What is Green Software?
Software designed to minimise energy consumption and carbon emissions. Green software practices include efficient code, reduced data transfer, and optimising for low-carbon electricity availability.
Why it matters
The Green Software Foundation and initiatives like the Software Carbon Intensity specification are creating standards for measuring software's carbon impact. Tech companies adopting green software principles can reduce infrastructure costs while demonstrating environmental responsibility.
Example
A development team refactors an API to reduce database queries by 40% and implements image compression for mobile users. Server energy consumption drops by 25%, and the application's carbon intensity per user request falls from 0.5g to 0.3g CO₂e.
Related terms
Digital Carbon Footprint
Carbon emissions from digital activities including data storage, cloud computing, video calls, and email. While individual actions are small, digital emissions can be significant at organisational scale.
Energy Efficiency
Using less energy to perform the same task or produce the same output. Energy efficiency improvements reduce both costs and carbon emissions, often providing quick payback periods.
Put your knowledge into practice
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