer-engel.de/en/productworld/resources-and-energy-efficient-software-products>

Other sources providing non-carbon info

Anyway, Boavista also have the nicest API on non-carbon data I have found so far as well - they report carbon and energy estimates for hardware, but they also report on Abiotic Depletion Potential (as in use of minerals, metals and non living resources). 

You can see the docs here:

https://api.boavizta.org/docs <https://api.boavizta.org/docs>

And this tutorial shows the numbers for running say a single Dell R740 server for year, with the default assumptions about what kinds of RAM, disks and the rest are added:

https://doc.api.boavizta.org/getting_started/single_server/ <https://doc.api.boavizta.org/getting_started/single_server/>





Chris Adams

Co-director

w: thegreenwebfoundation.org
e: chris@thegreenwebfoundation.org
t: @mrchrisadams

The Green Web Foundation
Van 't Hoffstraat 1
6706 KD Wageningen, The Netherlands 


> On 16. May 2022, at 11:45, Laurent Devernay <laurent.devernay@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> Tackling sustainability on the web is a wide topic. 
> Most of the impact comes from the manufacture of devices (study in PDF <https://www.greenit.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/GREENIT_EENM_summary_EN.pdf>) and as such, we should offer digital services that don't imply changing our devices too often (by being as efficient and sober as possible in addition to being accessible, secure, respecting the privacy of users, etc). 
> In order to achieve that we have repositories of best practices (like this one <https://gr491.isit-europe.org/en/>) but this is not enough. In order to prioritize and organize, we need measures and calculations. 
> Energy is a good thing to monitor, so are emissions. But we should check on other indicators like water consumption, depletion of resources, etc. You need to have enough indicators to avoid the rebound effect (Jevons paradox). We saw a lot of metrics on energy and CO2 emissions but in the near future, we should also have other indicators to ensure we're making the right decisions. For example, if you focus on CO2 emissions, nuclear energy looks like the way to go but there are other issues to consider like water stress, waste disposal and such. 
> The links sent by Chris are really relevant to start exploring these topics. 
> It should also be noted that it is essential to check how you communicate around these environmental aspects. There's a guide in french for that : PDF <https://antigreenwashing.ademe.fr/sites/default/files/docs/ADEME_GREENWASHING_GUIDE.pdf>. 
> 
> It is nonetheless great to see the W3C focus on this topic. This is something essential that, as of today, lacks norms and standards.
> See you soon,
> 
> 
> 
> Laurent. 
> 
> On Fri, May 13, 2022 at 1:10 PM Tom Greenwood <tom@wholegraindigital.com <mailto:tom@wholegraindigital.com>> wrote:
> Hi guys
> 
> This is very interesting. I agree with Alex that there is value in referring to energy as well as emissions. I've seen that the conversation around this in France, where they have a lot of nuclear energy, focusses very much on energy consumption as well as CO2 because "low carbon" in itself is only a part of the bigger picture and impact. All models for widespread decarbonisation have a big focus on the need for energy efficiency and reduction in energy consumption, not just a switch to low carbon energy generation, so I think energy consumption is important to have in the picture.
> 
> I'm not convinced by the anti-competitive argument, and I think in the context that we are working on establishing best practices and not rules, it would be hard to argue that energy efficiency is not a best practice.
> 
> 
>   
> Tom Greenwood  
> Managing Director  
> tom@wholegraindigital.com <mailto:tom@wholegraindigital.com>  
> 
>   
> Tel   0207 112 8240
> Website   www.wholegraindigital.com <https://www.wholegraindigital.com/>
> LinkedIn   www.linkedin.com/in/tomgreenwood/ <https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomgreenwood/>
> Read my book, Sustainable Web Design <https://abookapart.com/products/sustainable-web-design/>, from A Book Apart and check out our B Corp profile <https://bcorporation.net/directory/wholegrain-digital>.
> 
> 
> On Fri, May 13, 2022 at 11:57 AM Alexander Dawson <alex@hitechy.com <mailto:alex@hitechy.com>> wrote:
> Hi Chris,
> 
> Thanks for the links. While I agree emissions should be the central point of focus in relation to sustainability (with regards to climate impact on the Web) as it covers a wider range of variables, I do think there is perhaps something to mentioning energy use (perhaps as a by-product of emissions) in context for the very reason that most nations still produce a significant proportion of their electricity through non-sustainable sources (coal / gas) and thereby it has a trickle down impact in terms of sustainability. Which will ultimately have a energy footprint dependant on how resource intensive sites and apps (and their assets) are.
> 
> Alex
> From: Chris Adams <chris@thegreenwebfoundation.org <mailto:chris@thegreenwebfoundation.org>>
> Sent: 13 May 2022 11:41
> To: Alexander Dawson <alex@hitechy.com <mailto:alex@hitechy.com>>
> Cc: public-sustyweb@w3.org <mailto:public-sustyweb@w3.org> <public-sustyweb@w3.org <mailto:public-sustyweb@w3.org>>
> Subject: Re: Ethical Web Principles
>  
> Hi Alex. thanks for sharing this.
> 
> If you’re going to look refer to this, it’s worth being aware that there’s a whole discussion going on about the Sustainability principle, calling it anticompetitive for daring to refer to energy use, as well as a W3C session in 2019 from Tantek Celik.
> 
> https://github.com/w3ctag/ethical-web-principles/issues/ <https://github.com/w3ctag/ethical-web-principles/issues/>
> 
> A while back I raised this issue to tweak the language to refer to carbon specifically - at the time, I figured it was a way to talk about the thing we really care about - the harmful effects of the emissions rather than the energy use, as when we only look at efficiency/consumption as a lever, we miss all kinds of opportunities for improvement 
> 
> https://github.com/w3ctag/ethical-web-principles/issues/11 <https://github.com/w3ctag/ethical-web-principles/issues/11>
> 
> We cover this in more detail with this three levers model here:
> https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/news/three-levers-for-change-as-a-technologist-consumption-intensity-and-direction <https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/news/three-levers-for-change-as-a-technologist-consumption-intensity-and-direction>
> 
> There are obviously more issues to account for than just carbon, and we cover some of them in this report we released before:
> 
> https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/publications/report-fog-of-enactment/ <https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/publications/report-fog-of-enactment/>
> 
> There are all kinds equity related issues as well TBH, as well as non carbon related impacts to account for, and we’ve died into some of this here as well
> 
> https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/news/what-people-think-building-a-sustainable-internet-involves-vs-what-it-might-actually-be/ <https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/news/what-people-think-building-a-sustainable-internet-involves-vs-what-it-might-actually-be/>
> https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/news/who-pays-for-cleaner-energy-on-the-web/ <https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/news/who-pays-for-cleaner-energy-on-the-web/>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Chris Adams
> 
> Co-director
> 
> w: thegreenwebfoundation.org <http://thegreenwebfoundation.org/>
> e: chris@thegreenwebfoundation.org <mailto:chris@thegreenwebfoundation.org>
> t: @mrchrisadams
> 
> The Green Web Foundation
> Van 't Hoffstraat 1
> 6706 KD Wageningen, The Netherlands 
> 
> 
>> On 13. May 2022, at 01:36, Alexander Dawson <alex@hitechy.com <mailto:alex@hitechy.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Hey everyone,
>> 
>> I saw this interesting document on W3C TAG and thought it might be useful toward integration in any future recommendations we hope to make in the future. Especially 2.2 and 2.9 as it ties directly into our goals.
>> 
>> https://www.w3.org/TR/2022/DNOTE-ethical-web-principles-20220512/ <https://www.w3.org/TR/2022/DNOTE-ethical-web-principles-20220512/>
>> 
>> As it's a draft note I figured I'd post it now while they are still developing it.
>> 
>> Alexander
>