We are obviously a WordPress agency but that decision wasn’t made lightly or without considering all of the options. If you’re reading this it probably means that you’re interested in WordPress, worried about its security levels (don’t believe the press, its secure!) or we’ve linked you here.

Either way, welcome! Lets get started…

01. Trusted & Secure

It’s incredibly easy to make WordPress secure, mainly because the core is so well maintained and patched so the addition of hosting and domain encryption or SSL certification adds to the security. You may have heard the not so pleasant hype that WordPress isn’t secure but powering over 43% of the web, there is a reason WordPress is so well established and such a trusted platform. Based on its share of the internet, WordPress hacks are actually a lower proportionality. As with most CMS platforms, the security does also depend on maintenance and the actions of the developers / owners and so with Wholegrain’s Maintenance, that security is optimised for you.

02. Simplicity

It’s easy to build user friendly interface, making it easy for you and your team to on-board, update and edit your site. This level of control means your site won’t need a developer or expert to update it – saving time and budget! WordPress enables consistent, iterative and long-term growth, not a new site every few years – its that simple.

03. Scaleable growth

The WordPress framework makes it easy to create multiple websites under one umbrella, maintaining consistency of your brand whilst also enabling some great opportunities to grown your wider digital estate in a easy, logical way. Not only that, it can also handle everything from simple forms to e-commerce thanks to the use of a combination of out of the box and custom functionality. For Wholegrain, we have our own WrodPress theme that pushes this adaptability even further!

04. SEO friendly

WordPress not only comes with its own core SEO functions, but it’s also enables easy SEO best practice. At its foundation, WordPress is built using clean, structured code – which SEO loves! You can easily add custom permalinks and manage meta data to further feed your WordPress site to the search engines, which also help with your accessibility too. WordPress also enables fast loading and image compression with ease, making the site more sustainable and as we always say at Wholegrain – a sustainable site, is an SEO friendly site.

05. Open source

Meaning you own your own site, and have a community of expert knowledge to lean on and collaborate with. For us, this is a huge benefit and our team learn and grow form the community all of the time (and vice versa). There is a side effect of this too, which we don’t like to talk about, but should you ever decide to move away from Wholegrain, finding a developer to work on your site is also easy because of this open source nature.

06. Cost effective

This may be last on the list, but it has a big impact. Firstly, lets start with the lack of licensing fee for the core software and because it’s open source, its free to install – none of those nasty Drupal updates that cost a fortune every year. You will have read further up that WordPress has a large community behind it and this manifests plugins, themes and a professional network of developers meaning not everything needs to be from scratch and support is easy to find.

So WordPress is safe, cost effect, great for sustainability and SEO whilst also enabling some strong growth of your site. It’s easy to see why WordPress is Wholegrain’s platform of choice.

It’s time to talk about the elephant in the room – the impact of a ‘bad’ brief.

Writing a brief can seem really daunting – especially when you are not a designer or coder yourself. But trust us, it doesn’t need to be a huge document that strikes fear into your marketing team as they try to wrangle the countless wants, needs and opinions from the finance team, senior leadership, sales execs and your best friend who just doesn’t like the site.

Avoid the panic and keep it simple.

Don’t sweat the small stuff! Adding every possible goal, detail, want and desire will confuse and complicate the responses you get. Trust the agencies responding to do the creative thinking bit and instead focus in – why are you building a new site? That should give you the overall goal. Of course it needs to X and Y and Z along the way but don’t get too fixed on those because they are not your overall goal.

Identify your target audience and put them front and centre. It’s ok for one of the audience to be your company, but remember thats just one group and 99% of website are focussed on conversion of some kind and your team are already converted! It’s also worth noting here heirachy is incredibly important – you might have 10 user groups but the site can’t whistle and dance for all of them across all of their needs and neither should it. Some pre-work on who the main site audience is will really give you a great head start on the work.

Here’s where you shouldn’t got top line and the detail will really help. Specify essential features, functionalities and integrations. Provide any open source documentation on API’s too, that always helps in terms of gathering realistic numbers and not inflated ones because the agency just doesn’t know enough. This will also narrow the field of agencies really quickly for you and make sure you get a better steer on solutions because not all team can or want to work on all platforms and integrations.

Spoiler alert – agencies know you bend the truth when it comes to budgets. It’s a lot easier if both sides are open and honest so both teams are on one page straight away. This will save time and also build trust right out of the gate whilst also making sure that the agencies responding to your brief are being as realistic as possible about the ability to deliver within your budget and time.

We don’t need more carbon heavy, clunky and chunky websites on the internet. Adding “please detail how you will make our site low carbon and accessible please” into your brief will sort those who can from those who can’t and will result in you being delivered a new, sustainable, low carbon site that will look after you well into the future. You shouldn’t have to compromise on performance or impact so this one should be your default.

It’s as easy as that! Happy brief writing!

Chris: Context is key

One of the primary reasons that the people behind Wholegrain work here is a want to do better – that means build more sustainable websites, consider the needs of people more centrally to our decisions and play a leading role in moving forward our understanding of what sustainable web design really means.

I can imagine this to be true for anyone working in any sector where they consider and challenge how to do it more sustainably. It can be frustrating, constantly looking for the definitive end line that says ‘this is how we do it perfectly’, but we all know that we are not there yet and to be truthful, may never be there. Not that this should stop us trying.

At Wholegrain (and in all other businesses and communities we stand beside in this space) we are continuously reading, writing, listening and sharing the latest ideas and frameworks that can push us all collectively closer to that golden state of understanding. Learning from each other and communicating new ideas is what has built the understanding we have today and it often leads to the need to pivot or unlearn what was thought to be true but now is proven incorrect. Again, not that this should stop us trying.

This past week the overall approach to Digital Sustainability was challenged, sadly not through conversation.

The following is the thoughts of Andy, who manages our Curiously Green newsletter and spends his time in and around the wider thinking on Digital Sustainability with input from Bailey, our new business Manager and Dan, our Technical Team lead – who both speak internally and externally about what Digital Sustainability looks like on a tangible level, as people on the front line of actually designing and building sites to be more sustainable. 

Andy: The latest lightning rod

The ever evolving nature of digital sustainability means that we’re constantly reading and consuming articles, reports and ideas on the topic. We keep a careful eye on developments in coding, file formats, data gathering, storage optimisation, changes to calculation models and philosophical ideas about digital usage Our website carbon calculator, Website Carbon often features in these articles in these topics, sometimes acting as a lightning rod for thoughts and findings about low carbon web design.

The most recent example is a report from the BBC called “Does what you scroll burn coal? Mythbusting energy consumption on the web”. The post on the Research and Development subsite has caused some consternation in digital sustainability circles.

The article looks at two areas:

• The effect of dark mode on device electricity usage and user behaviour
• Correlation between performance metrics and data transfer and energy usage

The good bits:

The dark mode research is interesting and goes against some of the sustainable web design advice and methodologies. In their research a small sample size of participants turned up monitor brightness levels up when using dark modes, regardless of overhead lighting conditions.

This rebound effect is potentially a useful finding. If it can be replicated across a larger sample size it would certainly change some conventional wisdom and design methodologies. We would add that any dark modes implementation should be in line with accessibility guidelines and based on user preference rather than prescriptive.

As the researchers note, further research would be required using devices with OLED screens, which is something that is noted in the Web Sustainability Guidelines.

The frustrating bits:

The rest of the report has frustrated us at Wholegrain and others in the community. The sections on performance and data transfer feel to have taken an over simplified view on areas that the digital sustainability community treat as nuanced and complex.

The report states that “performance and energy efficiency aren’t always linked, so optimising for performance may not yield the desired energy results”. This is something that we would agree with. Indeed we wrote about how strong performance metrics don’t always correlate with low site emissions in November 2023. 

Without knowing what sites were tested, it’s hard to comment further. What we can say is that we and other reputable agencies know that “Developers cannot therefore simply optimise for performance and hope that energy savings occur as a happy by-product”. Suggesting otherwise feels harmful to the industry and undermines trust and engagement at a time when digital emissions continue to rise.

This feeling of being unduly undermined continues when the researchers discuss data transfer. The researchers question whether a link can be made between data transfer and device energy use. The report raises issues where “data is used as a direct proxy for energy” going further to state that it presents a “completely fictitious narrative of how emissions are generated on the internet”, citing Website Carbon as one place this narrative is shared.

Them’s fightin’ words.

Our polite but firm response

It’s widely known and acknowledged within the sustainable web industry that data transfer is a flawed proxy for carbon emissions. I think Fershad Irani’s piece on this issue is the most eloquent and persuasive on the topic. Put simply, we know there are issues and that in certain cases it might cause some paradoxes. Where those paradoxes are proved we take note and adjust best practices.

The report discusses testing “top sites” but not what they were, how they are built and what platforms or frameworks they use. Picking holes in the sustainable web design practices without testing sites built using them doesn’t feel fair or representative. Indeed they tested the COP28 site which did an infamously bad job of implementing the “low carbon mode” mentioned in the report. The site (which was not built by a sustainable web specialist) was criticised heavily at the time and revisited when updates were put in place. Citing this website as a good example of best practice is incredibly frustrating.

In the conclusion of the BBC piece the researchers write – 

This is pretty insulting to the careful thought and dedication brought by contributors to the Web Sustainability Guidelines. Agencies like MightyBytes and Wholegrain, organisations like the Green Web Foundation, SustyWeb and individuals like Alexander Dawson, Fershad Irani, Michelle Baker, Hannah Smith and many others work tirelessly to bring nuance and suitability to the interventions prescribed. 

Next Steps from everyone at Wholegrain collectively

We’ll end this response in the same way as the report does, with some suggested next steps. The researchers express a desire to collaborate with the industry to develop “tools that allow them to accurately estimate energy”. A good place to start might be to collaborate with an organisation like GreenSpector who share similar aims. 

They could also ask to collaborate with any of the organisations and individuals mentioned above. We’re an open bunch who desperately want to do the best thing for people and planet in every way. We’re open about what we do and why we do it. We showcase our sites and think they hold up to scrutiny. We’re open to making changes if our methods turn out to be flawed. We want to iterate and improve where we can. We want accurate measures just as much as anyone else. Maybe even more so.

Our mission to “accelerate the shift to an Internet that’s good for people and planet” needs collaborators so we can continue to do the work we do for the companies we work with – one being BBC Good Food, just for reference.

Let’s talk.

On Wednesday 8th January, WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg disbanded the WordPress Sustainability Team.

The team of volunteers have been working to embed sustainable practices into the WordPress community and its processes since 2023. In that time, they’ve worked openly and honestly to ensure WordPress’s social, economic, and environmental longevity. 

We should take time to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the now defunct team. Nora Ferreirós, Csaba Varszegi, Nahuai Badiola and Thijs Buijs worked to highlight the opportunities to improve sustainability at WordPress to a sometimes disengaged leadership. They are on the right side of history and we thank them.

Wholegrain’s stance

This decision feels regressive and extremely jarring in today’s world, where devastating wild fires ravaged California, home of the WordPress headquarters. Climate change and events should focus us all on making the world a more sustainable place.

In this case, reducing the environmental impact of the core code behind the circa 500 million websites (roughly 43% of the internet) that use WordPress would set an example for the rest of the internet to follow. Sadly, this will now not be the case – which is not good enough.

What does not change with this news, is the skills and vision of the community that has fuelled WordPress as an open source platform. The response to this decision has confirmed that this community cares about sustainability and at Wholegrain, we pride ourselves on pushing the envelope when it comes to sustainably designed and built WordPress websites. This will not change either.

The proof is in the performance of our sites, the experience of our clients and the satisfaction of their users. Excellent performance metrics should absolutely be a goal to aim for (as per the Slack conversations that have surfaced), but to focus only on those metrics is to ignore the wider picture. As an ethical, B Corp certified agency, it’s the wider picture that Wholegrain focuses on every day.

We hold our agency to a higher standard than the platform we work with. Our sites demonstrate that 43% of the internet can be more sustainable as standard. If the WordPress leadership can’t see the importance of that, then we, as a community, will continue to demonstrate how wrong they are.

Our mission continues

Our carbon calculator, Website Carbon, is the original online carbon estimator with its API being used in projects across the web, including a carbon footprint tool that the WordPress Sustainability team have been working to develop. 

All of the sites we build use WordPress’s core code and they all have high performance metrics and low carbon scores. They are built with care and attention for all users by an engaged and dedicated team who focus on their work being accessible, both on a technical and user level.

We will continue to take the best elements of WordPress, what the open source community around it offers, and use our talent and experience to elevate our sites to a higher level. 

We will continue to show how user focussed, beautiful and sustainable a WordPress website can be. 

On a personal note to those we work with

Whilst this is a really disheartening and careless move by one person within the WordPress leadership, this does not affect your website and you do not have to do anything. Nor does it affect our ability to deliver low carbon solutions for the websites that we design and build.

One person is not WordPress. We are actively choosing to stay within a community of developers and technical specialists that have made WordPress the successful platform that it is – providing open source contributions that enable us to provide the best sustainable websites to you.

If you have any worries or concerns around this news and how it might impact your site, you can reach out to Georgie and myself, our Senior Leadership Team.

Lets start with honesty. Wholegrain isn’t a hugely diverse team – which is something we are actively trying to change.

The first step is to look at the recruitment process itself and bringing in a new system that removes the need for a CV, cover letter or any personal details right up until the very end. The goal of which is to reduce unconscious bias that we might feel when you can see someones age, name, location or gender for example and instead move us to a skills based process where your work does the talking for you.

How does it work I hear you ask? Here’s version one of how we are doing it.

It starts by defining roles

We define set roles to the existing team along with set criteria for those roles. For example, we will have a Hiring Manager who’s only role is to track the applications and so whilst they will see your name and details, they are the only person who does and they play no other part in any stage of the decision making. For us, we then use our team Leads and seniors to cover each stage of the recruitment process – each person being assigned one stage of the process to own and a clear criteria to work against.

Stage 01 – Screening

No need for a CV, all we ask is that you answer as handful of screening questions. Purposefully, we have designed these to not be too overwhelming – nobody needs a ten page application form! We are much more focussed on values and core skills at this point and so all names and personal details are be hidden before the screening takes place. The screening criteria is set prior and is specific to the role meaning all candidates are screened and scored equally.

Stage 02 – Skills review

A short task is set to be completed. This is where we flex a little depending on the role because there is an understanding that not everybody works the same and not every role needs the same core activities. Importantly, the task doesn’t have a ‘right’ solution and we are not looking for the output to be perfect, its more about understanding how you work so we can support you better if you do join our team and for you to understand the kinds of work we do so you know what will be expected of you.

Stage 03 – Conversation

I also recognise that starting a new role requires a lot of trust from the individual – you’re trusting in the organisation you are joining to support you and offer a culture where you can belong. Thats why the final stage is to talk to each other. We make sure each person who takes part in this stage is asked the same questions and therefore given the same opportunity and scored fairly but more importantly, there is equality of time meaning you get to ask us as much as you want too. It’s not a one way street.

It goes further than this process…

This is version one and there is still work to be done around where we put our job vacancies and how we promote them to all audiences but for now, this feels like the best first step for us.

To see the process in action, why not apply for one of our open roles? You can view them on our careers page.