The team of volunteers have been working to embed sustainable practices into the WordPress community and its processes since 2023. In that time, they’ve worked openly and honestly to ensure WordPress’s social, economic, and environmental longevity. 

We should take time to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the now defunct team. Nora Ferreirós, Csaba Varszegi, Nahuai Badiola and Thijs Buijs worked to highlight the opportunities to improve sustainability at WordPress to a sometimes disengaged leadership. They are on the right side of history and we thank them.

Wholegrain’s stance

This decision feels regressive and extremely jarring in today’s world, where devastating wild fires ravaged California, home of the WordPress headquarters. Climate change and events should focus us all on making the world a more sustainable place.

In this case, reducing the environmental impact of the core code behind the circa 500 million websites (roughly 43% of the internet) that use WordPress would set an example for the rest of the internet to follow. Sadly, this will now not be the case – which is not good enough.