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Green Software Foundation
Each episode we discuss the latest news regarding how to reduce the emissions of software and how the industry is dealing with its own environmental impact. Brought to you by The Green Software Foundation.
The Week in Green Software: Carbon Aware Spatial Shifting
Host Chris Adams is joined by Niki Manoledeki of Grafana and Ross Fairbanks of Flatpeak in this edition of TWiGS focused on Carbon Aware Spatial Shifting. They dive into Amazon's 2022 Sustainability Report, highlighting 19 AWS regions powered by 100% renewable energy, and explore videos from the Linux Foundation energy summit (links below). They also discover the importance of measuring carbon footprints in personal computing and IT, and learn about Kepler Power Estimation and the PLATYPUS Attack. Plus, they share some exciting upcoming events from the CNCF and some interesting Barbenheimer inspired portmanteaus from the world of Green Software!
38:4426/07/2023
The Week in Green Software: Open Data with Fershad Irani
In this episode of Environment Variables Chris Adams is joined by Fershad Irani, an independent web sustainability consultant and maintainer of CO2.js. They discuss topics like open data on the greenness of power, the wonders of HotCarbon, new projects from the cloud native computing foundation and the Green Software Foundation, and gzip.ai. Fershad shares his experiences working with the Green Web Foundation and the growth of the open-source carbon estimation library, CO2.js and there’s a cameo from Fershad’s cat!
33:2819/07/2023
The Week in Green Software: Data Center LCA with Stani Borisová
This episode of The Week in Green Software, features guest Stani Borisová; Expert Life Cycle Management at IVL and former researcher at RISE Sweden. Host Chris quizzes her on her expertise in data center LCA and they discuss interesting news tidbits to share from a global tour of Singapore, Norway, Germany, and America. They discuss how data centers might be unnecessarily using too much heat to cool themselves down, how Germany’s Energy Efficiency Act has perhaps not gone far enough and how Norway’s investment into oil and gas affects renewable energy resources for data centers. Finally we have some fantastic opportunities for you to be part of the Green Software Foundation!
42:4412/07/2023
We Answer Your Questions!
On this episode of Environment Variables, host Chris Adams is joined by Asim Hussain as they dive into a mailbag session, bringing you the most burning unanswered questions from the recent live virtual event on World Environment Day that was hosted by the Green Software Foundation on June 5 2023. Asim and Chris will tackle your questions on the environmental impact of AI computation, the challenges of location shifting, the importance of low-carbon modes, and how to shift the tech mindset from "more is more" (Jevons Paradox). Chock-full of stories about projects implementing green software practices, and valuable resources, listen now to have your thirst for curiosity quenched!
56:0405/07/2023
Environment Variables One Year Round Up
Join us for a special episode of Environment Variables as we celebrate over a year of bringing you the best insights on Green Software! From open source's role in reducing software emissions to making green changes in organizations, carbon-aware computing, and more, we revisit the most captivating moments from our top 10 most popular episodes. Listen to snippets from our discussions with industry experts and dive into the world of Green Software, as we reflect on our journey, share valuable knowledge from our guests and hosts, and continue to raise awareness about the importance of Green Software.
27:5129/06/2023
The State of Green Software Survey with Tamara Kneese
In this episode of Environment Variables, we cover the State of Green Software Report with the Green Software Foundation’s very own lead researcher Tamara Kneese. She and host Chris Adams delve into the insights from the report including key topics such as the carbon footprint of crypto mining, regulations for generative AI, and the role of consulting firms in shaping emerging technologies. They also discuss how the results highlighted the impact of the tech industry, AI sustainability, and the need for responsible innovation. To find out just how interesting the results of the survey have been and everything in between tune in now!
44:0821/06/2023
The Week in Green Software: Code Green and Clean Power
Joining host Chris Adams on this episode of TWiGS is Nina Jabłońska, operations coordinator at Energy Tag and a master's student in sustainable energy systems. In this episode, we'll explore insights from the Linux Foundation Energy Summit in Paris, including Microsoft's urgent call for green coding and real-life examples of reducing computing emissions through cloud carbon footprint analysis. We'll also touch on employee activism at AWS, where tech workers stood up for climate action and better work-from-home conditions. Nina also tells us why sometimes she goes by Nina Jab%o%ska, and why Cara Delevingne and Keanu Reeves are the ultimate “carbon-free couple!”
41:4914/06/2023
The Week in Green Software: Open Source Innovations with Tom Greenwood
TWiGS host Chris Adams is joined by special guest Tom Greenwood from Wholegrain Digital, to bring you the latest news and updates from the world of sustainable software development. They discuss insights from The State of Green Software report, the cost reduction strategy of Amazon's Prime Video, Atlassian's sustainability program, Wholegrain Digital's Employee Activism Policy, the open-source Falcon LLM, and the innovative approach of heating swimming pools with servers. They also highlight upcoming events like the GSF’s UN World Environment Day Event (today!) and the London Open Source Data Infrastructure Meetup. Tune in for a deep dive into the intersection of technology and sustainability.
37:5007/06/2023
Fact Check: Colleen Josephson, Miguel Ponce de Leon & AI Optimization of the Environmental Impact of Software
This episode of Fact Check we ask the question, can AI always help us optimise the environmental impact of software? Host Chris Adams is joined by VMWare’s Colleen Josephson and Miguel Ponce de Leon to tackle this from their unique perspectives within the industry. They also talk all things sustainability in virtualization and networking and how this begins with green software. They also give us insight into how VMWare is tackling decarbonization within their own company.
41:3931/05/2023
The Week in Green Software: DIMPACT with Andri Johnston
Host Chris Adams is joined by Andri Johnston, Digital Sustainable Lead for Cambridge University Press and Assessment as they talk about using DIMPACT to calculate the carbon impact of digital publishing as well as news from the world of green software concerning one acronym; ESG and one portmanteau; LightSwitchOps. They also cover some upcoming events and we learn about Andri’s love of books!
29:2124/05/2023
The Week in Green Software: AWS & Scope 3 Emissions Data
Host Chris Adams is joined by the GSF’s Asim Hussain on this episode of The Week in Green Software. They discuss some interesting news about Amazon, AWS and their scope 3 GHG protocol emission data. We also find out how Python has got its Mojo back and we have a very exciting tool from Catchpoint WebpageTest for measuring site’s carbon footprint. Finally, some great green software events that you can be part of!
39:4517/05/2023
The Week in Green Software: IaaS, PaaS, SaaS!
Host Chris Adams is joined by Max Schulze from the SDIA (The Sustainable Digital Alliance) and they discuss three stories from the worlds of IaaS, PaaS and Saas! While these three acronyms are more than likely ever present in most digital people’s lives, we might not know about the environmental impact that they have. Chris and Max cover stories from the CNCF, Google, CIODive and OpenJS as well as upcoming events in the Green Software community.
35:1510/05/2023
The Week in Green Software: Data Centers in Space
Host Chris Adams is joined by Anne Currie on this episode of The Week in Green Software. They discuss the potential for data centers in space and how the use of potential death rays might be the way forward in powering these! Not only this, but sweeping changes in Reporting Law, and making Kubernetes clusters into Low Carbonetes clusters are covered too. Anne has a special report on her upcoming book and Chris finds his own variation of Boaty McBoatface!
39:1203/05/2023
Fact Check: Ola Fagerström and Microsoft's Surface Emissions Estimator
In this episode, we have a very special guest for an episode of Fact Check on Environmental Variables, Ola Fagerström from Microsoft Surface joins host Asim Hussain to talk about his work on the Microsoft Surface Emissions Estimator - an important tool that helps measure the carbon footprint of the device. Ola talks about how difficult it was to take into account everything from materials used, to manufacturing, to packaging, and even end-of-life disposal to give an accurate estimate of the emissions produced by each device; and how these principles can be applied to other areas of green software development.
45:2526/04/2023
The Week in Green Software: The Hidden Cost of AI
This week host Chris Adams is joined by Asim Hussain and Environment Variables regular Sara Bergman to discuss the hidden costs of generative AI. What’s really at the tip of this iceberg and how far down does it go? They also discuss just how thirsty AI chatbots really are and developments in platform engineering. Finally, we share some opportunities for development from the world of green software.
40:5919/04/2023
The Week in Green Software: Generative AI and Cloud Zombies
Chris Adams is joined by cloud sustainability advocate and founder of Cloud Sustainably, Aerin Booth in this episode of TWiGS brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. On this episode Aerin provides his insight into the cloud to discuss cloud zombies, the effect that generative AI is having on the environment and exciting developments from Xbox (including a list of some of Aerin’s favourite nostalgic games!). We also touch on GreenOps and the future for green software developers.
26:2812/04/2023
The Week in Green Software: Netflix, Refurbishment and Anti-Greenwashing Laws
On this episode of The Week in Green Software, Chris Adams and Asim Hussain discuss the latest research on streaming emissions from Netflix and DIMPACT, the environmental impact of refurbished tech from Back Market, The European Commission's Right to Repair Law and their proposal for an Anti Greenwashing Law which is being echoed across the channel with the UK’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill. Asim also discovers an alternative to central heating with his hot TV! The usual exciting resources and events in the show notes from TWiGS, Environment Variables and the Green Software Foundation.
44:2005/04/2023
The Week in Green Software: Calculating Software Emissions with Navveen Balani & Srini Rakhunathan
Host Asim Hussain is joined by two of only a handful of people to try and calculate the emissions of software; Navveen Balani of Accenture and Srini Rakhunathan of Microsoft. In this episode of TWiGS Navveen does a deep dive into the processes behind Accenture’s use of the SCI Specification to calculate a measure to track and, ultimately, reduce the carbon emissions of one of its internal reference applications. Asim also quizzes Srini on the upcoming CarbonQL project by the Green Software Foundation which Srini is leading. We also get some links to great resources (particularly for UX folk) and some exciting event news!
36:1922/03/2023
The Week in Green Software: Web 3.0 and Energy Standards for Software
In this the latest episode of The Week in Green Software, Chris Adams is joined by first time Environment Variables guest Tammy McClellan and regulars Anne Currie and Asim Hussain. They discuss the concept of greenwashing; what it is and how companies can avoid it, and why green IT is no longer an option for the tech sector. They cover various statistics about the environmental impact of data centers and cloud computing, the importance of optimizing code and algorithms to reduce emissions, and how developers can’t just rely on hardware to reduce emissions. The hosts also touch on some valuable resources to further your knowledge in the world of Green Software - links below!
41:1415/03/2023
The Week in Green Software: Greenwashing
In this the latest episode of The Week in Green Software, Chris Adams is joined by first time Environment Variables guest Tammy McClellan and regulars Anne Currie and Asim Hussain. They discuss the concept of greenwashing; what it is and how companies can avoid it, and why green IT is no longer an option for the tech sector. They cover various statistics about the environmental impact of data centers and cloud computing, the importance of optimizing code and algorithms to reduce emissions, and how developers can’t just rely on hardware to reduce emissions. The hosts also touch on some valuable resources to further your knowledge in the world of Green Software - links below!
33:0508/03/2023
The Week in Green Software: How Green is Your Cloud?
TWiGS returns this week with host Asim Hussain being joined by (now guest) Chris Adams. They talk about the environmental impact of the cloud and while some of the big cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s Azure, and Google Cloud, have introduced initiatives designed to increase the sustainability of individual data centres and reduce their overall carbon footprints, will it be enough to help reduce carbon emissions produced by cloud computing? They also cover Microsoft’s Surface Emissions Estimator and a recent paper surveying the factors that influence the emissions of machine learning.
50:3701/03/2023
The Week in Green Software: Generative AI & The Environment, The Cloud & DevSusOps
The Week in Green Software (or TWiGS) is back with a new format! This time host Chris Adams is joined by Anne Currie and Asim Hussain to talk about news about AI and the environment (with a particular focus on Chat GPT and Bing), the environmental impact of the cloud, the Corporate Sustainable Software Market report, and some exciting opportunities to explore, learn, and contribute to green software.
46:1523/02/2023
The Week in Green Software: Green Software Legislation
For our first episode of 2023, Ismael Velasco looks at the dense legislative landscape around green software and technology and energy regulations. Everything from France’s Digital Environmental Footprint Reduction Legislation to the UK’s Greening Government ICT and Digital Services Strategy; Ismael will help you make sense of it all!
42:5718/01/2023
Community Clouds and Energy Islands with Dawn Nafus and Laura Watts
We’ve moved from a more decentralised internet running on centralised power, to a more centralised internet running on more decentralised power. Is this the only computing model of the future? What would a decentralised internet running on decentralised power look like? We see hints of what this looks like at the edge of the internet, but also the edge of the grid, and this is an area our two guests Dawn Nafus of Intel and Laura Watts of the University of Edinburgh have spent quite a lot of time researching. They join host Chris Adams in this episode of Environment Variables as they explore community clouds, datacentres, energy regulation, projects on the Islands of Orkney and the book that they’re working on together!
43:3805/12/2022
Fact Check: Sara Bergman & Software Carbon Intensity
Welcome to Fact Check on the Environment Variables podcast! Fact Check is a new segment where we take a deeper dive into the bigger questions in a one-to-one discussion with a special guest. Host Ismael Velasco, is joined by EV regular Sara Bergman, a senior software engineer at Microsoft, and an individual contributor to the Green Software Foundation’s Software Carbon Intensity project. They discuss Sara’s green software journey, the Software Carbon Intensity ISO standard, why it excludes carbon offsets, and fact checking what that tells us about offset-based green software claims, from Google to Blockchain.
54:0918/11/2022
The Week in Green Software: Disintegration vs Integration
This Week in Green Software Episode, host Ismael Velasco takes you through the recent key events and happenings in the world of green software. He outlines a range of reports coming out from The WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, IPCC, UNEP, UNFCCC, IEA and many other acronyms to boot! He also highlights huge positive (and negative) changes in Big Tech and how you can be part of the crest of the wave of change in green software.
50:5310/11/2022
The Week in Green Software: An Introduction
Welcome to our first episode of The Week in Green Software hosted by Ismael Velasco. This new segment on The Environment Variables Podcast will be a bite size smorgasbord of news, events, resources and tools that will help you discover how to get involved in the world of software-focused climate action. Check out the links below for all the resources mentioned in this podcast!
50:1224/10/2022
Green Networks
Environment Variables is back! Chris Adams hosts our Green Networks focused episode and he is joined by Eve Schooler, Principal Engineer and Director of Emerging IoT Networks at Intel and Romain Jacob of ETH Zurich. They discuss how can we reduce the energy produced by networks? How could we leverage current research to make the internet more energy efficient?
41:3912/09/2022
From Carbon Aware to Carbon Intelligent
In this episode of Environment Variables Chris Adams is joined by Colleen Josephson of VMWare, Philipp Wiesner of TU Berlin and Sara Bergman of Microsoft as they discuss the opportunities with making first carbon aware and then carbon intelligent computing. Variability, curtailment, disaggregation, 5G, 6G (!), delay-tolerant networks, intermittent computing, IoT and even a short segue about Raspberry Pi’s all make an appearance in this action-packed episode!
48:5008/08/2022
How do we Teach Green Software?
The future of Green Software lies in education. In this episode host Chris Adams is joined by Luis Cruz of TU Delft and Sara Bergman of Microsoft as they discuss how to teach and learn to make Green Software. With Luis’ unique insight as a professor, he is able to bring us up to date with pedagogical approaches that are laying the groundwork for future software engineers.
42:3625/07/2022
Accessibility and Green Software
This episode is taken from a recent panel discussion from the Green Software Foundation’s Global Summit of 2022. EV regulars, Chris Adams and Asim Hussain are joined by Anne Currie, Chris Lloyd-Jones and Elise Zelechowski as they discuss Accessibility and Green Software. What’s driving interest in Green Software? What ESG principles are being adopted by companies and what is needed to drive accountability and accessibility in this sphere? Where does the main driver for Green Software come from within an organisation?
31:1711/07/2022
The Price of Oil and Gas and Green Software
This week Asim Hussain and Chris Adams are joined by Sara Bergman of Microsoft and Henry Richardson of Watttime.org to discuss the current global surge in oil and gas prices. Why is the price of oil and gas so damn high at the moment? How does intermittency influence the price surge? Are high gas prices actually good for society as a whole? How does Green Software come into play? All this including a wrap-up of the Green Software Foundation Summit.
40:0527/06/2022
How does AI and ML Impact Climate Change?
This week Chris Adams takes over the reins from Asim Hussain to discuss how does artificial intelligence and machine learning impact climate change. He is joined by Will Buchanan of Azure ML (Microsoft), Abhishek Gupta; the chair of the Standards Working Group for the Green Software Foundation and Lynn Kaack; assistant professor at the Hertie School in Berlin. They discuss boundaries, Jevon’s paradox, the EU AI Act, inferencing and supply us with a plethora of materials regarding ML and AI and the climate!
40:2513/06/2022
How can Open Source Help Reduce Software Emissions?
In this episode Asim Hussain is joined by guest Chris Lloyd-Jones; Head of Open Technologies at Avanade and co-chair of the Open Source Working Group at the Green Software Foundation, and Dan Lewis-Toakley; Green Cloud Lead at ThoughtWorks and co-chair of the Open Source Working Group at the Green Software Foundation. They discuss the benefits of open source versus closed source, what tools are already out there and how open source can help reduce software emissions.
46:5930/05/2022
How do we make Green Changes in Organisations?
In this episode Asim Hussain is joined by guest Anne Currie; Tech Ethicist at Container Solutions and Lecturer in Tech Ethics at the University of Hertfordshire. What are the real factors that drive organisations choices around increasing efficiency within their organisation? What needs to happen for senior leaders to make sacrifices for sustainability? Can regulation push for real change inside organisations? They discuss the role of middle managers, developers and their love for ops people!
48:5116/05/2022
Carbon Aware Computing
In this episode Asim Hussain is joined by guests Scott Chamberlin formerly of Microsoft and Henry Richardson of Watttime as they discuss how time-shifting, location-shifting, curtailment and other terms are important to Carbon Aware Computing. How can we build sustainable software that reduces the impact on the environment and how these decisions may just lie in the hands of the developers instead of the CSR teams.
39:3902/05/2022
Amazon's Customer Carbon Footprint Tool
In this episode Asim is joined by guests Chris Adams, Sara Bergman and Danielle Erickson and they discuss the impact that Amazon’s Customer Carbon Footprint Tool is having on the green software landscape. How do services like AWS affect climate change and what are the effects on the environment of these huge data centres? We also learn about how you can use heat from greenhouses to grow tomatoes!
44:5111/04/2022
Welcome to Environment Variables
Join your host Asim Hussain on Environment Variables, a podcast from The Green Software Foundation, and a bunch of experts from varying software and tech fields. In each episode we’ll talk about the latest news regarding how to reduce the emissions of software and how the industry is dealing with its own environmental impact.
00:5407/04/2022