Criteria to consider when deciding on whether digital products are sustainable.

Sustainability Criteria for digital products and services

Many product websites have a page dedicated to sustainability and ethics claims. Often these statements don't mean much in reality, since the claims aren't more than goals the companies hope to fulfil at some point.

We need to look into what they're actually doing and how they support environmental and social sustainability.

The six pillars of web sustainability

The Sustainable Web Manifesto has established six criteria for sustainable web development/design. Let's use these criteria for digital products in general by interpreting these criteria more broadly.

Clean

The services we provide and services we use will be powered by renewable energy.

Sustainable products should be powered by renewable energy. The Green Web Foundation provides a service that lets us check whether a domain is hosted on a server that runs on green energy. This service is not very harsh in its verdict. Often it's enough to have one of those sustainability claims on the server provider's website in order to be considered green.

Often a closer look is required.

Good Example - Search engine Ecosia runs on 100% renewable energyEcosia has two solar plants that produces twice as much energy as the service consumes. (This information has to be taken with a grain of salt, as the data centres Ecosia uses get their energy from the energy grid.)Source: Ecosia: Why “carbon neutral” is not enough: Ecosia has built its own solar plants

Bad Example - Microsoft offsetting its emissions with RECs.Big Tech in general and Microsoft in particular are offsetting their emissions by buying RECs. In my opinion, this is more of a "greenwashing" tool than a true commitment to net zero emissions. Source: Reuters: Big Tech offsetting AI-linked emissions leaves carbon credits in short supply

Efficient

The products and services we provide will use the least amount of energy and material resources possible.

Sustainable products should consume as little energy and resources as possible. That means no fancy but useless features are required. We don't need an AI chatbot loading by default. No self-loading videos unless we explicitly tell the service to do so.

Good Example - Ad-blocking Browsers like LibreWolf and Vivaldi without AI featuresVivaldi and LibreWolf dismiss the use of power- and data-hungry GenAI. And the built-in AdBlockers save energy too. Sources: LibreWolf Discussion: LibreWolf should delete all AI code, Vivaldi: Vivaldi takes a stand: keep browsing human

Bad Example - Google bloats its products with AI features.Google pushes AI features into most of its products. This has caused Google to silently remove its Carbon Neutrality Goals.Source: Android Police: Your browser is full of AI bloat, here's how to reclaim it, Toms Hardware: Google quietly removes net-zero carbon goal from website amid rapid power-hungry AI data centre buildout (2025)

Open

The products and services we provide will be accessible, allow for the open exchange of information, and allow users to control their data.

Sustainable products need to take accessibility seriously. That's not to be done by putting one of those accessibility overlays on a website, as you can read on overlayfactsheet.com/. Accessibility needs to be thought through from the ground up.

Compromised privacy is another concern that needs to be evaluated in this context. Especially when it comes to products from outside of the EU, where rules about personal data are less strict.

Ideally, a product's source code is Open-Source, so the code can be checked. We want to see zero-knowledge encryption of personal data. That way underlying companies can't even exploit data if they wanted to or if they are forced to by one of those hostile regimes that are a global trend nowadays.

Accessibility and inclusiveness should also be reflected in the company culture making sure minorities are welcomed, protected and integrated.

Good Example - Email provider Tuta is committed to privacyEmail provider Tuta has encrypted mailboxes by default and is not collecting your data.Source: Tuta: Same experience, better privacy.

Good Example - Privacy-focused CoMaps is fully open-source.Community driven navigation app CoMaps allows full examination of its source-code. They also have strict no-ads and no data-collection policies.Codeberg: CoMaps Source-Code

Bad Example - Google collects all your private dataGoogle is known for utilising all your private data to feed you with personalised ads. This data might also be used for more malicious acts. It could manipulate your political views or classify you as a political enemy.Source: Brookings: Google Search Privacy Risks (2025)

Bad Example - Apple is overly protective and tries to lock you in.Apple has filed countless law suites over intellectual property while building its products on Open-Source and stealing intellectual properties for...