Sustainability & Resilience Statement (SUSTAINABILITY.md)

Our Philosophy: Digital Resilience

Sustainability in emergency communications is about performance under stress. A “heavy” website consumes more energy, drains user batteries, and fails to load on congested networks. By following the W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) 1.0, we ensure our information survives “Digital Famine.”

Crisis Mode: Network-Agnostic Information Delivery

NEW: We have implemented a Crisis Mode - an ultra-low-bandwidth mirror that reduces data payload by 98%.

The Infrastructure as Policy Statement

Information is a form of infrastructure. To ensure our readiness guide is truly inclusive, it is built to be Network Agnostic. We practice what we preach by maintaining a text-primary mirror that remains functional even when local cellular towers are congested or damaged.

Technical Specifications

Payload: 5-11KB per page (vs. typical 500KB limit)
The 14KB Rule: Entire pages fit within a single TCP slow-start packet
Dependencies: Zero external resources (no CSS files, no JS, no images, no fonts)
Networks: Works on 2G, satellite, congested mesh networks
Accessibility: WCAG 2.2 Level AA compliant

Access Crisis Mode: /crisis.html

Technical Constraints (The Survival UX)

To minimize our environmental footprint and maximize disaster resilience, we adhere to the following:

1. Low-Bandwidth Mandate

Payload Limit: Aim for <500KB total page weight.
Asset Shedding: We use system fonts and SVG icons instead of custom web fonts and heavy raster images.
No Tracking: We do not use third-party analytics or tracking pixels that waste data and power.

2. Energy Preservation

Static-First: Hosted via GitHub Pages to eliminate server-side processing and database energy consumption.
Dark Mode & High Contrast: Optimized for OLED screens to save battery life during power outages.

3. Persistence & Maintenance

Link Rot Prevention: We use automated GitHub Actions to monitor link health.
Archive.org Integration: We ensure critical resources are backed up to the Internet Archive so that information remains available even if the original source hosting fails during a disaster.

Infrastructure

Our primary hosting is provided by GitHub. We monitor our digital carbon footprint and prioritize “Green Hosting” principles as defined by the Green Web Foundation.

How You Can Help

Keep it Small: When contributing, optimize all assets.
Plain Text First: If a message can be conveyed in Markdown rather than a PDF, use Markdown.
Offline-First: Test your contributions to ensure they work via our PWA (Progressive Web App) manifest without an active internet connection.

Adapted from the mgifford/sustainability.md template.