Sustainable Tech is a Non-Functional Requirement! Executive attention is focusing on organisational carbon usage. There is mounting pressure on software teams to create sustainable solutions. But how?
Tell me everything I need to know – our foundational sustainable technology examples
- The Green Software Foundation is a great place to start. They are a non-profit group that pulls together foundational standards. If standards are too hard for you, then the Principles of GreenSoftware site will help you. But if that’s too concise, Microsoft has written a blog putting their standards into practice. They also have a learning module to teach you the eight principles of green software.
- For larger companies, the UK government has a comprehensive Sustainable Development guide – we find it a little dry, but on the plus side, it is obvious.
- We have been working with the Sustainability pillar as part of the Well-Architected Framework with AWS.
- Friend of the blog, Sheen Brisals from LEGO Engineering, has written a fantastic series of four blog posts on Serverless and Sustainability. He also has a great talk if you have time to spare.
- Finally, Adrian Cockcroft, VP of Sustainability for Amazon covering AWS, has a super talk from re: Invent 2021. In our opinion, this is the best summary of sustainability in software that you will find.
How does sustainable technology fit into the bigger picture?
As engineers, we are usually tackling low-level concerns. So, seeing a large-scale effort or movement driving the same message is affirming.
In 2021, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly called COP26, was held.
- OS-Climate (the Opensource group) recorded their talks and content.
- The EU also have a framework to guide investors on sustainability.
- And we are observing more groups offering solutions, like Climate Solutions 101.
While climate change may seem daunting, your role in promoting sustainability within an organisation is crucial.
You’ve done your background reading, but now it’s time to leverage your influence to convince your boss.
Let’s explore some effective talking points.
We can now measure carbon usage at a high level. If the sustainability messaging isn’t getting through to your boss, using Cost as a proxy is a big help. Also, teams are sometimes more motivated to optimise for carbon reduction than to save money.
- Thoughtworks (as usual) has written an excellent blog. They consistently write fantastic content on emerging trends and offer practical advice. This piece combines Team Topologies principles with Green Software to describe a GreenOps approach to setting up a team to improve sustainability in the cloud.
- Some companies elect to join the Green Software Foundation. A senior technical team usually spearheads this. In the case of VMWare, the Office of the CTO wrote this piece when they joined up. In the article, they also reference the Green Software Principles.
- This is an excellent fit for VMWare as they have built effectively on efficient compute – virtualisation – in the cloud. This article describes their past, present, and future.
You may think you don’t have a business case to re-platform or move to a more sustainable service. Maybe you believe that there is too much tech debt to deal with.
We think it is more compelling to flip the question:
We are using too much compute, which is inefficient.
So…
We should increase efficiency, simplify things, reduce costs AND be more sustainable.
My boss is on board, so what tools are available?
The leading cloud providers have provided excellent tools to measure carbon usage. Their messaging is “We will make the data centre efficient; you make the software efficient”. AWS phrases this as, “We look after sustainability of the cloud; you look after sustainability in the cloud”.
- Amazon, Google and Microsoft Azure all have great tools and content.
- If you are with another cloud provider and they do not have a robust toolset or approach, I would ask questions. You can also use this open-source tool.
- The UK Government Digital Service (GDS) also have a great case study.
We’re ready to go, but we need to get executive attention.
Do you need to convince the executive team or the board? We hope they are asking you about this already! Rather than you trying to convince them. But here are some helpful hints, just in case.
- Gamification of sustainability is a great way to introduce the topic. Look at the Financial Times or this gamification of sustainability article.
- There are also examples of companies investing in sustainability. Adrian Cockcroft has helpfully collected all the 2020 AWS re: Invent sustainability talks. And there is also the Climate Pledge, which many companies are signing.
The Serverless Edge and Sustainability:
At The Serverless Edge, we see the link between Sustainability, Serverless, and Well-Architected as a game-changer. Could carbon usage be the ultimate metric for measuring technical debt? Imagine a single metric that represents efficiency with no tricks. We are not quite there yet, but we think it’s not that far away. Here are some of our articles:
There’s no time like the present – start your sustainability journey today. Our future generations will be grateful.
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