We act on the Environmental Impact of Digital Products
Environmentally sustainable digital products and takes actions to realize this vision.
Events And Conferences
Spread the word
Resources
We have put together many resources that help you spread the word and get a grip on the facts you need to raise awareness.
The Facts
There is impact: Digital products consume resources that create environmental impact.
The exact numbers are often disputed. But the fact is: Software requires computers to run. And those computers are made using energy-intensive processes which consume vast amounts of rare earths, metals, and other resources. They require energy to run. And no matter how much more efficient we make them (read about the Rebound Effect), we constantly need more infrastructure - data centers, networks and servers to run the digital products and services we make.
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We have the power to change: The software community has power over the resource usage of the products it creates.
When we make software, we control how much resources - computation, storage and network capacity - are being used. The quality of our software, of the assembly of libraries, logic, and services, is key to how much resources are needed. That’s in our control. We can reduce the resources needed. We can shut-down applications when they are not used. We can clean up outdated & legacy IT systems. We have the power.
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We can demand transparency: When using digital products & services, we can demand them to be transparent about the environmental impact they are creating.
Today’s digital products rely on a myriad of third-party libraries and services. Each has its own environmental impact from its resource use. Often, we are both the producer of digital products as well as the customer. And as a customer, we have the power to demand to know how much environmental impact is created from our usage. For example: Are you relying on an API for data storage or for an LLM? Ask for the environmental impact of each request.
It might not sound like much, but this way we create demand and a movement of measuring that impact and making it public. This creates competition and pressure to reduce it. When are you sending our letter (link to resource) to your suppliers?
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Get letter for suppliers
Get letter for suppliers
Measuring carbon is not enough: We need to tackle energy, materials and water usage and electronic waste.
Many discussions today center around carbon emissions. And yes, GHG emissions, including CO2, cause climate change. And yes, we must reduce those emissions. But just getting green energy to run our servers & networks is not enough. Our digital products use millions of servers, routers, switches and end-user devices. Each of those need to be manufactured and many of them are discarded after a few years, with limited options to recover the materials put into them. It’s our responsibility to use less of them, use them longer and make sure our products do not lead to society to constantly discard their devices.
And consider this: We need green electricity to reduce many emissions in other sectors as well. By reducing the energy use of our digital products, we make sure that green electricity remains available to other sectors such as making green steel, decarbonizing transportation, electrifying heating systems, and much more. We need to build digital products that are amazing and create as little environmental impact as possible.
We can do it.
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We have the tools: The tools for measurement exist.
The sustainable software community has already created many tools and datasets to help you measure the environmental impact of your digital products - be it during the development process or within production environments. Use them now and get a grip on the impact of your products
Can’t get buy in from your organization? Demand it from your suppliers (link to letter) - the many digital products or APIs that you rely on, that creates pressure for other organizations to start measuring and eventually creates a movement for everyone to do it.
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