Find essential information about the Green Software Foundation, along with recent media coverage.
- Foundation Info
- Our History
- Our Driving Force
- Vision, Mission and Goals
- Governance & Leadership
- Key Messages
- GSF Timeline
- Green Software Projects
- Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification
- Software Carbon Efficiency Rating (SCER)
- Real Time Energy & Carbon Standard for Cloud Providers
- Transforming Organizational Software Sustainability (TOSS)
- Impact Framework (IF)
- Carbon Aware SDK (CASDK)
- Green Software Maturity Matrix (GSMM)
- Awesome Green Software (AGS)
- Patterns of Green Software Engineering
- Green Software Learn
- Carbon Hack
- GSF Global Summit
- GSF Champions
- Growth & Impact
- Media Coverage
Foundation Info
Our History
The Green Software Foundation launched in May 2021 under the Linux Foundation with the mission to create a trusted ecosystem of people, standards, tooling, and best practices for building green software. The Foundation was founded by Accenture, GitHub, Microsoft and ThoughtWorks.
We’re all about making software part of the climate solution. Building green software, and doing it to scale requires the creation of a trusted ecosystem of people, standards, tooling and best practices.
Our Driving Force
The role software plays in the world is growing. More and more people across the world are gaining access to the internet and beginning to use mobile phones. And people everywhere are spending more time on the internet, turning to social media and using digital for entertainment and ecommerce. The demand for apps is growing from both individual and business users. More and wider access to technology means more demand for hardware and more software to run on them.
What impact does this have on our climate?
- By 2040, the global ICT sector is expected to account for 14% of the world's carbon footprint. Most of that will be coming from smartphones and the data centers that serve them. As such, they will become the information and communication technologies that are the most damaging to the environment.
- Studies suggest that data centers consume 2% of the world's energy and emit 3% of the greenhouse gases, putting it on par with the airline industry.
"A computer, notebook or even smartphone can only be as energy efficient as its software allows, so, while the hardware consumes the energy, it’s the software that triggers that consumption." - " Sanjay Podder, Chairperson of the Green Software Foundation
Hardware obsolescence attributed to software
As software makers come up with updated versions of software, often their users must throw away good hardware purely to accommodate those newer software versions. And this matters because every item we use—from a simple matchstick to a smartphone, laptop, PC or server—has carbon embedded in it. This embedded carbon comes from the energy used in extracting raw materials, processing and assembling goods, transporting them and storing them. Operating devices also takes up energy. That is why throwing away anything, including hardware without obtaining the optimum use from it adds to our emissions.
How software can be part of the climate solution
Since no one can stop the global mega trend of increasing technology adoption, the carbon footprint of technology will continue growing as well. Addressing these challenges is what software as part of the climate solution means.
Vision, Mission and Goals
Mission: Build a trusted ecosystem of people, standards, tooling and best practices for green software.
Vision: A future where software has zero harmful environmental effects.
Goals: For 2024, our aim is to:
- Build More Standardization: Progress towards getting the SCI Specification baked into regulation and introduce more standards for green software.
- Improve Software Measurement
- Enhance tools like Impact Framework
- Develop measurement benchmarks like the Software Carbon Efficiency Rating (SCER) to help industry overcome challenges in measuring carbon emissions and other environmental impacts associated with different types of software.
- Seek Continuous Improvement: Encourage use cases in applying the SCI Specification and Impact Framework.
Governance & Leadership
The Foundation is a consensus-driven organization. Each organization has one vote, so whether you are a non-profit with 10 employees or a corporate with 100,000 employees, you both hold the same weight in votes.
The GSF is governed by Accenture, Avanade, BCG X, GitHub, Google, Intel, Microsoft, NTT DATA, Siemens and UBS.
- Chairperson: Sanjay Podder, Managing Director and Global Lead for Technology Sustainability Innovation at Accenture.
- Vice-chair: Chris Lloyd-Jones, Head Architect and Strategy, Next Architecture and Transformation for the Office of the CTO at Avanade.
Executive Team
Asim Hussain, Executive Director | asim@greensoftware.foundation
Sean Mcilroy, Director of Finance and Programs | sean@greensoftware.foundation
Russ Trow, Director of Operations | russell@greensoftware.foundation
Key Messages
- Green Software should be understood, easy to apply, auditable and prioritized.
- At the nexus of software and sustainability, how we measure software and build measuring software as a habit is the most important step to reduce the environmental impacts of software.
- Standards are important to establish norms, compare data and progress, and normalize the adoption of green software principles and patterns.
- Technology sustainability is a shared responsibility, and having the right set of tools is crucial for achieving industry-wide adoption of green software practices.
- Data transparency builds knowledge of software’s environmental impact, and strengthens our ability to make software more energy-efficient and climate-conscious.
- Building and measuring in the opensource is what is necessary to achieve a future where software has zero harmful effects on the environment.
GSF Timeline
Milestone | Timeframe |
Launched CXO Bytes | August 2024 |
April 2024 | |
April 2024 | |
Launch of Impact Framework | January 2024 |
Launched GSF Champions | November 2023 |
Published State of Green Software | May 2023 |
Launched Carbon Hack | September 2022 |
Launched Patterns Catalog | November 2022 |
Launched Environment Variables | April 2022 |
Launch of GSF Newsletter | January 2022 |
Launch of the GSF | May 2021 |
Launch of Awesome Green Software | October 2021 |
Green Software Projects
Standards
Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification
A specification and standardized protocol to calculate a carbon intensity score for software applications.
- Measures the rate of carbon emissions for any type of application.
- Enables users and developers to make informed choices regarding tools, architectures, and services by incorporating carbon usage considerations.
- Does not incorporate neutralizations or offsets into its calculations.
- It is a score rather than a total; lower numbers are better than higher numbers, and reaching 0 is impossible.
- The latest version 1.1 of the SCI Specification is now available here.
The Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Guidance offers approaches on how to understand methodologies for calculating core components of the SCI Specification, such as, energy, carbon intensity, embodied emissions and functional unit values.
- Datasets point to reference values for E, I, M and R.
- Provided for standard configurations to help calculate the SCI score.
Software Carbon Efficiency Rating (SCER)
A standard for a benchmark platform and test metrics for evaluating the carbon efficiency of software. This project is currently being incubated by the GSF.
- Aims to provide comparable scores for software with the same functionality, informing procurement decisions and potentially shaping regulations similar to ENERGY STAR or EPA Fuel Economy Ratings.
- Part of the project also entails creating a Green Software Certification Lab (GSCL), a standardized testing and certification lab for green software, similar to UL (Underwriters Laboratories) for hardware and electrical systems.
Real Time Energy & Carbon Standard for Cloud Providers
A dataset for measuring carbon emissions. This project is currently being incubated by the GSF.
- Aims to move industry away from monthly reporting and towards minute-by-minute metrics for all cloud providers.
- Stems from a desire to achieve greater transparency and sustainability in the cloud computing industry.
- Currently discussing how GPU energy use should be estimated and data alignment issues with Azure PUE , GCP PUE and AWS PUE.
Tools
Transforming Organizational Software Sustainability (TOSS)
A framework for decision-making during the development, implementation, and operation of technology applications, incorporating all available methodologies and instruments. This project is currently being incubated by the GSF.
- Focus is on broader adoption of calculations and the measures to ensure measuring CO2 is an integral part of application development for new and existing applications.
- It will use a sustainability framework such as TCFD or CSRD to facilitate key areas of focus to determine the flow of CO2 data into strategic and executive-level decisions.
- Intended for technology architects, devops lead engineers, programmers and project managers, product managers, business managers, and business executives.
- Currently conducting a high-level review, including:
- Frameworks for measuring carbon emissions in software development.
- Creating a decision tree for IT projects to assess energy and greenhouse gas emissions.
- Transforming an organization's sustainability and emissions tracking
Impact Framework (IF)
A measurement tool to compute and report the environmental impacts of software applications accurately. This project is currently being incubated by the GSF.
- With Impact Framework, if we can observe something, we can measure its impacts.
- IF converts observational metrics into environmental impacts, like carbon, water, energy, and air quality in an auditable, replicable, verifiable, and transparent way.
- IF uses plugins like building blocks. You can use plugins from the ecosystem or develop your own.
- IF presents a comprehensive record housing your observations, chosen plugins, configurations or assumptions, and computed environmental impacts.
- When you use Impact Framework, you are taking a step toward decentralizing impact measurement and democratizing data, allowing stakeholders, including the public, to see if measurements follow ethical and sustainable guidelines and are accurate.
- The Impact Framework isn't limited to measuring software—it can assess products, software, or even entire organizations.
- The team is currently developing a Plugin Registry which will be a developing platform for adding, discovering, and governing plugins for the Impact Framework.
Carbon Aware SDK (CASDK)
A WebApi and Command Line Interface that provides carbon emissions data from multiple carbon data sources, like WattTime and ElectricityMaps, to prioritize running software during periods of green energy availability. This has graduated, which means it is mature and stable, supported by an active community.
- The tool helps organizations centralize the logic, manage the platform, and ensure it is observable and auditable.
- What is the team thinking about/exploring:
- Looking to add geolocation support to the SDK.
- Exploring tools such as calculators, throttling, and guidance to help developers achieve net reductions to the emissions associated with local and global electricity grids.
- Expanding its resources, including samples, templates, and tools, to simplify the adoption of the Carbon Aware SDK.
Green Software Maturity Matrix (GSMM)
A self-assessment tool to understand how an organization has implemented green software principles, patterns, and processes. This project is currently being incubated by the GSF.
- Designed for enterprise CTOs and internal green advocates to guide their strategic thinking, and consultants offering green transition services.
Learning Resources
Awesome Green Software (AGS)
An opensource database of research, tools, code, libraries and training for building applications that emit less carbon into our atmosphere. This project is currently being incubated by the GSF.
- This list does not constitute an endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the GSF or members.
Patterns of Green Software Engineering
An opensource database of software patterns proven to reduce software’s carbon emissions. This catalog is published under creative commons.
- Every one of our patterns contains metadata (e.g., version, tag) and details on pattern content (e.g., pattern description, SCI impact, assumptions and considerations).
- Each pattern has been thoroughly reviewed and curated by the Green Software Foundation across a wide range of categories.
- The team is interested in working on a version 2:0 that will:
- Expand the catalog to include more patterns and practices in the areas of design, architecture, and AI.
- Categorize application points of patterns within SDLF.
- Provide examples using the IF.
Green Software Learn
Educational content to build green software knowledge and tools. The Green Software Practitioners (GSP) training is published under creative commons.
- GSP is the first major piece of content part of this project.
- GSP a complimentary training built on the 2019 Principles of Green Software Engineering.
- This project ensures developers meet a minimum and consistent level of understanding.
- The team is undergoing a process to develop post-training resources (Green Guides) to support newly qualified Green Software Practitioners.
- In the process of defining a structure for the guide which can then be populated against specific personas.
GSF Events & Programs
Carbon Hack
- Annual hackathon run by the Green Software Foundation.
- Each year the hackathon is set against a particular theme to improve how practitioners measure software and/or reduce the environmental impacts of software, applying green software principles, specifications and tools.
- The first hackathon took place in 2022 and was centered around the Carbon Aware SDK.
- Hackathon ended with 51 eligible projects and a total of 395 participants.
- Accenture, Avanade, Intel, Thoughtworks, Globant, Goldman Sachs, UBS, BCG and VMware sponsored Carbon Hack 22 and contributed to offer a total prize fund of USD 100,000.
- The second hackathon took place in 2024 and was focused on improving how we measure software for sustainability, using Impact Framework.
- 500 practitioners registered to accelerate advancements in measuring software for sustainability.
- The hackathon concluded with 47 impressive submissions across six categories, showcasing the Impact Framework's (IF) diverse applications and potential to revolutionize software measurement.
- 30 new plugins developed during Carbon Hack 24 set to be incorporated in the Impact Framework Plugin Registry.
- Accenture, Amadeus, AVEVA, BCG X, Sentry Software, IMDA, Nedbank South Africa, and NTT DATA sponsored Carbon Hack 24 and contributed a prize fund of USD 35,000.
GSF Global Summit
- A series of in-person events organized by GSF members in partnership with the GSF to captivate, motivate, and foster connections among software practitioners and key stakeholders.
- 2024’s Summit Hosts are BCG X, CAST, Globant, Goldman Sachs, IMDA, Intel, Mastercard, Microsoft, NTT DATA, and Thoughtworks.
GSF Champions
A directory to reach passionate software practitioners - all of whom are contributing to the Green Software movement.
- Each Champion profile shows a wide range of activities including Speaking, Writing, Organizing, Mentoring and Contributions to GSF and the wider OSS community.
Growth & Impact
The Foundation has grown over 60% since 2022, now with 61 member organizations and 800+ registered volunteers. Our membership network spans 190 countries and a global workforce of over 1.5 million people. We have over 7,000 subscribers to our weekly newsletter and 3,824 subscribers to our podcast.
We’ve made strides to build standards and tooling:
- The Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification became an ISO Standard, providing a reliable, fair, and comparable protocol for measuring and reducing software's carbon footprint.
- 13 new green software projects advancing opensource, standards and learning since 2022.
- +80,000 software practitioners globally have completed the Green Software Practitioners training.
- Ran two successful hackathons (Carbon Hack) that launched 100 green software projects and helped expand the plugin ecosystem to improve how we measure software.
- Graduated our first opensource project: The Carbon Aware SDK.
- Launched Impact Framework, an innovative opensource measurement tool to compute and report the environmental impacts of software applications accurately and with greater transparency.