Just before WordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe 2023, the sustainability initiative posted a Team Proposal following the spirit of the initial point of view and including all input received since the channel was created.
Becoming an official WordPress Team means that our decisions will eventually become reality, so it’s important to define the team’s field of action and its scope. The Team Proposal was really helpful for this matter. The comments left made two things clear:
- The WordPress community agreed that a WordPress Sustainability Team was needed.
- Sustainability is broader than the environmental challenges we face.
During the past year, although we were aware that social and financial areas are essential parts of being a sustainable project, the sustainability Slack channel activity was basically only focused on environmental issues.
During WordCamp Europe 2023 we got the confirmation that many people agreed on these two points and finally, the Sustainability team was born.
WordCamp Europe 2023
The Sustainability Table run at WordCamp Europe 2023 Contributor Day was intended to be an opportunity to discuss the Team Proposal in a more agile and productive way. That’s what happened: sponsors, WordCamp and Meetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. organizers, members from other WordPress Teams, and many other contributors came to discuss the role of a potential Sustainability Team.
Josepha Haden Chomphosy, Executive Director of the WordPress project, came to visit the table to talk with those present. She first listened to our vision about how an official Sustainability Team could help WordPress and then she shared her point of view. The conversation we had with Josepha in Athens was about the need to have a WordPress Team with a broader view, since sustainability is more than a focus on environmental issues: the WordPress Sustainability Team needs to focus on the economical and financial longevity of the WordPress Project as well.
Having a good talk with Josepha resulted in a strong confirmation from the people present at the contributor table that the team needs and deserves a broader approach to cover sustainability entirely.
Conference days
During the days that followed, topics touching the area of sustainability were covered during talks and panels about gender and LGTBIQ+ diversity, generational handover, and the Five for the Future project.
Valuable actionable ideas were covered and discussed during the Workshop Let’s make WordPress & its community sustainable today.
Sustainability, from different perspectives, was a topic in the Future of WCEU panel, and mentioned during the Q&A session with Matt Mullenweg, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and Matías Ventura.
We had the opportunity to see that Sustainability was definitely a concern for the WordPress community present at WCEU 2023.
The WordPress Sustainability Team: definition and goals
So, taking everything into account, from the feedback received on the Team Proposal publication to the moment the team was finally created at WCEU 2023, the Sustainability Team is defined as follows:
The role of the WordPress Sustainability Team is to ensure the continuity of WordPress as a project, and further it in ways that are necessarily aligned with respect for people and the planet. In order to achieve this, we will work cohesively on the following matters, in no particular order:
- The social longevity of the WordPress Project: Finding ways to bring more people into the community, providing opportunities, paying attention to diversity, and taking care of those already in the community.
- The ecological sustainability of the WordPress Project: Guiding the WordPress Project towards growth that respects environmental sustainability parameters.
- The economic longevity of the WordPress Project: Managing the necessary financial support to meet the requirements to make WordPress a lasting project and to ensure no one who wants to contribute fails to do so because of their financial situation.
Sustainability also covers the working areas of other WordPress Teams as well as existing projects, like the Five for the Future, the WordPress Community Team or the Performance Team. The WordPress Sustainability Team will therefore partner closely with those. Only together can we achieve our goals.
Conclusion
So, this is how the Sustainability Initiative turned into the Sustainability Team.
Now, and most importantly, the team has the great task of defining the proper actions and to collaborate with other teams to ensure a socially, environmentally, and financially sustainable WordPress project.
Everyone is invited to be part of it.
A final note: who are “we”
During the year the Sustainability Team was an initiative, @littlebigthing, @nahuai, @noradriana and @yellowlime, and also @hanopcan in the first few months, were the people who did their best to carry this idea forward. We, those mentioned above, coordinated and dedicated some of our time to demonstrate that sustainability is a topic that arouses interest and should have a place in the WordPress Community. Now that the initiative has finally become an official team, it’s time to decide together who should represent it from now on. With that in mind, we have scheduled the Team Reps nomination and voting process for the current month. Stay tuned!
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Reviewed by: @littlebigthing, @nahuai, @yellowlime and @tferry