Show Notes
Host Kate Goldenring is joined by Chris Adams to explore how the Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) standard can help companies meet new EU sustainability reporting requirements, shifting green software from best practice to audited obligation. They also discuss research on “green prompting,” showing that specific words can significantly impact AI energy use, along with new tools that reveal real-time energy consumption in AI workflows. They close by examining how rising AI demand is increasing hardware costs and disrupting the refurbished laptop market. Learn more about our people: Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website Kate Goldenring: LinkedIn | Website
Find out more about the GSF: The Green Software Foundation Website Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter
News: The SCI Standard: Providing the Software Emissions Data CSRD Needs | GSF [02:47] Green Prompting: Characterizing Prompt-driven Energy Costs of LLM Inference | Adamska et al. [29:40] I Can’t Sell You Laptops Anymore [44:30]
Resources: Green Metrics Tool | green-coding.io [19:25] Cardamon [19:48] Briefing 1 - XBRL and materiality briefing video | Chris Adams [21:18] Deck 1 - XBRL and materiality carbon.txt - Green Web Foundation [25:48] A validator for carbon.txt files, and linked documents in them · GitHub [26:51] Introducing our new work on carbon.txt - Green Web Foundation GitHub - ml-energy/zeus: Measure and optimize the energy consumption of your AI applications! We know AI can use loads of energy. So why isn't it visible at the point of use when you use it? Is it because it's just too hard to show it? | Chris Adams [34:30] How to use GenAI models if you care about the energy they consume | Chris Adams GitHub - Energy and Carbon Tracking for OpenCode Release Guide: CO2.js v0.18 - Green Web Foundation [40:31] Putting things in perspective: Data center investments now on par with renewables, oil and gas [49:14]
Events: Sustainable AI for Climate Tech Founders (April 22, 1:00 pm PDT - San Francisco) [51:32] Sustainable AI (April 23, 6:00 pm CEST - Utrecht) [51:41] HotCarbon Workshop
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
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
TWiGS hosts Kate and Tzviya are joined by Dave Masselink, founder of Compute Gardener, to discuss how software engineers can play a direct role in building a cleaner energy future. The conversation explores flexible computing, carbon aware workload scheduling, and the growing impact of AI on electricity demand, while highlighting practical ways developers can reduce emissions without sacrificing performance. They offer a grounded look at how better, flexible software decisions can support a more sustainable grid. Learn more about our people: Tzviya Siegman: LinkedIn | Website Kate Goldenring: LinkedIn | Website Dave Masselink: LinkedIn | Website