“Today I learned that we have a sustainability team.Thank you for your effort in this area, looking at results of the team so far, and the ROI of time invested, it's probably a good time to officially dissolve the team entirely”. 

In 3 sentences, almost 3 years of work from the WordPress Sustainability Group vanished and their Slack channel archived on the spot. To get clarity on what happened at WordPress and to understand what a WordPress practitioner can do to reduce the environmental footprint of her digital services, Gaël Duez welcomes 3 of the 4 founders of the original sustainability team: Csaba Varszegi, Nahuai Badiola, and Nora Ferreiros. 

In their much more nuanced exchange that could have been expected due to the current situation, they covered many topics including: 

   👏 The power of applause to kick start a sustainability team

   🔧 How changing HTTPS check made WordPress save 471 kWh / month

   🌱 The importance of having sustainability tools as close as possible to software practitioners tools

   🏛️ The subtle art of creating a foundation while keeping control over it via intellectual property  

   🎁 How to “enforce” contribution in an open source community

   And much more!

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Csaba (00:00 )
So I was thinking to myself, I can try to do things on my own, but what is the impact of those things? So if we could contribute at a higher level, let's say, at WordPress level, that could have a lot larger impact

Gaël Duez (00:15 )
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Green IO. I'm Gaël Duez, and in this podcast, we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the full transcript, are in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform and, of course, on the website greenio.tech.

Today, I learned that we have a sustainability team. Thank you for your effort in this area. Looking at results of the team so far and the return on investment of time invested, it's probably a good time to officially dissolve the team entirely. In three sentences, almost three years of work from the WordPress Sustainability Group vanished and their Slack channel was archived on the spot. It reminds me of the Elon Musk style when he arrived at Twitter, except that WordPress CMS still powers almost 40 % of all the websites around the globe, with many being heavy traffic websites. And with heavy traffic comes significant environmental impacts. So to get clarity on what happened at WordPress and to understand what a WordPress practitioner can do to reduce the environmental footprint of digital services now that the sustainability team is gone, I'm glad to welcome today three people who are active members of the WordPress community, especially on sustainability topics. Actually, they were part of the four founders of the original sustainability team.

Csaba is a sustainable web designer based in Antwerp, Belgium. Nahuai is a freelance WordPress developer, theme and plugin creator. And Nora Ferreiros is a freelance UX UI designer.

and both Nahuai and Nora are based in Barcelona. So welcome Csaba, Nahuai and Nora. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.

Nahuai (02:49 )
Hello.

Nora (02:49 )
Thank you.

Csaba (02:50 )
Hello, hi.

Nora (02:51 )
Thank you for

Nahuai (02:51 )
Yeah, thanks for having us.

Csaba (02:52 )
Hi, hello.

Gaël Duez (02:53 )
You're

more than welcome. So maybe before we start, could each of you share what is the main fact or figure that leads you to care about sustainability as a WordPress practitioner?

Nora (03:09 )
Well, actually, Nahuai is the person who led me to care about sustainability in WordPress and in the details sustainability and life in general,

Nahuai (03:20 )
That was super nice to hear, Nora. In my case, the eye-opening moment was a lightning talk by Roberto Vázquez in a work camp that just putting together the energy consumed by data centers and the environmental impact. It's pretty straightforward, but it was the first time that I it was like, okay, this makes sense.

Gaël Duez (03:22 )
Now you have to deal with this.

Nora (03:24 )
It's true.

Nahuai (03:48 )
and I started to go down the rabbit hole. And short after that, I started to talk with Hannah Smith, who has been a key person in my sustainability journey. And yeah, pretty much in that point, I started to research and start giving talks about it. And yeah, probably.

Nora (04:06 )
Yeah, have to say that I was in this talk also, but for me it was later. Nahuai was the one that said to me, look at this, sustainability is important, but I also was in this talk and it was important to me to think about internet consumes energy.

Csaba (04:23 )
For me, it's a bit similar, just like you mentioned, and as you mentioned in the intro, like WordPress having a large market share. So I was thinking to myself, I can try to do things on my own, but what is the impact of those things? So if we could contribute at a higher level, let's say, at WordPress level, that could have a lot larger impact and maybe a lot more interesting for other people to...

profit from as well.

Gaël Duez (04:50 )
you're right, Shaba, that WordPress is just huge in terms of CMS share and I was delighted to hear about the creation of a sustainability team at WordPress. I've heard, but maybe I'm wrong, that it all started at a WordPress convention with Nora speaking up on these aspects, but maybe I'm completely wrong. Could you enlighten me a bit on this?

Nora (05:16 )
Yeah, it was kind of this way and honestly it was kind of around the situation, it wasn't something planned because it all started at the WordCamp Europe in 2022. This is the annual big WordPress event in Europe and it was also my first international event and I was super excited and nervous because I was about to spend...

four whole people who I only could communicate in English. I'm in Spanish, so you can imagine it is a little tricky. So I was talking one day, I was talking with Rocio Valdivia. She's a lead of global WordPress community programs. I had to read this because I have not been able to remember it. So she...

Nahuai (05:49 )
you

Nora (06:03 )
blindly believing my newly acquired language skills. And she encouraged me to ask a question during this Q &A session with Matt Mullenberg and Joseph Heiden-Champonsy, who was the executive director of WordPress at the moment. So basically two of the most important people involved in the project at the time. And for some reason I said, yeah, sure, why not? But the thing is, as time passed,

I started to panic because I had no idea what to ask about. So I turned to Nahuai and I asked him for help and he rightly suggests sustainability as a topic. So with this in mind, I knew, I yeah, I knew if I ask a general question like, what about sustainability? I would just...

Nahuai (06:35 )
You

Gaël Duez (06:36 )
Ha ha ha ha.

Nora (06:56 )
get a polite non-committal a