
Show Notes
TWiGS hosts Tzviya and Kate are joined by Ryan Sholin of Electricity Maps to discuss how global events impact electricity availability, cost, and carbon intensity. They highlight that improving efficiency and better utilizing existing power grids could reduce the need for new energy infrastructure. The conversation connects energy awareness with software design decisions, emphasizing that developers and organizations can play a role in sustainability by aligning workloads with cleaner energy and understanding the broader energy context behind digital systems. Learn more about our people: Tzviya Siegman: LinkedIn | Website Ryan Sholin: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website Kate Goldenring: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website
Find out more about the GSF: The Green Software Foundation Website Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter
News: Exclusive: Google, Tesla, others tackle energy affordability | Axios [02:10] Virginia to utilities: Do more with the existing power grid | CanaryMedia [03:38] There's another energy market that may get hit harder than oil by Strait of Hormuz closure [10:08] PUE Ranking - Paweł Czyżak on LinkedIn [14:44] Markdown, llms.txt and AI crawlers | Dries Buytaert [25:44] Datacentre developers face calls to disclose effect on UK’s net emissions | The Guardian [39:14]
Events: LUT x Sustinaires | 25 Mar 7:15 AM CET (Remote) [41:29] UX Jumpstart | 26 Mar 2:00 PM CET (Virtual) [41:46] Are you speaking about Green Software? | GSF [41:59]
Resources: Marc Brooker's Blog [06:32] Environment Variables Ep 133: TWiGS: Who Pays for AI’s Energy Footprint? [07:09] US data centre efficiency ranked by PUE - Rod McLaren: Words that work TPU vs GPU: Which Is Better for AI Infrastructure in 2025? [19:57] TPUs improved carbon-efficiency of AI workloads by 3x | Google Cloud Blog Software Carbon Intensity for Artificial Intelligence [21:51] Hugging Face AI Energy Score Project [22:43] Google & Bing Warn: Markdown Files Can Increase Crawl Load and Cause SEO Issues [27:35] Introducing Markdown for Agents [28:57] agent-md | GitHub w3c-cg / ai-content-disclosure | GitHub [30:02] AI Preferences Measuring for Reporting vs Measuring for Action | GSF CarbonDB [34:22]
If you enjoyed this episode then please either: Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts Follow and rate on Spotify Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel! Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Environment Variables
This Week in Green Software, Dr. Nick Souter from the University of Sussex explores how researchers can reduce the carbon footprint of scientific computing without compromising research quality. He shares practical ways to measure and optimise the energy use of fMRI data processing, including how removing unnecessary steps from a pipeline can cut emissions by around 50%. The conversation also examines responsible AI use, sustainable data storage, and how certification initiatives can make sustainability a standard part of scientific research. Learn more about our people: Aditya Manglik: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website Dr. Nick Souter: LinkedIn | Website
Host Chris Adams speaks with Anita Schüttler about certifying green software and the role of standards in making software sustainability more mainstream. They discuss Germany’s Blue Angel certification, Anita’s work on the Holmes search software, and how recognising software’s environmental impact can encourage more sustainable design across the technology industry. Learn more about our people: Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website Anita Schüttler: LinkedIn | Website
This Week in Green Software, Valeria and Adi explore the sustainability challenges of agentic AI and six ways developers can make AI workflows more efficient. They also discuss the new SCI for Web update, green regions and cloud sustainability, and the upcoming changes to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and ISO carbon accounting standards. Learn more about our people: Aditya Manglik: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website Valeria Salis: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website
Hosts Kate and Tzviya speak with consultant and technologist Pascal Joly about AI sustainability, observability, and tools for making smarter choices about AI usage. The conversation also explores the ITU’s Greening Digital Companies report and what its findings reveal about the growing energy and emissions of the digital sector before discussing the growing energy demands of the IT sector and recent sustainability reporting from major technology companies. Learn more about our people: Kate Goldenring: LinkedIn | Website Tzviya Siegman: LinkedIn | Website Pascal Joly: LinkedIn | Website
Producer Chris Skipper goes Backstage with Yi Ding and Hongliu Cao, chair and co-chair of the Software Water Intensity project, to discuss the development of the standard. They explore why water is a unique sustainability challenge, how data centres and semiconductor manufacturing contribute to water use, and the complexities of measuring water withdrawal, consumption, and stress. The conversation also looks at the challenges of data availability and how SWI could turn water impact into a practical metric for making better software and infrastructure decisions. Learn more about our people: Chris Adams: LinkedIn | Website Yi Ding: LinkedIn | Website | Scholar Hongliu (Leo) Cao: LinkedIn | Scholar