Sustainability: Thoughts from a software engineer

According to studies by Charlotte Freitag et al.*, the information and communication technology (ICT) sector is responsible for about 3% of global emissions, surpassing the aviation sector. As software engineers, we have a unique opportunity to drive change in this area.

Until recently, improvements in data center power efficiency compensated almost entirely for the increasing demand for computing resources. However, this trend is now reversing. The rise of big data, cryptocurrencies, and AI means the IT sector contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions. This also presents a substantial opportunity for impact with sustainable IT practices.

Every individual in an IT organization can make a difference in sustainability. Since a few people can build products that are used worldwide, every improvement scales with the product itself. This offers a great opportunity to achieve a positive impact by simultaneously reducing CO₂ emissions and costs: a win-win situation.

How to achieve sustainable IT practices

Use observability tools

The first step in driving improvements is to obtain a comprehensive view of your IT infrastructure’s climate impact. Collect metrics on energy consumption or derive them from existing signals. For instance, Dynatrace has developed the Cost and Carbon Optimization app, a tool designed to measure, understand, and act on the energy consumption and carbon emissions generated by hybrid and multicloud infrastructures.

Create and implement an optimization plan

Based on the insights from observability tools, create and implement an optimization plan. This plan should focus on identifying underutilized resources and responding to them accordingly, ultimately reducing both CO₂ emissions and costs.

Scale to zero

Scaling systems to match current demand prevents underutilized machines from consuming significant energy while idling. While building production systems that can scale to zero and reliably restart can be challenging, it’s often simpler in test stages and build pipelines, making this a great place to start.

Schedule workloads intentionally

Not every workload needs to run immediately or close to the user. For example, reporting jobs can process monthly data without running exactly at the end of the month. By being flexible and wise about these requirements, organizations can achieve significant improvements as energy mixes and prices fluctuate throughout the day.

Optimize all kinds of artifacts

If you’re building non-customer-facing tools, your impact might be even greater. For instance, optimizing a frontend library can save resources for every website. Platform engineers can set defaults for development teams, such as the number of replicas a service should have or whether it scales automatically.

Select data centers intelligently

Sending fewer bytes saves energy on the server, client, and any device in between. Because energy consumption drives infrastructure costs, cost optimization and sustainability goals align. Even if we don’t change what we compute, we can choose where it happens. Hyperscalers offer data centers in various locations, allowing us to select those with the least carbon footprint using tools such as ElectricityMaps.com.

Measure again and introduce an optimization cycle

Continuously measure and analyze the impact of your optimizations. Introduce an optimization cycle to ensure ongoing improvements and adapt to new challenges and opportunities.

Sharing is caring: Get started now

One of the software sector’s great qualities is how easy it is to share good ideas. Any project that helps your organization become more sustainable can be open-sourced and shared globally, allowing a single person to have a global impact.

The time to act is now. Let’s leverage our skills and knowledge to drive meaningful change in our industry and beyond.

*Charlotte Freitag, Mike Berners-Lee, Kelly Widdicks, Bran Knowles, Gordon S. Blair, Adrian Friday, The real climate and transformative impact of ICT: A critique of estimates, trends, and regulations, Patterns, Volume 2, Issue 9, 2021, 100340, ISSN 2666-3899, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2021.100340.