# Align sustainability practices with industry guidelines

This principle in the sustainability pillar of the
[Google Cloud Well-Architected Framework](https://docs.cloud.google.com/architecture/framework/sustainability)
provides an overview of industry guidelines and frameworks with which you should
align your sustainability efforts.

## Principle overview

To ensure that your sustainability initiatives are built upon a foundation of
globally recognized methods for measurement, reporting, and verification, we
recommend that you align your initiatives with the following industry
guidelines:

- [W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines](https://docs.cloud.google.com/architecture/framework/sustainability/industry-guidelines#ws-guidelines)
- [Green Software Foundation](https://docs.cloud.google.com/architecture/framework/sustainability/industry-guidelines#gsg-guidelines)
- [Greenhouse Gas Protocol](https://docs.cloud.google.com/architecture/framework/sustainability/industry-guidelines#ghg-protocol)

When you align your sustainability initiatives with these shared external
guidelines, your initiatives get the credibility and auditability that
investors, regulatory bodies, and other external stakeholders demand. You also
foster accountability across engineering teams, embed sustainability within
employee training, and successfully integrate cloud operations into
enterprise-wide commitments for environmental, social, and governance
(ESG) reporting.

## W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines

[W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG)](https://www.w3.org/TR/web-sustainability-guidelines/)
is an emerging framework of best practices developed by a W3C working group to
address the environmental impact of digital products and services. The
guidelines cover the entire lifecycle of a digital solution including business
and product strategy, user experience (UX) design, web development, hosting,
infrastructure, and systems. The core goal of WSG is to enable developers and
architects to build websites and web applications that are more energy-efficient
and that reduce network traffic, client-side processing, and server-side
resource consumption. These guidelines serve a critical reference point for
aligning application-level sustainability with cloud-level architectural
decisions.

## Green Software Foundation

The
[Green Software Foundation (GSF)](https://greensoftware.foundation/)
focuses on building an industry ecosystem around sustainable software. Its
mission is to drive the creation of software that's designed, built, and
operated to minimize the carbon footprint. The GSF developed the Software Carbon
Intensity (SCI) specification, which provides a common standard for measuring
the rate of carbon emissions of any piece of software. Alignment with the GSF
helps developers connect an application's efficiency directly to the carbon
impact of the cloud environment.

## Greenhouse Gas Protocol

The
[Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol](https://ghgprotocol.org/)
is a widely used set of standards for measuring, managing, and publicly
reporting greenhouse gas emissions. The protocol was developed through a
partnership between the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business
Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). The GHG protocol provides the
essential framework for corporate climate accounting. The
Carbon Footprint report provides data for
[emission scopes](https://docs.cloud.google.com/carbon-footprint/docs/methodology#boundaries)
that are relevant to cloud usage. For more information, see
[Carbon Footprint reporting methodology](https://docs.cloud.google.com/carbon-footprint/docs/methodology).

Adherence to the GHG Protocol helps to ensure that your sustainability
initiatives have credibility and that external parties can audit your carbon
emissions data. You also help prevent the perception of
[greenwashing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing)
and satisfy the due-diligence requirements of your investors, regulators, and
external stakeholders. Verified and audited data helps your organization prove
accountability and build trust in public-facing sustainability commitments.