Find essential information about the Green Software Foundation, along with recent 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.

Illustration: The Green Software Foundation’s definition of Green Software

Illustration: The Green Software Foundation’s definition of Green Software

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