Sustainability and accessibility for a responsible future

A conversation between designers on useful and responsible digital practices

Accessibility and sustainability are two key pillars of responsible digital design. With stricter laws and growing interest in sustainable practices, these fields offer exciting opportunities to reshape the industry.

I must admit, I didn’t know much about sustainability before speaking with Laïla Tamani (new window). Laïla is a freelance product designer specialising in sustainability and responsible digital practices. She also volunteers at Designers Éthiques (new window), a research-action association that promotes an ethical, sustainable, and empowering digital world.

The association defines sustainability as a continuous improvement approach that aims to reduce digital resource consumption, extending the lifespan of devices and limiting the need for new equipment.

During our conversation, Laïla described sustainability as an opportunity to align one’s career with personal values—something that can feel like a breath of fresh air for tech professionals often facing burnout. We also explored the broader role of sustainable design as a gateway to environmental awareness. While the digital sector does contribute to our environmental footprint, it isn’t the main culprit.

We discussed the high expectations placed on tech professionals, particularly women. Is sustainability yet another demand added to the list? And how can our tools and processes help us design more sustainably? Finally, Laïla shared her thoughts on the crucial role that design communities play in driving change and shifting mindsets.

Sustainability and accessibility: new opportunities

Is sustainability, like accessibility, an opportunity for designers?

At the moment, I feel there are more opportunities in accessibility—at least in the short term. There are more and more laws coming in. That said, you never know. In France, we’ve had accessibility laws for 20 years (new window), yet almost 98% of websites still don’t comply with regulations. The gap between the number of websites in France, the resources put into them, and the lack of compliance is enormous. So, there’s plenty of work to do.

That said, I’ve noticed some interest in sustainable design in certain training courses, much like with AI or cybersecurity. Over the past few months, I’ve seen a growing awareness among agencies and IT service companies, as well as clients who now include sustainable design in some tenders or projects. Short training courses are starting to appear, but they are still quite rare in digital or design schools.

If you want to specialise in design, do you have to choose between accessibility and sustainable design?

That’s a great question. I was also interested in accessibility, and I know the main design principles—colour contrast, navigation order, and so on. But I don’t have enough technical knowledge to carry out audits.

I got into sustainable design because I care about ecology. I have a better understanding of the environmental side, which resonates with me, including from a social and human perspective. It also felt like a slightly less intimidating topic. At the same time, the two areas complement each other. One doesn’t exclude the other.

How do you respond to the idea that accessibility and sustainability don’t always align?

I don’t think that argument holds up because the criteria in the RGESN (new window) align with those in the RGAA (new window). These frameworks guide us in keeping users at the centre of our work and addressing their needs.

For example, we should always question whether a piece of content is necessary, whether it’s an image or a video. In accessibility, there’s a strong focus on plain language. I think there’s a similar idea in sustainability—keeping things simple and to the point. We need less content, better structure, easy navigation, and fast loading times.

With a User Experience approach, we’re already doing sustainable design because we focus on user needs. It’s the three contexts of the concept of use (new window): useful, usable and used. They fully align with both sustainability and accessibility. That’s how we should be designing digital services.

What key aspects should designers consider to make their work more sustainable?

The main issues are videos, images, and animations. You need to use the right formats, the right display sizes, and always ask whether a particular media element is necessary for users. Just like in accessibility, where we consider whether images are decorative or not.

Take images and photos, for example, which usually account for the most data. In CSS, you can resize images artificially, but that doesn’t change their actual file size. I often see tiny avatar images that are actually 3000 or 4000 pixels wide. Simply resizing them before exporting (in pixels) can reduce their file size by up to ten times!

The number of colours can also make a difference, even though it’s not always visible. Dithering can create a nice visual effect while drastically reducing file size, as seen on Dalkia’s website (new window). There are websites (new window) and Figma plugins (new window) that make this compression easy.

Developers can cache images or ensure they are resized correctly based on screen size. Coordination across the whole team is crucial when it comes to sustainable design and accessibility.

Is it realistic to expect all digital professionals to be trained in sustainable design?

That’s a good question. I worked for France Télévisions, where the site hosts a huge number of images. The people uploading content don’t have time to manually compress or resize every single file. So the technical team put simple solutions in place to optimise the server and the way the site is developed.

Most people don’t know about these details, especially if they’re not developers, and that’s normal. But it has a huge impact. So our tools need to evolve too. They should be able to compress and resize images automatically without losing quality (new window).

It’s the same thing with semantics and heading structure. Checking the heading order shouldn’t be a hidden feature in the Content Management System. Errors are bound to happen, which is why safeguards are essential. We all make mistakes.

What are the benefits of specialising in sustainable design?

I feel like a lot of people burn out because they work on projects that don’t feel meaningful anymore. There’s so much focus on projects and Key Performance Indicators—always adding new things without taking a step back or considering quality.

Sustainability, like accessibility, gives you the sense that you’re working on something bigger than yourself or the product alone.

Another benefit is that sustainability helps users avoid changing their phone or computer too soon just because they get slower or can no longer support updates.

One of the key goals of sustainability is backwards compatibility. It’s about making digital services available on as many devices and operating systems as possible, even the older ones. That way, users can keep using their software and apps for longer instead of being forced to upgrade due to built-in obsolescence. It also helps bridge the digital divide, as people who can’t afford new devices can still access essential digital services.

This kind of thinking helps us focus on what really matters. Design has drifted towards business goals, where the priority is grabbing people’s attention—sometimes for the wrong reasons. Focusing on these issues allows us to question client demands. We need to understand why a new feature is being added. Sometimes, these discussions help take a step back. Who benefits from this? Why do we need it? Is it a response to real user feedback?

Sustainable methods: common misconceptions and realities

Many tools claim to measure digital carbon footprints, but how reliable are they?

I think they can be useful to raise awareness about the carbon footprint of a website. However, their accuracy is often challenges. No one really knows exactly how much CO₂ (or water consumption for example) is emitted—it all depends on your connection, device, and the country your server is in. Browsing on 4G can have up to 25 times more impact than using Wi-Fi. So, there's no way to calculate this with full accuracy. It reminds me of automated accessibility checkers—you can’t detect everything with them either.

These tools have the advantage of being simple and easy for the public to understand, but they shouldn’t be taken at face value. They can still be useful for comparison, for instance, after a redesign.

How do you approach a project with a sustainable design mindset?

Designers Éthiques has created a guide (new window) specifically to answer this question, listing 110 structured initiatives.

I think patience and perseverance are key. You need to find the right people who are willing to push the topic forward—sponsors who can support your efforts. Educating others is also essential.

I’ve noticed that a lot of people are genuinely interested in this topic. Climate change is a real concern, but many people feel lost. They don’t know what to do or where to start, so having guidance is important.

That’s why sustainability guidelines recommend having a dedicated person managing sustainability efforts in a team. Their role is to provide teams with the right tools and facilitate collaboration between departments—it helps keep things running smoothly. And of course, training is crucial. The basics of coding, HTML, CSS… None of this is really new, but these foundations need to be reinforced.

How did we end up here?

How did we get to a point where we have to relearn the basics of the web?

Over the past 30 years, computing power and network quality have grown exponentially (Moore’s Law new window). Designers now have almost no technical limits in terms of bandwidth or processing power. As a result, websites, software, and apps are getting bloated—while offering pretty much the same features! This is what we call "bloatware" (new window).

It’s the downside of technological progress. Everything moves so fast that we don’t make time to question whether what we’re building is actually necessary. In the past, when connections were slow and devices weren’t great, we had to be clever to make things work.

Now that those constraints are gone, it’s a free-for-all when it comes to features. Technical debt piles up, making systems more complex. Over time, all these extra layers of code turn things into a tangled mess. Sometimes, even changing a single button isn’t possible without breaking everything.

What can you do if sustainability isn’t on your company’s agenda?

If a Product Owner or another key decision-maker isn’t interested—because it’s not on their roadmap or they don’t want to make the effort—then sustainability will be blocked, just like accessibility often is. No matter how much energy you put into it, this isn’t something you can push forward alone.

However, you can still take action behind the scenes. Like accessibility, some best practices can be built into the design process. For example, choosing not to put a full-screen image or video on a homepage.

It’s also worth taking advantage of every small opportunity to raise awareness—whether it’s a quick chat over coffee or a conversation at lunch. You never know where it might lead, and I’m always surprised by how curious people are about these topics!

When I was at France Télévisions, we had a design guild, which was a great space for these discussions. Over time, I became known as someone with expertise in this area. That naturally drew in curious colleagues, and I took every chance to share what I knew. That’s often how it starts.

These topics bring people together. They cut across roles and levels. It’s the same thing with accessibility. It speaks to people’s values and appeals to their sense of justice. With these topics, you don’t need to work for an impact-driven company to feel like you’re contributing to something bigger.

When working on sustainable design, can you work with any client?

It’s a fair question—what’s the point of creating a sustainably designed website for a company that extracts fossil fuels, for example? But if everyone thinks that way, we end up only working with people who are already convinced. For me, sustainable design is a gateway to sustainability and transformation within companies. That’s really the goal—I see it as an entry point.

But let’s take a step back. There’s a tendency to place the entire responsibility for climate change on individuals (hello, eco-anxiety), when in reality, we live in a highly complex system.

And on a personal level, if we only work with people who already agree with us, we fall into the trap of intellectual silos and stagnation. We don’t know everything—we need exposure to diverse perspectives. What really matters, in my view, is changing the mindset of companies that aren’t yet aware, that don’t yet believe in it. Engaging with them can also challenge and enrich our own thinking.

And imagine if we manage to trigger a shift in one of these companies—one we never would have bet on. Can you see the impact that could have?

User numbers matter too. For example, apps from France Télévisions or Radio France reach millions of people. One video might not seem like much, but if it’s played 1,000 times, 10,000 times, or a million times, the impact adds up. Saving just 10 kilobytes per visit might seem tiny, but when multiplied by a million, it makes a real difference.

And we can influence our colleagues too. They might take up the cause themselves. If enough people do, we could reach a tipping point—leading to collective, even systemic, change.

A societal issue

Should we be wary of corporate greenwashing?

Yes, because even companies that claim to be impact-driven often lack consistency. Their services may promote sustainability, yet their websites and apps are far from being sustainably designed.

We also see calls for tenders where companies request expertise in sustainability or accessibility. But when you ask them why these topics matter to them, it often turns out to be more about marketing than a genuine commitment.

I've also seen companies talk about sustainability, positioning themselves as experts on the subject, while at the same time handing out tonnes of promotional freebies and flying to exotic company retreats. There’s a clear lack of coherence. But I remain hopeful that awareness is growing. And as employees, we can refuse to take part in these events to spark conversations.

So yes, greenwashing exists. But on the other hand, branding is a powerful tool. Even if it’s not entirely consistent, it still raises awareness among consumers. There’s a plant-based charcuterie brand that does this really well. Their packaging is playful, which people love. Every client they work with is exposed to this branding, making the topic more engaging. It’s eco-friendly, highly committed, and the branding is brilliant.

What’s the environmental impact of digital technology?

The digital sector is responsible for approximately 2.1% to 3.9% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (new window).

According to the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), as of 2023, France's carbon footprint amounted to 9.4 tons of CO2 equivalent per person (new window). Digital technology made up only about 5% of that impact when the study was conducted in 2021.

But its impact is constantly increasing (new window), especially with the rise of AI, which drives the creation of more data centres, new uses, and new devices. I believe the solutions and choices need to be collective—at the corporate and governmental levels.

Is sustainability an elitist concept?

It’s true that we can’t just talk to people any way we like. Take transport, for example—if you live outside major cities, you need a car to drive your kids to school, get to work, do the groceries. The individual car dependency creates a rebound effect. You can’t just tell people like me to get rid of their car and cycle everywhere. The road infrastructure isn’t built for it, and public transport is underdeveloped. This brings us back to collective and political responsibility. It’s easy for someone living in Paris, with all their privileges, to say that they don’t need a car.

It’s the same with digital technology. There are real-world factors linked to infrastructure and people’s resources:

• Not everyone has high-speed internet, whether wired or mobile, depending on where they live.
• Not everyone has a personal or up-to-date device.
• Not everyone has the digital skills to use online services—and surprisingly, this affects the entire population.
• And finally, digital services are far from accessible to Disabled people, which adds yet another barrier!

How to defend sustainability

Are there legal obligations for sustainable design?

Yes, sustainable design can be defended through legal frameworks. Several laws exist:

• The Anti-Waste for a Circular Economy Law (new window)
• The Law of 15 November 2021 (new window), which aims to reduce the environmental footprint of digital technology in France.
• The report on software obsolescence (new window) (Article 27 of the AGEC law), which recommends creating a "software sustainability directive."
• The Energy Transition Law for Green Growth (new window) (17 August 2015), which aims to improve product design by penalising planned obsolescence—deliberately shortening a product's lifespan—and experimenting with displaying product lifespan information.
• Article 2 (new window) of the Law to Reduce the Environmental Footprint of Digital Technology (REEN): From 2022, engineering courses must include modules on digital sustainability.
• Article 25 (new window) of the REEN Law: From 1 January 2024, ARCEP and ARCOM, in collaboration with ADEME, must define a general framework for the sustainability of digital services, now part of the French Postal and Electronic Communications Code.
• Article 35 (new window) of the REEN Law: Local authorities with over 50,000 residents must develop a strategy to reduce the impact of digital technology, including sustainable design for digital services.

Who does this apply to, and what are the consequences of non-compliance?

For now, it mainly concerns local authorities with more than 50,000 residents. They are required to create a roadmap outlining their digital sustainability strategy and ensure their designs follow RGESN recommendations. There is also a Responsible Digital Label, managed by the LUCIE agency.

We’re not yet at the stage of financial penalties or strict legal obligations. These are currently recommendations, laying the groundwork for future laws that will likely enforce them—much like what has happened with accessibility. Many hoped for significant changes in 2024, but given the political climate, it wasn’t prioritised. I recently learned that one of the reasons is to push the discussions at a European level, and avoid disadvantaging French designers.

What other arguments do you use to convince people?

The impact on the health of vulnerable populations

What personally moves me is the social impact. For instance, 85% of electronic waste ends up in illegal circuits or open-air dumps. The people responsible for sorting this waste are often poor, mostly in Africa, and have no protective equipment. They are made to melt materials in the open air without proper gear, leading to severe health consequences—especially for children and pregnant women.

This is why it’s so important not to buy new phones all the time. That’s where they end up, and 100% recycling doesn’t exist. However, this argument isn’t very effective with corporate executives.

The financial argument

Investing for sustainability can also be profitable, just like accessibility. A sustainable website performs better—loading faster and being more efficiently coded—which helps with SEO.

Improved accessibility

Sustainably designed websites can work on older devices and multiple operating systems, which enhances performance. Reaching more people also increases visibility. If your website is accessible even on a 3G connection, that can be a competitive advantage. For instance, in the metro with an unstable connection, a lightweight site or app will outperform a slower one.

Consumer demand

Consumers are increasingly drawn to sustainable initiatives. They prefer ethical, eco-friendly solutions, and we can see this reflected in both public and private tenders, where these criteria are appearing more and more.

One more challenge... one too many?

Is there a point where sustainability becomes too much?

We live in a world full of demands. Even more so as women. We’re expected to be kind, take care of children (if we have them), focus on education, look after others—and now, also save the planet.

Our mental health has limits. A recent report highlights the increasing mental load on women, whose responsibilities keep growing. Adding to that sustainability, zero waste, making our own cosmetics and cleaning products. It’s more pressure, more expectations, and sometimes, a lot of guilt.

I recently listened to a podcast about resilience and performance—where performance is a mix of efficiency and effectiveness. The goal is to achieve results with as few resources as possible. But there are unintended consequences. Increased efficiency doesn’t necessarily ease pressure on human or material resources—it often does the opposite. We’re experiencing a burnout crisis, both for people and the planet.

We can’t keep blaming individuals or consumers. This is a systemic issue. Sure, we can use bikes and turn off the tap while brushing our teeth. But that’s not the issue!

For me, sustainability gives a sense of control, but we must not fool ourselves into thinking we can solve everything by ourselves. The real impact comes from bringing people together, raising awareness, and giving them the tools and knowledge to act.

What’s the collective power of design communities?

As designers, we often operate in a competitive environment. Developers, on the other hand, have a strong culture of open-source collaboration, where they share their work. That’s far less common in design—if it happens at all.

But the more you dig into a subject like sustainability, the more you realise how much you don’t know. We’re all in the same boat. The goal is clear: reduce carbon emissions and resource consumption. If more people talk about it, all the better. Otherwise, in 40 years, there may be no humanity left. No one is immune to climate change. Just look at the wildfires in California. Some of the richest people in the world live there, yet they aren’t spared. We often think these crises happen to other people, but like accessibility, sustainability is for everyone.

That said, I’d rather end on a hopeful note. It’s easy to fall into the inaction triangle (new window)—where everyone shifts responsibility elsewhere. Society blames consumers for buying unethical products. Consumers blame companies for selling them. Both blame the government for the lack of regulation and policy. And so, the blame keeps bouncing around.

The only way forward is for everyone to take responsibility.