Why I now see accessibility as a way to reduce AI agents’ token usage
A lightbulb moment during a GEO project, the research behind it, and where the evidence stops.
Author · Speaker · Senior web developer
Digital sustainability,
in practice.
I’m Michael Andersen, a senior web developer, author and speaker. I help teams build websites that load less data, run fewer scripts and work for everyone, and I write about it every week.
Free weekly essays on digital sustainability.
- Author of Sustainable Web Design In 20 Lessons
- Founder, Sustainable WWW
- Heard on Green IO and EcoSend
- WCAG 2.2 AA in practice
Latest essays
From the Substack
What we lose when code becomes something we generate instead of something we write
The friction of writing code by hand was never only an obstacle. It was the thing that taught us to think.
Lesson 19: APIs
The entire 19th chapter of Sustainable Web Design In 20 Lessons.
The book
Sustainable Web Design In 20 Lessons
A practical guide to lighter, more efficient websites: page-weight budgets, hosting, images, fonts, JavaScript, accessibility, caching and email. Over 300 pages, written from more than a decade of hands-on work.
Andersen’s ‘20 lessons’ format offers an easy to follow, practical application of the research and best practices on sustainable web design.
The practice
Doing more with less
Digital sustainability means building websites and apps that do more with less: less data, less energy, less friction for the user.Note 1 Every byte transferred requires electricity somewhere, and the digital sector’s share of global emissions is real.Note 2
My approach rests on three things: performance-first development, accessible design and honest engineering. That includes being honest about what a website’s footprint is, and what we can’t yet measure.
That is not idealism. That is just careful craft.
- 1What I mean by sustainable: pages built to a weight budget, fewer requests, no third-party trackers, accessible to WCAG 2.2 AA, and maintained rather than rebuilt.
- 2Peer-reviewed estimates put ICT at 1.8–2.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, possibly up to 3.9%. Freitag et al., Patterns, 2021.
Speaking
Available for talks and workshops
I speak at conferences, meetups and webinars, and run workshops for design and development teams. If your audience builds or commissions websites, we can find an angle that fits.
Heard on
- Green IO Podcast
Sustainable web development practices
- EcoSend Podcast
Building a sustainable world web
Work with my company
Sustainable WWW
Through Sustainable WWW Sweden AB, I design and build websites and web applications for clients across Scandinavia, and help teams cut page weight, improve performance and meet WCAG 2.2 AA.
Stay in the loop
I write about sustainable web design, web development and long-term thinking. New essays arrive in your inbox every week.