WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Executive Director Mary Hubbard have knocked back calls from the community to reinstate the WordPress Sustainability Team, despite a public plea and a petition that quickly gathered hundreds of signatures during WordCamp Europe 2025.

The team was abruptly disbanded by Mullenweg in January over what he described as a lack of measurable output — a move that sparked backlash at the time, notably from veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher, who described it as “bizarrely heinous behavior.”

The latest push to revive the team, driven by contributors at WCEU concerned about climate change, has reignited frustration over how sustainability is prioritized within the WordPress project.

A tense moment at WordCamp Europe

The issue came to a head during the final Q&A session at WCEU on Saturday, when Jaap Wiering stood up to publicly call on Mullenweg to restore the Sustainability Team’s Slack channel and Make WordPress resources. He highlighted the urgency of environmental action, reminding the audience, “Tomorrow is World Ocean Day. Our oceans are in danger and have immense influence on our climate.”

“We’d love to get going again,” Wiering pleaded, drawing applause. “Please, could you reactivate [the Sustainability Team] so we can make WordPress more environmentally friendly?”

Mullenweg initially passed the question to Hubbard, who reiterated a position she’d already shared with Wiering privately: sustainability should be woven into every WordPress team, rather than isolated in a dedicated group.

“Sustainability should be embedded throughout the WordPress project,” Hubbard said. She suggested a rebranding might help, while also cautioning against mixing environmental concerns with broader Five for the Future discussions around social and economic sustainability.

When pressed for his own view, Mullenweg didn’t back down. He said the team hadn’t delivered enough tangible outcomes, adding that while environmental sustainability mattered deeply to him personally, WordPress wasn’t the right platform to “have the biggest impact in the world” on climate change.

“I reviewed 12 months of blog posts. We want to make sure that volunteers are focused on teams that are moving quickly, iterating, and have good output culture,” he said.

“By the way, this was not a solo decision [to shut down the Sustainability Team] it came from a number of people.”

Advocates frustrated by leadership stance

Speaking to The Repository after the event, Wiering sharply criticized Mullenweg’s decision, expressing doubt that the team’s work had been properly reviewed and suggesting the shutdown was done hastily.

“If Matt really cared about a team, he should have made comments first, given directions,” he said. “If he then believed the output was unsatisfactory after all, he could dissolve. That process would take at least a few months.”

Wiering also warned that without a dedicated team, environmental efforts would be fragmented, lacking coordination and urgency.

Hundreds support reinstatement petition

Meanwhile, sustainability advocate Charlotte Bax organized a spontaneous petition during Contributor Day, collecting 300–400 signatures calling for the team’s reinstatement.

“When Matt closed it down, I was very sad. Also the way it happened was very unfair,” Bax told The Repository. “What Matt did was basically a big middle finger to a group of people that didn’t even have anything to do with [internal project drama].”

The petition was presented to Hubbard during a roundtable session focused on Five for the Future. Bax said she was initially hopeful, but that faded after the Q&A.

“You can imagine my disappointment during the Q&A session — Matt’s and [Mary’s] answer being basically ‘no’.”

Former Sustainability Team co-rep Csaba Varszegi echoed that disappointment but said he was encouraged by the support at WCEU.

“The many signatures and the actual presence and interest of many new people was heartwarming and motivating,” he said.

Sustainability advocates planning independent path forward

With official reinstatement off the table, contributors are now preparing to move forward independently, bouyed by the enthusiasm of contributors who gathered to contribute to sustainabilty on Contributor Day, despite there being no official Make team. Bax said two external organizations had offered communication tools and resources to keep the sustainability work going outside official WordPress channels.

Wiering and Bax both stressed that sustainability should be treated as a core, interdisciplinary priority — similar to accessibility and inclusion — not just a nice-to-have embedded across teams.

“We’d rather join our forces with the official teams, but we think sustainability should be a core value of WordPress,” Wiering said. “It needs a dedicated team to support that across all the other teams, set goals, standards, and roadmaps.”

Bax added, “The upcoming year I want to get some great work done with the team, and show Matt and Mary what a big mistake they have made by closing us down and disregarding so many voices. I’m all fired up!”

Feature image credit: Jeroen Rotty.