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.
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.
it's also insufficient. we need businesses to take responsibility for the full product lifecycle, including the waste steam, recycling of consumer packaging, etc.
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…)?
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.
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!
Readit News
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.
Just be careful not to double-count hardware and software emissions.
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.
Well...
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.
Deleted Comment