https://www.w3.org/blog/2024/sustainable-web-interest-group-is-formed/
W3C is pleased to announce the formation of the Sustainable Web Interest Group. The mission of the Sustainable Web Interest Group is to improve digital sustainability so that the Web works better for all people and the planet. The digital industry is responsible for 2-5% of global emissions, more than the aviation industry. If the Internet were a country it would be one of the top five polluters. The amount of water, energy, and minerals required increases annually
An annual increase doesn't sound sustainable. Or it is, until it is not, and then doing more with less turns into doing less with less, just as America went nuts damming every river they could find, until that kinda sorta stopped, and now is kinda sorta tending more towards removing the damn things, manually or otherwise.
I guess the W3C saying things about sustainability is good, but will debloating the web take any sort of priority over, say, the profit motives of those who have been steering the steering committees? Or can we get rid of JavaScript and CSS animations already? (Probably not, and expect some to continue bloating their pages just as some continued to build dams that made no lick of sense.)
Of course the analogy breaks down on closer inspection; a rash of dams is nothing that hasn't been seen before, though humans probably went a bit beyond what the beavers and glaciers do, while these computer things are pretty new, and who knows where the sustainable zone is.