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 company in question hopes to fulfil at some point in the future.
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 energy
Ecosia 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 features
Vivaldi 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 privacy
Email 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 data
Google 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 AI training. Its products are often not very compatible with products outside of its ecosystems.Sources: Reuters: Apple sued over use of copyrighted books to train Apple Intelligence (2025), XDA: Why breaking out from the Apple ecosystem is challenging, and how to do it
Honest
The products and services we provide will not mislead or exploit users in their design or content.
This includes dark patterns, which are design techniques to trick users into doing things that are not in their best interests.
But honesty goes further. We must consider biases in algorithms, that are optimised for more user engagement, but provide false balancing in political discourses. This could also be by design of course, if fascist stakeholders like Musk want to strengthen their political agendas.
Biases must also be carefully considered when looking at generative AI. Gen AI output can be easily censored for certain topics. Gen AI will also be biased by the data LLMs are trained on. Most of them have a bias towards western culture and certain ethnic groups. This might not be intentional, but the output is not fair nonetheless.
Good Example - Chronological order of Mastodon feed
Decentralised micro-blogging platform has its Home feed ordered chronologically. This avoids favouring extremist, engagement triggering posts.Opinion: Mastodon Deepwiki: Timeline & Feed Management
Bad Example - Algorithmically favoured misinformation on Facebook and Twitter
Twitter's and Facebooks's algorithms boost misleading and malicious content.Source: Wired: AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming for Democracy (2026)
Regenerative
The products and services we provide will support an economy that nourishes people and planet.
We want companies to build, invest in and rely on sustainable projects. They also need to have a sustainable structure and culture.
Products that are especially desirable in this context are FOSS projects.
Good Example - Not-for-profit Good Search invests in sustainability projects
Good Search donates all of its revenue to projects that meet UN's Sustainable Development Goals.Source: Good Search: Your Impact
Bad Example - Apple's planned obsolescence
iPhones and other Apple products contribute to e-waste due to planned obsolescence and lack of repairability.Source: Consumer Rights Wiki on iPhone Planned Obsolescence,
The Register on iPhone E-Waste, iFixit on iPhone Repairability
Resilient
The products and services we provide will function in the times and places where people need them most.
Products should work if internet connection is bad. We don't want them to consume too much data.
No (meta) data should be accessible on servers. It should be encrypted so that potential leaks wont contain readable personal data.
The companies/institutions also shouldn't be affiliated with bad actors such as hostile regimes. Otherwise their services could be used to target (political) enemies.
Good Example - Element is a fully encrypted, decentralised FOSS messenger.
Element X is built on the Matrix standard, which ensures decentralised, encrypted messaging.Source: Element: The Matrix standard for independence and ownership.
Bad Example - US Big Tech bends the knee to Trump
Trump has been gifted money by all Big Tech CEOs. Most of them have stripped policies that Trump misliked (DEI, Fact-Checking).Source: Geopolitical Economy: World’s richest billionaires at centre of Trump’s inauguration: Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg (2025)
Summary
Of course, we wont find alternatives with a perfect score in all these aspects. Often, it's a difficult task to judge which aspects weigh the most.
All the Sustainable Substitutes (SustySubs) suggested on this website are more sustainable than the Big Tech products they aim to replace.
Determining what's the best alternative for a given category is subjective though. Pick the one that seems most promising to you. This website shows the alternatives in order of what we seem most sustainable.