Green Software Foundation's Software Carbon Intensity Spec Becomes ISO Standard
https://greensoftware.foundation/articles/sci-specification-achieves-iso-standard-status/
Automated Summary
The Green Software Foundation's (GSF) Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification has been recognized as an ISO standard, signifying its reliability and fairness in measuring software's carbon footprint. Version 1.1 is now available, emphasizing genuine efforts to reduce carbon emissions rather than incorporating neutralizations or offsets. By adopting the SCI Specification, ICT and Technology companies gain a standardized protocol for emissions reduction. This enables organizations to showcase their dedication to quality, efficiency, and reliability in green software development. GSF, along with various member organizations, aims to make SCI measurement a standard developer tool and facilitate sustainable innovation in the technology industry.
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Why do we need such a thing? Operating cost is proportional to energy, carbon emissions are also proportional to energy. Making your information systems cost less also makes them emit less carbon. The information industry has a clear and direct economic incentive to reduce carbon intensity, and all large operators do catalog and reduce GHG emissions.
> Why do we need such a thing?
For starters, growing numbers of companies are required to report on their own emissions, which includes software - and therefore having agreed standards on how to measure this would seem a good way forward to me?
> carbon emissions are also proportional to energy
Reducing energy usage reduces carbon emissions, but they are not proportional. Highly dependent on the grid composition, time of day you draw the energy, and any behind-the-meter infrastructure.
> and all large operators do catalog and reduce GHG emissions.
To take AWS as an example, they still do not report scope 3 emissions for customers (due 'early 2024') - without which, these 'catalogued' numbers are essentially meaningless given how understated they are.
...companies are required to report on their own emissions, which includes software...
Just be careful not to double-count hardware and software emissions.
There is a lack of political will to do the screamingly obvious thing and put a price on carbon emissions.
it's also insufficient. we need businesses to take responsibility for the full product lifecycle, including the waste steam, recycling of consumer packaging, etc.
Should "startup" be defined as "business" in this context? Just to be sure.
yes
Take OpenAI for example, they decided to skip on paying for content for training their models and by doing so substantially reducing their costs. Does this make ChatGPT more “green”? Does it mean when OpenAI is made to pay for all their copyright infringement that it becomes “less green”?
And what about technology which is controversial, causing a lot of discussions online (all those people spending energy to post comments…)?
I think cost has nothing to do with it.
because the cheapest energy is not necessarily the cleanest
That may be, but the awkward method used by this initiative says that PPAs don't count, so if you literally spin off a subsidiary to build a solar array for your new datacenter, and use a PPA to buy all of its output, that doesn't matter and you are supposed to use the regional grid carbon intensity. It is hard to imagine why anyone would adopt that method.
Most solar arrays that are built still feed into the general electricity grid, as I understand it. So while the PPA has likely enabled the construction of the solar, you'd still need to consider the overall carbon intensity of the grid at the time of energy consumption - and hence the SCI incentivising direct reductions by making software carbon aware, and encouraging higher efficiency.
If the data centre entirely off-grid, the SCI permits using your own grid intensity factors.
I'm not clear on the scenario where the solar is directly connected to the data centre 'behind the meter', or if there are other forms of peak shaving, while still drawing on the grid when needed - does anyone else care to comment/clarify the standards intentions there in terms of incentives?
A friend of mine joked a few years ago that one should invent "green computing" to fleece unsuspecting Fortune 500s and NGOs.
Well...
How about starting with getting rid of all the bloated web-based crap...
I'm strongly against inefficient software for different reasons, but if stuff like this can have an effect beyond the virtue-signaling bureaucracy it's likely to become instead, maybe it's a good thing.
Surely there is in argument to be made that applications targeting a non-native but cross-platform runtime, like webapps, save more power than the devices running them waste. Cross-platform applications mean broader compatibility, so maybe less e-waste? Or perhaps a knock-on effect, like web apps running in browsers are trivially modifyable by extentions like uBO, which skip executing expensive tracking and advertising code that would be very difficult to stip out of a native binary. As a further knock-on, blocking those ads will make the user less likely to buy and have shipped random garbage, which reduces pollution!
If this takes off... "What is your R" can join the rest of the famous lines beginning with "What is your..." :)
Wow! This is very interesting!
Ridiculous.