My goal for Whoopee is to be a web design company which doesn’t screw over people or the planet.
So I’ve signed up for a few things which I feel are important for the future of web industry, and the world.
If the Internet was a country, it would be the 7th largest polluter
First, is the Sustainable Web Manifesto https://www.sustainablewebmanifesto.com. This is a manifesto I can get on board with. and a basic set of principles to follow which compliment my own values well. It seemed a good promise to me and my clients that I’ll be following them.
Their principles are to be Clean, Efficient, Open, Honest, Regenerative and Resilient.
The Second is Creative Climate Disclosure https://www.creativeandclimate.com/. After reading Torchbox’s report at the end of last year it only made sense to me that I use this set of metrics to monitor Whoopee. During my time at Torchbox I saw a company with a very strict set of rules to who they would work with, I saw them turn down job which could have been amazing because the prospective client had one product out of dozens of good ones that didn’t sit well with TBX’s values. I appreciate that kind of rigour and I will continue to do the same.
For the majority of my career I’ve worked with charities and NGOs who focussed on those who make the world a better place, be that through ecology, education or some kind of initiative or change-maker for the environment.
Back in 2015 when the Global Goals were announced I said that good health and well-being was important to me.
When I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, last year, medical professionals seemed happy enough to give me strong, expensive, drugs to prevent the symptoms and other drugs to ease the side effects the first drugs gave me. To me, this didn’t seem right so I put more effort into looking after myself. Educating myself to be more aware of what my body and mind needs means that I don’t need to take the medicines. I’ve found the triggers to my illness and I’m managing them using a better diet, meditation and relaxation techniques that cost me, and the government, next to nothing.Me, Torchbox 2015
It wasn’t long after this I found growing my own food helped towards that better diet, meditation and relaxation I needed to thrive at life. This was the beginning of me figuring out my values, seeing how other Sustainable Development Goals https://sdgs.un.org/goals relate to my health and well-being.
Both of these commitments/manifestos align with the kind of company I want Whoopee to be, and I hope you might feel the same way too.