Building for Sustainability with WordPress

The web has a dirty secret. Its carbon footprint is larger than that of global air travel. And the immense energy consumed by the Internet from non-renewable sources makes it the largest coal-fired machine on earth. For the first time, Mozilla’s 2018 Internet Health Report highlighted this growing problem, and stated that sustainability should be a bigger priority for the industry.

This talk will go into the full gory details on the extent to which WordPress can be optimised to deliver content as efficiently as possible, with principles that are applicable to web development more broadly.

 Jack works as an engineer on the WordPress.com VIP team. He has spent many years working on and experimenting with front-end design. In his most recent work he has been investigating the relationship between the web and sustainability. Last summer he wrote Delivering WordPress in 7KB for CSS-Tricks about his project SustyWP.com, an experimental theme that seeks to be as lean as a WordPress theme can be. In 2017 Jack stood as a parliamentary candidate for the Green Party of England and Wales.