Contribute to our open source projects

At Green Web Foundation, we maintain several open source projects in multiple programming languages. To learn more about all our projects, visit our tools page.

On this page, you can quickly find information about some of the areas we need help with for our different projects, and how you can contribute to them. Not all contribution require coding skills either, we have used tags on this page to indicate the type of contribution that is suitable for each item.

Contribution types

• #code – This contribution will require some coding knowledge. For these contribution types, we will also indicate the programming language that is used for the project, and link to the appropriate repository or issue on GitHub.
• #writing – This contribution will require writing ability. Some understanding of code may be required, but is not compulsory. For these contribution types, we will link to the relevant project documentation and any other related materials.
• #design – This contribution will require web design skills. An understanding of HTML and CSS is recommended, as is knowledge for using tools like Figma or Stroybook.
• #policy – This contribution requires knowledge of the policy and legislative landscape. Often, these contributions would consist of us organising an interview with you to learn about different country, region, or industry specific policies and how they might tie in with our work.

Projects

We are currently looking for contributions to the following projects:

• Carbon.txt – Make sustainability data easier to discover and use on the web. Jump to more info.
• Grid-aware Websites – Adjust website design based on the nature of the electricity grid. Jump to more info.
• CO2.js – Estimate the emissions of digital activity using open source models. Jump to more info.
• Green Web Tracker – Tracking how much of the internet is running on green energy. Jump to more info.

Project: Carbon.txt

carbon.txt makes sustainability data easier to discover and use on the web. Carbon.txt is a single, discoverable location on any web domain for public, machine-readable, sustainability data relating to that company.

Learn more about this project on the Carbon.txt page on our website.

Contribute

Create a plugin #code

The carbon.txt project is built on a foundation of extensibility. This means that it has been created in a way that allows for other developers and organisations to create plugins to parse carbon.txt files, read their contents, and get additional information from other data sources linked to from carbon.txt files.

Some examples of what carbon.txt plugins can be used for include:

• Getting reported water usage data from published CSRD reports
• Read the content of modern slavery statements made by an organisation
• Read company financial reports and parse how much funding an organisation is receiving from fossil fuel companies

Share information about policy in your region #policy

Our initial work around carbon.txt has been focused on understanding how it can be used with the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). However, we have built it to be flexible in a way that can be extended to use with other reporting standards.

To help us, we are looking to hear from people in the following areas:

• Regulators and policymakers working on sustainability reporting legislation
• Staff in companies with responsibility for complying with sustainability reporting legislation
• Advisors to firms affected by sustainability legislation and reporting
• Specialists familiar with sustainability legislation and reporting
• Civil society consumers of published sustainability reporting

If this sounds up your street, and you’re able to set aside time for a confidential interview, please get in touch with us using the link below.

Project: Grid-aware Websites

A cutting-edge project where we’re creating a toolkit to enable developers and designers to understand more about the electricity a visitor is consuming when on their website and adjust the design accordingly.

Learn more about this project on the Grid-aware Websites page on our website.

Contribute

Create a plugin for your CDN, CMS, or Framework #code

The Grid-aware Websites project is built to be deployed to any JavaScript runtime environment that is capable of making fetch requests. This makes it ideal for deployment in CDN Edge Functions, CMS libraries, or other JavaScript frameworks.

We would also love to see the source code and core ideas of this project go beyond the JavaScript community, and be applied to other web development languages and frameworks.

Some examples of what Grid-aware Websites plugins you could build include:

• Create a plugin for your CDN provider that exposes the data required for developers to implement Grid-aware Websites code into edge functions on that CDN. See our plugins for Cloudflare Workers and Netlify Edge Function as examples.
• Build a plugin for an online CMS platform that allows for users to turn on grid-aware functionality on their site, and select what happens when that code runs.
• Build a plugin for a web development framework that adds grid-aware capabilities to that framework.

Submit ideas for Grid-aware Website designs & components #design #writing

One of the key ideas behind Grid-aware Websites is that a website should have a lower impact on a users device (i.e. energy/battery use) when the local energy grid is powered by more fossil fuel sources. Design plays an important role in this, shaping the user experience on a website when grid-awareness is activated and when it is not.

To help with adoption of grid-aware web design, we are putting together a collection of articles and sources of inspiration into a dedicated Grid-aware Websites edition of Branch Magazine.

We are welcoming contributions for that issue. Some contribution ideas include:

• Examples of grid-aware website design in action
• Case studies of applying grid-aware website design, especially what learnings and findings came out of that process.
• Case studies that outline the business case for implementing grid-aware, low-impact web design
• Examples of grid-aware website code being used on production websites

We are currently planning this edition of Branch, and will update this page with an active contribution link when it is ready. You can also get alerted to when contributions open by subscribing to our newsletter.

Project: CO2.js

A JavaScript library that allows developers to estimate the emissions associated with their apps, websites and software. CO2.js includes:

• estimate the carbon emissions of digital activity using open source estimation models;
• get historical grid intensity data for a country or region;
• perform automated checks Green Web Foundation’s Green Domain’s dataset.

Learn more about this project on the CO2.js page on our website.

Contribute

Add a new data source to CO2.js #code

Sourcing carbon intensity data shouldn’t be the remit of developers. For that reason, CO2.js includes yearly average grid intensity data from Ember, as well as marginal intensity data from the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). We also currently have open issues to bring in historical and live grid intensity data from Electricity Maps.

We’d welcome additional data sources to be added by members of the community. You can help with this by:

• Identifying other grid intensity data sources that can be added to CO2.js, and creating issues for them.
• Contributing a pull request to add new data sources that have been identified in open issues to CO2.js.

Contribute other carbon estimation models to CO2.js #code

There are a few different models that can be used to measure digital carbon emissions. CO2.js includes two of these – the OneByte model, and the Sustainable Web Design Model. As the industry furthers its understanding of the impact of digital services on the planet, and how best to implement those, newer models are being developed based on more recent data and research. Models are also created to address specific digital activities, like advertising or streaming.

Our dream is for CO2.js to provide a way for developers to use these models with a shallow learning curve. Having those models available within CO2.js is a first, critical step in that process.

You can help with this by:

• Identifying other emissions estimation models that can be added to CO2.js, and creating issues for them.
• Contributing a pull request to add new emissions estimation models that have been identified in open issues to CO2.js.

Share case studies of using CO2.js in production applications #writing

We love hearing about how people are using our tools in real world applications. So if you, or your organisation, have experimented with using CO2.js or even deployed it in a production application then we’d love to hear about it.

You can share your work in a blog post yourself, or contact us and we can help write a case study with you to showcase what you’ve done.

Project: Green Web Tracker

An open-source initiative to track the green hosting status of public websites over time. The project is based on data from the Green Web Dataset – the world’s largest open dataset of verified green hosting providers.

Learn more about this project in this introductory blog post.

Contribute

Submit an index #code

The Green Web Tracker aims to be an open, regularly refreshed reference point for anyone wanting to answer the question how much of the web runs on green hosting? The tracker checks domains that are submitted in various indexes – effectively categorisations of similar domains.

Indexes are able to be submitted by the community in two ways:

• Submitting an index through a GitHub Pull Request
• Submitting an index by email to our Support mailbox

By submitting an index, you are creating a publicly shareable list of domains that get checked for green hosting every two weeks.

Help with open issues #design #code

The Green Web Tracker repository on GitHub contains a selection of open issues that can be contributed to. This is perfect for aspiring web developers and designers who are looking to add to their portfolio with open source contributions.

If you have ideas of the Green Web Tracker website, we also welcome new issues in the repository.