Green Software in politics, radio … and now even breakfast TV
Faster than many expected, Green Software is becoming a visible part of the debate on the general climate relevance of IT. Just recently (on February 4, 2022) for example, by Inforadio Berlin/Brandenburg interviewed Stephanie Kamp (Green Innovation Manager, Syngenio) about Green Software: “There are around 900K software developers in Germany,” she pointed out. “There is an enormous potential in this to make software more climate-efficient.”
The increased public interest also has to do with the fact that green IT as a whole is currently gaining more visibility. The EU has included the topic in its “Green Deal,” and the German government’s coalition agreement has also explicitly mentioned it as part of their strategy, e.g. all new data centers are expected to be climate-neutral within five years.
The scoping of hardware and data centers was to be expected. However, what may come as a surprise to some is that, more and more often, the contribution of the software as well is also being emphasized. The Umweltbundesamt (UBA) – the Federal Environment Agency of Germany – even went as far as naming the influence of software first in its recent Position Statement on Green IT, and has even devoted a separate page on its website on its website to the software aspects.
Legal requirements for minimum efficiency have so far only existed for hardware in information technology (IT), but the software has at least a similarly large influence on the energy and hardware efficiency of the information processing. Inefficiently programmed software product can consume up to four times more energy than a more efficiently programmed software product. In addition, there are discernible differences between software products in terms of hardware efficiency (related to processor utilization, memory, permanent storage, data transfer) – this is relevant because excessive demand on hardware leads to the need to replace it with more powerful hardware.
Source: Federal Environment Agency
Green Software hit mainstream in January 2022, when it became a key topic on German breakfast television Die Sendung „Volle Kanne“ im ZDF widmete sich am 12.1.22 gleich zu Beginn dem Thema „IT und Klima“. Although the relevance of software is only mentioned briefly, the contribution shows that Green Software is now reaching consumers on a broad scale. This makes it all the more important for companies to react quickly to this trend: Companies who now (further) develop their software with Green Software Design, show their customers that they also take climate protection seriously in IT. Syngenio supports companies both in getting started and implementing green coding, and in communicating what they have achieved to consumers. And with the Green Software Design Label, a company’s commitment becomes visible.