How can engineers make IT more sustainable? Part 4: What to do next

How can engineers make IT more sustainable? Part 4: What to do next Build • James Martin • 10/08/23 • 7 min read

The digital sector generates 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions . Data centers and hardware are the main contributors to that impact. However, those machines — not to mention all software, websites, apps and more — run code written by developers. This means developers still have a considerable role to play. So how can engineers, and indeed anyone shaping tech today, reduce their projects’ environmental impact?

In part 3 of this series, we explored the concrete green IT solutions generating demonstrable results today. In this fourth and final chapter, we take a look at the future. How can green computing help companies achieve their carbon neutrality goals by 2050? What difference will regulatory changes make? And what about AI? Look no further…

2050: The final countdown

According to a recent IBM study of 3000 CEOs across 24 industries, 42% of these business leaders singled out sustainability as their number one challenge over the next three years . Most likely because most major companies have committed to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

Scaleway, for example, is aligned with the objectives of its parent company, Iliad Group, to reach carbon neutrality for scopes 1 and 2 by 2035, and for scope 3 by 2050 . The hardware aspect is particularly important in this case, as it accounts for three quarters of the digital sector’s emissions . The environmental impact of producing and disposing of hardware means that developers need to find ways to extend that hardware’s life. By writing widely compatible applications and operating systems, developers can reduce device obsolescence, and as such e-waste.

However, the responsibility for green IT does not lie solely with developers. Simply deactivating or deleting unneeded data and resources can make a big difference, according to Google research cited by the Green Software Foundation . Google Cloud Platform (GCP) calculated that dormant data, or “unattended projects”, accounted for over 600 gross metric tons of CO2 emissions (60 times more than what one French person currently emits per year). This is why GCP developed Unattended Project Recommender , a service that notifies users of their own sleeping data and its CO2 emissions, and then prompts them to remove unnecessary data.

Regulation: are you compliant?

In Europe alone, companies should prepare for an incoming wave of sustainability regulations. First and foremost, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which is already in place, and which will require companies of a certain size (with over 250 employees, or €40m in turnover, or €20m in assets) to submit annual non-financial reports aligned with CSRD requirements. The deadline is January 1st 2025, covering the 2024 financial year, as Plan A explains . This means impact reporting will soon be mandatory for the majority of European companies . Furthermore, regulations currently under discussion in the European parliament include laws against unprovable ecological claims (i.e. fines for companies found guilty of greenwashing).

Such constraints will inevitably further the growth of green IT practices, as demonstrating efforts to reduce computing’s environmental impact will shift from being a nice-to-have to a must-have.

And that’s just for starters. As explained in part 3 , France’s strict RGESN guidelines for eco-designed websites are set to become EU regulation; and indeed, many companies and organizations are already expected to follow its requirements.

Then there’s the notion of PCR , or Product Category Rules , which in France are managed by national ecological transition agency ADEME . These rules outline how to measure hardware’s environmental impact, involving a full lifecycle analysis that covers the manufacture, running, and disposal of all the underlying device components . Adhering to these rules is a significant challenge; most organizations lack the necessary data to quantify the impact of their supply chains, real estate, and electricity supply. Boavizta, an independent volunteer-led organization working to make such data publicly available, can help here (cf. examples of their work here and here ).

Specific PCRs are currently being developed for the cloud and data centers, which will have far-reaching consequences for CTOs, engineers and developers of all kinds. While these rules are currently only proposals being adopted by a few forward-thinking companies, they are likely to become French law by around 2025. This means cloud providers will come under increased pressure to provide true, accurate and comparable data on the emissions generated by their activities . Exposing this data will allow clients to choose the cloud provider with the lowest impact, thereby helping them to meet their own CSRD reporting requirements.

If this all seems somewhat abstract for now, it won’t be for long. AWS recently came under scrutiny from UK regulators for not providing timely scope 3 emissions data. The cloud leader quickly responded that such data would be available by “ early 2024 ”, and then explained in detail how said data could already be shared directly with reporting companies (again, think CSRD), using AWS Clean Rooms .

How to get ready

Green IT implies all kinds of new ways of thinking about computing. However, as we’ve seen in part 2 , green coding isn’t complicated or costly to put in place . It merely requires clean, simple programming, which is both cheaper and more efficient. As a result, green IT may be more of an evolution than a revolution, but the question remains: how can your teams get ready for it?

The Green Software for Practitioners (LFC131) course is the first of its kind, in that it teaches developers and engineers about principles such as carbon awareness, energy efficiency, and making the most of hardware , allowing them to apply green software principles to their own application development. Conceived by the Green Software Foundation (GSF), this free online course has already been followed by over 50,000 engineers. It’s a great first step in getting development teams to think more deeply about lowering the impact of their work.

Besides training, there are countless ways to measure your activity’s impact, be it Cloud Carbon Footprint or Scaphandre for the cloud, Boavizta’s Manufacturer Data Repository for hardware, or the GSF’s Software Carbon Intensity…