Did containerisation ship away our environmental responsibility? 

Containers come with the promise of automation, scalability and reliability. The question is how to add sustainability to the list without breaking its other benefits. To talk about these challenges, Gaël Duez welcomes Flavia Paganelli and Niki Manoledaki, 2 experts in Kubernetes who are also pillars of the CNCF TAG Environmental Sustainability workgroup. 

This episode might beat the record of acronyms: KEIT, CNCF, TAG … And yet Flavia Paganelli and Niki Manoledaki provided crystal clear explanations when they covered: 

   🍳 Why Kubernetes is a lot like a restaurant, 

   ⛈️ The challenges with sustainability in cloud computing, 

   🛠️ The CNCF KEIT project, 

   🌱 CNCF’s reorg and what might happen to the TAG Environmental Sustainability,

    💪 The power of open source communities, 

And much more!

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Flavia (00:00)

I got to meet Nikki and all the people at the CNCF and I had the opportunity to go to KubeCon in Paris last year, it was amazing because it's not just about the who and the what, but it's about the people. So the energy that came out of that group, I like, want to be part of this. I want to, you know, join forces to build something together

Gaël Duez (00:16)

Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO. I'm Gaël Duez and in this podcast, we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world, one bite at a time. Twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO. All the references mentioned in this episode as well as the full transcript are in the show notes You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform and of course on our website greenio.tech.

Cloud computing is nothing but material. It is just someone else's computer, as a popular quote says. Yet, using cloud services comes with its specific challenges for whoever is willing to seriously monitor its environmental footprint. And with the rapid adoption of cloud-based solutions, came extra layers of abstraction and remoteness with the bare-metal servers which ultimately compute and store the data.

One of these extra layers is the use of containers in the orchestration system. And they have been massively adopted in software engineering and cloud operation, the so-called DevOps. The software containers market is now a multi-billion US dollar industry with a double digit gross rate. Containers come with the promise of automation, scalability, and reliability.

Flavia (01:41)

Thank you.

Gaël Duez (02:08)

The question is how to add sustainability to the list without breaking its other benefits. To talk about these challenges, I'm glad to have two experts in Kubernetes, by far the most used container orchestration solution in the world.

Gaël Duez (02:24)

Flavia and Niki who will be at CubeCon 2025 in London next week.

Gaël Duez (02:32)

Flavia is CTO at Agnostic and a tech lead in the CNCF TAG Sustainability Screen Reviews Working Group. She has decades of experience in software engineering, and in her early days, she co-authored several O'Reilly books on AWS and also built an IoT platform She is originally from Argentina and now lives in Utrecht, Netherlands. Niki Manoledaki is a senior software engineer at Grafana Labs, where she's part of the platform engineering team but she is also an environmental sustainability advocate, keynote speaker and a community facilitator, starting with co-chairing the CNCF Environmental Sustainability Tags Green Reviews Working Group. She's based in Barcelona, Spain. And fun fact, reflecting the 2024 year for the Green IO Podcast, I was concerned by the lack of Spanish speaking guests in the lineup. And I've realized that in 2025, there are a majority so far. So I do hope that all this episode will help spark meaningful conversations, both in Spain and in Latin America. And at some point I will have to consider hosting a GreenOil conference in Barcelona, Or maybe in Amsterdam first.

Niki (03:48)

Barcelona is a great place to host conferences. We do have the Mobile World Congress already happening. Actually, it's happening soon.

Gaël Duez (03:57)

I also happens in...

Flavia (03:57)

It would be nice when there's a train that goes from here to Barcelona, but they're still in progress.

Gaël Duez (04:05)

I know. At least Paris is well connected by train, both from Barcelona, the Netherlands, UK, etc. So at least for Green IO Paris, it will be easy to join by train. That being said, hello, both of you.

Niki (04:19)

Hello.

Flavia (04:19)

Thank you for inviting us.

Niki (04:21)

Yes, it's great to be talking with you both today.

Gaël Duez (04:23)

Yeah, that's going to be a very interesting episode. And my first question might sound a bit dumb, but could you explain Kubernetes to our non-ops audience for a start?

Flavia (04:37)

There's maybe an analogy that I read once and I thought it's pretty clear. If you think about a very busy restaurant where you have a lot of guests and you need to make a lot of food and you need to organize this so everything comes out. So there's enough food for everyone at the right time. can think about Kubernetes in that way. Kubernetes is the chef organizing all the cooks. You have maybe the containers can be thought of as the individual chefs. And each individual chef has to be in charge of making one specific dish. And then you have the nods, which are the kitchen stations for different purposes, like a kitchen station for grilling, another for baking, another for chopping. And then the pods are like a team of cooks working on one single order. like in Kubernetes, you need to handle load or scaling properly, right? You need to make sure that the orders go to the right people so that they don't get overloaded. You need to put more cooks on a specific dish which is more popular, et cetera. If one group of cooks have a problem with something, then there's always. Yeah, the authority and the organization to fix that. So concepts like scalability, reliability, you want your meal to get to the table and on time. Those are maybe nicely included in this metaphor.

Niki (06:34)

And just remember for listeners who may be less familiar with the cloud, we're talking about hundreds of servers. So hundreds of computers and, how do you get the dish, which is the, application that a user is trying to, to access, available for hundreds if not thousands of users. So we need to make sure that this application is available on every server. And that's what Kubernetes does is it orchestrates that all of these dishes are available at all of the tables. So all of the applications are all of the servers for everyone to be able to enjoy them.

Gaël Duez (07:16)

Got it. And now that you've mentioned all these servers, let's go to our main topic, which is what are, according to you, the top sustainably challenged running containers and maybe more specifically Kubernetes.

Niki (07:32)

So monitoring and auto scaling is what I would say the two branches of sustainability in Kubernetes. So we need to make sure we run everything as efficiently as possible. So we need to make sure resources are allocated in the most efficient way. So to do that, we need to be able to observe these resources how much CPU, how much memory, energy, and various other things. And then on the auto scaling side, we need to ensure that we are not deploying more than what you need. So everything needs to be basically packed together as tightly as possible so that we don't have idle resources just laying around and not being used.

Flavia (08:23)

So that's a really good document. And I hope that these resources translate around what you are being used.

Gaël Duez (08:30)

And is it the case today? Because I've seen some numbers in non-scientific studies, so I won't quote them here, but saying that in general, we are facing a massive over-provisioning of resources due to auto-scaling and all of this, is it true or is it a urban legend according to your experiences?

Flavia (08:51)

Yeah, it is very true. Last time I was at FOSDEM giving this talk and I asked people, did it ever happen to you that you found servers that were running that were not they didn't let me finish my sentence. Everybody was like, yeah. So, I mean, yes, this is, this is a very common problem. And I think it roots from the fact that, ever since we started using cloud, we can spin anything, anytime very easily without realizing the consequences immediately in terms of, yeah, not only price, but impact the environment

Gaël Duez (09:36)

And this tendency to overuse them, how can we fight back, especially from a sustainability angle? I know that both of you, you've been working on a project named KEIT which, the goal to automate the monitoring of the energy consumption, but maybe it goes beyond and it goes all the way to carbon estimates. So you will correct me if I'm wrong

Flavia (10:02)

So with KEIT, we are basically showing in what way your software and infrastructure and hardware cause an impact and what is source of this impact. Basically we use the software carbon intensity formula which is an ISO standard it considers three aspects. It considers the energy consumed by the software. It considers the carbon intensity of the energy used and the emissions of the hardware. in a way, you can see with the software carbon intensity, you can see where you have the most potential to improve. Or at least you can, you can observe it. can make changes and then you can improve. You can see as well which part of your software is, is generating most emissions. For example, looking at different namespace, looking at how many nods you have, et cetera.

Gaël Duez (11:06)

OK, got it. And my question is, where does this number come from?

Niki (11:11)

From the past two, three years while I've been building the CNCF environment sustainability TAG I've worked on the open source technologies that underlie the KEIT project. So I haven't worked on the KEIT project directly large part of what it's based on is open source tools that I've been maintaining or helping to build. And that includes, for example, Kepler, is an energy monitoring tool within Kubernetes. that is a tool that we could get very technical. Like really, some of the measurements from the kernel of the server. We basically, through Kepler, we're able how much energy is being consumed on the server and what is it linked to? which application is emitting or consuming this energy, which is measured in millijoules. So that's one of the components of the software carbon intensity specification to the same of that we have.

Gaël Duez (12:26)

Niki, just to clarify, I've got a bunch of questions regarding KEIT. The first one being, when you extract the energy consumption from the kernel, is it a measurement or is it an assessment via some sort of a low-level model?

Flavia (12:45)

You have both options because either have the, I don't know what it stands for, but the RAPL

Niki (12:53)

Running average power limit.

Flavia (12:54)

Okay, yeah, so component in the chip which lets you measure the energy consumption of the hardware or if not the nice thing of Kepler is that there are models to estimate them if you don't have a chip with the RAPL. But yeah, in general, course, everything is an estimation. even this RAPLE measurement. It measures only, I believe, the CPU but not everything else around it. So we do have to accept as engineers, even if we don't like it, that everything is an estimation and just work from there. It's better to have estimations than to have nothing.

Niki (13:41)

Yeah, it's a model, right? So everything is a model. Some models are more useful than others. there are so many different ways to measure energy consumption. But then there's embodied carbon and the energy that went into building the physical components of the server, for example. But as Flavia mentioned also, we do have gaps there are gaps such as networking. like gateways and other networking components are notoriously hard to measure. I know there's different communities, like different open source communities, and there's conversations amongst us, but still networking is something a lot of people are working on and that is really difficult to measure.

Gaël Duez (14:34)

So, if I understood right how KEIT works, you've got this energy consumption, either via RAPL or via other estimated model, that you translate into carbon emissions. Maybe this is the missing point. I guess you're using solutions like Electricity Maps or WattTime. Am I correct to assume this?

Flavia (14:56)

Yes, exactly.

Gaël Duez (14:58)

Okay, and then you add on top of it the embedded carbon from the servers, but you could not really include all the networking part. Is it correct summarize what you've said before like this?

Flavia (15:11)

Yes, yes, I think so. So it's those three sides of it and their limitations, I would say, almost in all three parts of the formula, because for the embodied emissions, for example, it's very difficult to get information, already difficult to get embodied emissions, but they are usually incomplete because there's not information about the disposal or the recycling of it. It's not disclosed by data centers or by cloud providers, or they don't say how many years the hardware is being used because that also has an impact on the embodied emissions.

Gaël Duez (15:54)

And do you use the data from the manufacturers or do you have other sources of data?

Flavia (15:59)

We use Boavizta, which is from a French, non-profit. so they have a whole database of the different hardware. so they have an API. You can say, I have this. I don't know, instance type. Tell me what are the embodied emissions. in KEIT we do that dynamically because the instance types can change to include this in the formula and calculate the SCI score.

Gaël Duez (16:33)

Thanks for the clarification. And do you have any success stories to share yet about how KEIT has been used in some organization or within some teams?

Flavia (16:44)

Well, I do have to say it's at the very beginning, project, but We are the moment working with one client, which is the Consumers Association, a non-profit in the Netherlands. so we installed it because basically you have your cluster, can deploy pretty easily and then you have an overview of your score. But we also added this widget to show the number of nods that you're running. And then we immediately saw like, okay, we're running too many nods in an environment which is just for development. So we are now working on improving that on setting up carpenter consolidation to make sure that only the necessary nods are being used at a certain time that's a very, for me, very nice example where it's helping.

Niki (17:43)

And at Grafana Labs also we're deploying Kepler at scale. It's quite challenging because Kepler for example, we mentioned, which is one of the components in the SCI and it relies on certain information that it should be able to fetch from the kernel but in the public cloud such as AWS, example, or GDP or Azure, this information may not be accessible. So there's certain other estimate methods that it needs to use. So all this to say that running this energy and carbon estimation models at scale is very difficult. And from my side at Grafana Labs, We are trying to run this at scale and kind of find which issues we come across and how can we deploy it in a production environment with as little issues as possible. So all of this is still a work in progress, but it's really great that we can come together in the open source community and kind of exchange this knowledge.

Gaël Duez (18:56)

For the clarification that this project is still an early stage project. People interested in this specific project, they can join you at TAG sustainability group. And actually that leads me to a question I wanted to ask in the beginning of this interview could you help us maybe make some sense of the true alphabet soups around CNCF What is CNCF? What is TAG? What is the Green Reviews work group, for instance?

Niki (19:26)

So the CNCF stands for the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. it's a project actually of the Linux Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization that hosts a lot of open source projects. And the CNCF was created, I think in 2015, to host Kubernetes when it was

Flavia (19:41)

I think 2015 took host Cabrera's when the organization was initially created by the...

Niki (19:49)

Initially created by Google and then was donated to the Linux Foundation and the Linux Foundation created the CNCF to host it. And then other projects were hosted also by the CNCF such as Prometheus, which is a monitoring, well, a time series database for monitoring metrics. And then other projects joined and now there's, I don't know, like maybe dozens if not hundreds of sandbox projects. I'm not really sure on the number. But Kepler, which we talked about previously, is one of these sandbox projects that was donated by Red Hat and Intel the CNCF. So then with different subjects around this tool such as security, there was the creation of are technical advisory groups. And one of these tags that was created two years ago is the environmental sustainability TAG. And in this TAG, we promote and advocate for tools and use cases around cloud native sustainability, including Kepler, for example, and KEIT and other things like the SCI, the software carbon intensity specification. We talk about this at KubeCon, one of the biggest conferences that is related to the CNCF and FOSDEM as well. There have been talks about this cloud native sustainability tooling.

And finally, we come to about a year and a half ago, we wanted to have a technical project where we can really get into the nitty gritty of how do you deploy Kepler? How do you link carbon emissions metrics such as WattTime and Electricity Maps, how do you get the embodied metrics from Boavizta and how do you calculate the rates of the software carbon intensity of tools and we created the green reviews working group. The idea for that is create reports or we report on the sustainability metrics such as energy use and carbon intensity and other more traditional metrics such as CPU usage and memory usage. we've been doing that with Falco, which is a tool. It's a security tool, a project hosted by the CNCF to work with the students and care for the students. And other things so we've been basically trying and innovating and just new ideas come, new people come to contribute their ideas, they want to try something, and we have this space to make it happen. And KEIT is kind of emerged from this work, I think. Flavia, maybe you can tell us more. yeah.

Flavia (22:53)

Well, we had this idea of making, we initially called it a sustainability plugin. So trying to reflect in a Kubernetes environment, the environmental impact of the infrastructure and software. And we a lot of ideas on things that we wanted to see there, only I thought it was pretty complicated. So I thought, how do we do this? And then I started looking around what's out there then I found the CNCF environmental sustainability TAG and I joined I saw this green reviews project and the software that was being worked on. I thought this is at least very good reflection of what we want to build. But for generic Kubernetes clusters. So I learned about the SCI and deploy actually maybe these things, because they are not so concrete, you don't see the power in it. But when I got to meet Nikki and all the people at the CNCF and I had the opportunity to go to KubeCon in Paris last year. It was amazing because it's not just about the who and the what, but it's about the people. So the energy that came out of that group, I like, want to be part of this. I want to, you know, join forces to build something together.

Gaël Duez (24:15)

Actually, it's an interesting mention that you've done because I wanted to ask both of you a bit more about how it is to run source projects and to have this open source community working together, especially for, I would say, greater good project. Just before we jump on this of questions, to understand clearly what the Green Reviews Working Group is. I understood well, it's a bit of a permanent brainstorming work group on everything related to sustainability within the CNCF space. Or does it also has, I don't know, sub-team fully dedicated to maintain or code or create new products. I'm having a hard time understanding the connection between this work group and the tools that you've mentioned before, such as Kepler or KEIT.

Niki (25:20)

So the environmental sustainability TAG is kind of the broader brainstorming group. In the Green Reviews working group, we are creating a benchmarking pipeline. So we are doing benchmarking tests for cloud native tools such as Falco.

Niki (25:40)

to measure the softer carbon intensity rates. it's very similar to KEIT essentially, and we run benchmarking tests measure the different factors of the software carbon intensity specification. So that's the runtime energy, the emissions impact, the embodied carbon, and all of this using a unit of work, so like a rate. So yeah, the idea was, to take the software carbon intensity ISO specification when it became public last year, and to create an example using cloud native tooling to show how it can be done in Kubernetes.

Gaël Duez (26:20)

Okay. And one last logistic question. If people want to join you, do their organization needs to join? Can it be done on a voluntary individual basis? Do they need to fill a form or how does it work concretely?

Niki (26:38)

It's fully open source, so everything is completely out in the open. a Slack organization for the CNCF. And if folks Google CNCF community invitation, they will get a portal to where they can put their email address and get an invitation to join the CNCF Slack. I know that a lot of organizations join the CNCF, but we don't require that in the TAG or in the working group. So anyone can join the meetings. The meetings are twice a month. And we do a lot of planning during those meetings. And we talk about the different pull requests that people are working on or that need to be reviewed. then we triage some of the issues And we do have like a agile workflow. So anyone is welcome to join. And then we have our GitHub repo where people can see issues that are open and that are beginner friendly. And we have the issues board where people can see which ones are next and ready to be picked up if they want to contribute. So people often will join for a bit, maybe pick up an issue, contribute a way, learn. And then maybe they'll stay for more long term or some people come for a bit just to like learn. So just like any other open source project, really we're looking for contributors and long-term maintainers and we're open to everybody.

Gaël Duez (28:22)

Talking about open source projects and Flavia mentioned it a bit earlier. FOSDEM celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. Shall we say that everything is doing well for the open source community and maybe more specifically for the projects related to sustainability? Or are there some challenges that we don't necessarily see beyond the success?

Flavia (28:46)

Yeah, there's always challenges. especially that people find time to work on it. Because is an area where people get attracted to it because they want to do something good. They want to have a purpose. So you do find a lot of people wanting to join the environmental sustainability TAG or help in the green reviews project. But it's hard to find people who have the time or who are ready to spend some time on it.

Gaël Duez (29:23)

Flavia, before discussing more specifically the time constraints, I had a specific question regarding the KEIT project when I see how imbricated it is with other open source projects. How do you manage to build something that is so heavily relying on other components which are also open source?

Flavia (29:47)

Well, first of all, it's great to have those tools because otherwise we couldn't have built what we built. We just put them together. what we needed to check is the licensing to make sure that we are not infringing any of the licenses of the software that we are using. so far we've had good experience. for example, one of the projects that we are using is so there's electricity maps and there's an exporter for Prometheus to get that data into Kubernetes. It's called the grid intensity, From the GreenWeb Foundation. And it's also open source and there was something that didn't work exactly like we expected or we needed to make an improvement and we just made the change. Applied our PR. It was approved and problem solved. So in that sense, it can be easy because given the need, you can just make the changes yourself.

Niki (30:53)

I think this is the issue of open source tooling and how well maintained it is, or if there is enough contribution to keep it running is kind of a bigger problem in the industry and for Kubernetes and the Kubernetes ecosystem as well. Like even though a lot of these projects are hosted by the CNCF. Oftentimes, there isn't everything that you might need your use case. And maybe someone needs to find time to contribute back to the open source project. For example, like if there's a feature missing or if there's a bug. Oftentimes there needs to be that kind of instinct of like, okay, this is missing. I'm going to take some time to contribute upstream. Upstream meaning to the open source project. And that's how the tools can continue to exist. But there also need to be long-term maintainers who are sponsored by their company, maybe, who are given the opportunity to take time to contribute to open source projects as part of their work. one of the main challenges in open source projects, I would say is, people finding time to contribute to this project.

Gaël Duez (32:18)

Niki, that's very interesting that you mentioned people being employees of corporations, large or not, and having some of their professional time allocated to open source. Because I've been recently recording in releasing actually an episode on the WordPress sustainability group that has been quite brutally dismantled. And that was part of a bigger drama of WordPress governance it made me realize how much the WordPress community is dependent on automatic. Is it something that you fear also for the CNCF? Is it something that is more the exception than the rules or what is your? Yeah. Point of view on this dependency that we might find from time to time.

Niki (33:09)

the CNCF has managed to build a huge community of people who are excited and able to contribute to their projects. And this is an extraordinary feat of like modern technology and like community building. So I would say I'm not. I'm not worried about Kubernetes itself or the really large projects hosted by the CNCF, there's always an underlying worry or an underlying realization that we need to contribute back to what we're using. And maybe that's kind of part of the success of all these open source projects. if a lot of companies are depending on it for their operations and then they have an incentive to contribute back to keep things running. a sociological aspect, I find it fascinating

Gaël Duez (34:09)

And maybe because you've sort of already explained it, but if both of you, had to, I don't know, bring three ingredients to create the perfect recipe for a thriving open source community, such as the that you belong to, what would it be?

Niki (34:29)

Great question.

Flavia (34:30)

I would say purpose is one all these people also that you see in the open source community, like in conferences, like FOSDEM, they really believe in something. They are not just techies, but they, I mean, they are techies, but they, believe in the power of the people building something and being free and open. So purpose is one. Now what I was going to say, so everybody who is there really wants to be there, contribute to something bigger than themselves. And I wanted to mention because the TAG ecosystem in the CNCF now is going through a restructuring because well, after many years of the development of the Kubernetes software ecosystem, things changed. And so we used to have the TAG environmental sustainability, TAG security, TAG application delivery, and a couple more. And now this is all going to be restructured. Does this have anything to do with the current situation? Because the NCF, even if it's a… and nonprofits, it is based in the United States. Does it have anything to do with the political situation in the US? I don't know, maybe. So the TAG environmental sustainability will be renamed, will be part of a different TAG. My point being that even through all of this, there's all this bunch of people that I'm part of, which is want to continue. We don't care the naming. We just want to continue with what we are doing. I don't know in the case maybe of WordPress I don't know because I couldn't finish the episode of last time I don't know if the people who were working on it will continue because in the end it's all open source. You can still do what you want.

Niki (36:35)

I mean, I think that the open source community enables us to work on things that otherwise would be difficult to do on the day to day. Because there will always be changes in the business direction, for example. Whereas open source work means you can always get back to it and continue some work and do it for as long as the community decides to work on that. So it does give a lot of freedom. another thing I would say is that new problems require new solutions. think innovating in the open is a great way to build new solutions. For me, innovating in the open is the best way to really bright and motivated people involved to come together and try to solve this together rather than behind closed doors, which is what business often is like. So it's really great to be able to maintain those spaces. And I'm glad that the Green Reviews Working Group will continue to exist as a project in the CNCF, despite of the reorganization that is happening. And we'll know more around KubeCon Europe, which is going to happen in April

Gaël Duez (38:01)

Thanks a lot for sharing your opinions and your feedbacks on how to run successfully in open source community. I could not not hear some or expectations regarding this reorganization? Do you already have some information which has been shared or will it all come as a big surprise at KubeCon Europe as you say there, Niki?

Flavia (38:22)

It was already shared, the reorganization. So there's going to be like five TAGS and sustainability will be part of, operational resilience, I think. So it will be more up to us to make this visible and to keep it going. the community is there, people want to improve. So we'll keep going.

Gaël Duez (38:57)

Concretely speaking, it's a general reduction of the number of TAG groups within the NCF, am I right? Or is it just specifically targeting the environmental sustainability TAG?

Flavia (39:11)

It's a reorganization of all the tags. So some are merged, some are new

Gaël Duez (39:13)

Okay. Okay, got it. And so now you've got bigger tags, five only, and I guess they will structure in subgroups, subworking group, like some of them working more on operation or resiliency, efficiency, sustainability, or how will all those different projects will be maintained with this single big TAG, for instance.

Flavia (39:38)

Yeah, there will be, I think, like sub-projects. in theory, working groups will continue running. They will just be part of a different TAG. So we will have to see if the chair of the talk where we are in, we hope that they all that is also someone who considers sustainability important. it's all volunteer work, but we get from the CNCF, we get resources for, for example, infrastructure and where to run our software, pipelines, our databases. So yeah, we'll see how this develops, but we all want to continue.

Niki (40:25)

I'm excited also to see how sustainability can fit in the operational resilience kind of story, includes, for example, it observability, more concretely, like traditional observability, as opposed to like carbon observability, right? I think it's interesting to see how it will become part of that operational resiliency story. think it might actually, in the best case scenario, might help folks to explain how sustainability fits in software.

Flavia (41:09)

It's software.

Niki (41:10)

I guess

Flavia (41:10)

I guess.

Niki (41:11)

If we're talking about resiliency, I don't think it's too far away. I'm hoping to learn from that. I think having closer proximity to other domains will mean there will be a lot of like cross pollination of ideas and lessons learned and more contributors maybe, maybe contributors who would not have approached sustainability, learn more about it by being in the same TAG. So I'm hoping to find like positives from this and I guess we'll talk about it more at KubeCon and we'll see how it will go.

Gaël Duez (41:52)

That's a good point and it's a very optimistic way to see things that I really enjoy. Maybe we will have to redo an episode in a few months or before the end of the year to see how, yeah, to be continued. Yes, absolutely. to understand a bit how things developed. The WordPress situation was a worrying signal, but it doesn't mean that all the open source community needs to be continued, shut down sustainability or reorganize it. So if you feel optimistic, that's great. And I think on these very positive notes we can close this podcast.

Flavia (42:29)

Yeah.

Gaël Duez (42:32)

I really want to thank both of you for joining and explaining both the projects you've been running, but also the way you've been dealing with these open source projects and how this open source community at CNTF works. that was really enlightening. So thanks a lot for joining the show today.

Niki (42:53)

Thank you so much for having us.

Flavia (42:53)

Thank you, it was fun.

Niki (42:54)

Thank you so much for having us.

Flavia (42:54)

Thank you, it was fun.

Gaël Duez (42:56)

Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it on social media and TAG your connections working in cloud operations and DevOps. If you attend KubeCon next week, this would also be a useful tool to kickstart conversations. And of course, don't forget to give us five stars on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. It helps us reach out to more soon-to-be responsible technologists. 

In our next episode, we will celebrate a birthday with Sarah Hsu. A year ago, her book, Building Green Software, was released. And she will tell us everything about its impact, the feedback she received with her co-author Anne Curie and Sarah Bergman, and the trends she sees in green software, including AI training and inference. Stay tuned! 

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"We are 100% convinced that IT sustainability matters but we can’t add more non business requirements, we have agile teams."

 

This often heard sentence from product managers or CPOs, led to this dedicated episode on agility and sustainability where host Gaël Duez welcomes 2 seasoned agile coaches: Joanne Stone, the founder of Agilist 4 planet and the We Hope Magazine, and Joanna Masraff, co-organiser of the the Agilists4Sustainability meetup group, and the Agilists4Planet conference. In this interview, filled with positive energy, they covered: 

   🛠️ Sustainability twisted technics,

   🏃 Urgency vs sustainable pace of transformation, 

   🎯 Objectives or Key Results when incorporating Sustainability into OKR framework, 
   🎬 How to kick start sustainability transformation, 

   🔥 The importance of passionate people and influencers, 

   🧙 Agile coaches as alchemists of change.

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Joanna Masraff (00:01)

I think this is where sustainable thinking actually comes in we're very used to thinking very specifically about the problem, about the solution that we're trying to do, but actually, we need to take that step backward and think wider, more holistically about both the problem and the solution space, maybe slower thinking is needed rather than all this now, now, now, right?

Gaël Duez (00:24)

Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO, the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Every two Tuesdays, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools, and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability.

We are 100% convinced that IT sustainability matters, but we can't add more non-business requirements, and have agile teams. How many times did I hear this from product managers, CPOs or tech leads, not really knowing how to move from awareness to action? So it has been a while since I wanted to have a dedicated episode on agility and sustainability. And when Marjolaine Pillon pointed me into the direction of Agilist for Planets, I gladly connected with Johan and then Johanna about their work which was perfectly aligned with those questions. Joanne Stone is the founder of Agilist for Planet and founder also of the We Hope magazine. She has more than 30 years of experience in IT and was an early adopter of agile practices. She lives in Brooklyn, Ontario, Canada. And Joanna Masraff is one of her very early adopters.

Jo's journey in the agile world is marked by her role in co-organizing the Agilist for Sustainability meetup group and the Agilist for Planet conference. to be honest, sustainability has been part of a professional journey almost from the beginning with other topics such as inclusivity and equity. And she's also a co-founder of Green PO in the UK. I have also to tell you that I'm recovering from a pretty bad cold, so my voice is a disaster. But the great news about this episode is I'm not going to be the one talking as usual, so my guests will do. And anyway, I'm delighted to have them on the show. Welcome, Joanne. Welcome, Joanna.

Joanne Stone (02:33)

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Joanna Masraff (02:34)

Thank you very much for having us.

Gaël Duez (02:37)

Glad that we've eventually managed to have this recording.

Joanne Stone (02:40)

Yes.

Gaël Duez (02:43)

So maybe starting with the basics, you are both part of the Agilist for Sustainability group. is this group about and what is this NGO Agilist for Planet about?

Joanne Stone (02:55)

Go, go,

Joanna Masraff (02:56)

So Sustainability came about actually due to the XP 2023 conference because they had, was the first agile conference that we were aware of that had a sustainability track. So suddenly the group of us who were already working on agile sustainability got together and said, right, we're speaking at this conference. Let's gather ourselves together and let's actually create a group, a community because we have more, we know of a lot of people who are trying to do this work. So why not create a group to share the learnings that we're going through, the things that we're finding out, the things that we're trying, the experiments that are working, that aren't working. And so Agilent for Sustainability group was born. But before that, we actually had Agility Impact, which Joe Stone started. So do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Joanne Stone (03:52)

I guess I'll start off with Lisa Atkins has been very much a big supporter in terms of sustainability and Agilist and sustainability. if you're not familiar with her, she's done a lot of really great work in Agile coaching teams. She knew that basically from an agility perspective that us, Agiles, could do more She felt that we can work in certain disaster areas All over the world and at that point time when I was talking to her about it. This is when the Australian fires were actually happening and I got really curious as to how Agilist can actually be part some of these climate-affected changes and like how can we actually be part of something like that? And so I started basically interviewing tons of people all over the world. And Lisa kept on kind of like carrying this torch about how could we, how can we actually bring Agility, Agile Coaches in Sustainability. What she did then is she had been, I think she'd been tapping into a lot of people, a lot of stories all over the world. And she started a keynote panel back in 2022 in Nashville. And that got a group of people together and Yuda Eckstein who's been doing this work for a lot longer than a bunch of us have. She was there and we just kind of like started to get introduced to others who were doing that. And then the, so basically what we wanted to do and Joe was actually starting to talk about as well is bring this awareness of the work that great people are doing all over the world. So we met at the XP conference, and we just kind of like kept collecting their incredible, incredible stories of what they've done by using agility and with sustainability. So whether that's economic or environmental, we would say. And it's incredible the amount of people that are actually doing some of this work right now.

Gaël Duez (05:54)

And that's an interesting question because you mentioned some examples coming from using agility with a Tech for a good angle. And we tend here to focus quite a lot on green IT, which means making sure that IT teams and product teams in do take into consideration in the way that produce the IT services, produce the digital products.

some sustainability principles. how do you see the connection between agile and sustainability? And maybe it goes both ways. So could you elaborate a bit on it?

Joanna Masraff (06:30)

the way that I'm coining it now, which I think really works and everybody, as soon as I say it, they're like light bulb, right? Is that Agile has been bringing social sustainability to the workplace since it started. So if you think about Agile's true mindset underneath it all, which is what true Agilists talk about, if you know what mean, it's really about bringing collaboration, communication, and the people to allow divergent thoughts and divergence in people to be included within the solution, to allow everybody their own space to be who they are within the team that they work in. So really, this is the bottom line social sustainability within the workplace. So that link, that connection between Agile and sustainability, at least on the social side, has always been there. So it's really a case of expanding origin into the kind of economics and environmental spaces within sustainability.

Gaël Duez (07:33)

I love the idea that it's in the DNA of agility to embrace sustainably at least the social angle I've never considered it that way. But it makes perfect sense when you see how rooted in human focus values, I would say the agile principles and the mindset of agility is. So now how did you manage to onboard into it, also the environmental aspect of it?

Joanna Masraff (08:00)

So the way we see it and what we've had people try out, not many, let's be fair. This is very still kind of experimental stage, but we have had teams and people who inject sustainability into every technique that they use within the team. So I call it the sustainability twisted techniques. So for example, if we take Scrum, you can inject a sustainability goal into your product goal, into your sprint goal, into your definition of done, into your definition of ready. know, into every single user story that you have in your backlog, there can be an item that determines the metric that you're using to measure the sustainability of this piece of work, which you as a team have chosen beforehand. Or even taking it a step slightly higher, you can think about your team charter. What you as a team agree, matches to you when you start working as a team or at any point, working in a team, you can say, stop, really this it matters a lot to me. Let's inject this into into the DNA of what we do as a team. What we found though, which is quite interesting is that a lot of people are still in that awareness stage. They're not quite at that stage where they're ready to think about how they measure their carbon footprint off their software, which I'm sure, I mean, the people who are listening, you are the forerunners, right? So you're trying to help the rest of your teams get on board with what you're trying to do, I'm sure. So what we find is that a lot of teams start with something like accessibility in the sustainability arena, which is a bit sad for accessibility, because how long have they been knocking on the door saying, let's be more accessible? However, at least they're starting with something, right?

So it's interesting when we start talking about sustainability, especially when we start talking to product people, they think about the social sustainability angle much more readily than they do think about how they can make their products more environmentally sustainable. So this is where actually GreenPO work is kind of based in that space of raising the awareness as to what environmental sustainability and digital product means. And also how they can inject it into all of their processes and techniques that they're already using.

Gaël Duez (10:23)

A lot to unpack here. And I would love to ask you two questions, and they may be bit interconnected. The first one is, can you share some concrete example regarding the carbon footprint, regarding all the environmental footprint, or how you can create this, quoting you, agility twisted techniques, just to illustrate and to make it concrete what you've suggested. I really love the term actually. And the other question is, as you rightfully said, most of the teams, most of the company, they're still in awareness phase, sometimes even early awareness phase. So how would they kickstart with this techniques?

Joanna Masraff (11:07)

Sure. So concrete examples with regards to carbon footprint. We had a team who are measuring the carbon of their product. And so what they did is they injected that into their OKRs basically. So their overall goals for their year was to reduce the carbon impact of their products, which they managed to do just by having OKRs. I don't have specific numbers I can give you, but I do know that they did manage to reduce the overall impact of their product by injecting it just into their OKRs. However, on the other side, have had members of our meetup group, and Joe can talk more about this, I'm sure, who they tried to start it. They brought up the question in a retrospective, for example, and everybody was like, is that a thing? I didn't know that was a thing. I don't know how to do that. But she kept bringing up the question. And eventually what happened is that in the company, she found the other passionate individuals and they grouped together and they had a hackathon on it. So they had a hackathon on digital sustainability and the carbon footprint of their products. And they were able to figure out how to start measuring the impact of their product from a hackathon. So it's not a quick win. It's not, let's talk about this and something immediately happens, of course. But we have had quite a lot of our members kind of tell us of their stories, their struggles actually, and how they overcame them. You know, the continuous resilience towards the lack of knowledge and lack of awareness and how they kept pushing towards it becoming a part of the team's work.

Gaël Duez (13:02)

And Joanne, this is also the approach that you see quite a lot or  got different stories

Joanne Stone (13:08)

for me, it is about bringing the the planet into the conversations with the specific teams. So how can we bring that that conversation in so people can start figuring out how best to do some of this work. we trust the teams. Like we trust that there is a lot of intelligence within the teams that they can figure this out or figure out what is really super important for them. you know, those conversations can lead to towards concrete things that the team itself will actually do. And this could change from one team to another. think within some of the stories that we share, which is, which some of the agile coaches will do is we'll work with some of the leaders as well. So one of the big things is that we're in an entire system and that system is actually sometimes controlled by the shareholders or by the performance management, by the accounting and how they have to report on all the different stats, right? A lot of things are driven outside of the teams, is, can be really, you know, it's scary in a way, especially if you want to, you feel that you want to make a what we found is that some of the coaches that we're working with in the story with Carolyn's wife is probably one of them. Like she, she worked with some of the executives to start repositioning their purpose of the vision or their why.

Joanne Stone (14:38)

so that it's not profit over planet, but it's planet over profit. And so she got that as part of their strategy, So it started to become embedded within the actual culture of the organization. And those are really cool, because if you start embedding it within the culture of the organization, it then to come down to the team perspective. And we have something more than just a recycling program. I think what I find in what I get really frustrated about and I mean we have beautiful people on the ground We have developers we have coaches. We have so many people that are out there that really want to truly make a difference But yet they're stuck within this sort of like container and unable to control and do what they would like to be able to do Right, so it's really quite frustrating

Gaël Duez (15:27)

That's a very interesting comment because I wanted to ask a question to Joanna about when she mentioned OKR, if it was the O or the KR. And actually what you described is really the O, the objective. The overall objective is putting planet over profit, which is a conversation that hopefully will happen in many, companies in the next years, but honestly, that doesn't necessarily happen a lot. And I was about to ask a question to Joanna about the KR, which is that even if the objectives are not, you know, focused a lot on the planet, is there some leeway to do things, playing a bit with the key results, whether it's, I don't know, incorporating in the design phase, for the definition of ready, a person, with other metrics? Because we know that we talk a lot about carbon footprint since the beginning of the episode, but it's not always easy to measure carbon footprint. You could try maybe to make sure that any devices older than six years would still work on it or whatever. You've got different approaches. So my question first to you, Joanne, is do you believe that it's necessary to tackle the O first and that there is not that much room for key results or even in a regular company, in a company really focusing on making money at almost any cost an agilist can find some way to incorporate a bit of sustainability in their practices?

Joanne Stone (17:05)

It's where I think this is why Agile is, we've got a lot of background in terms of doing transformations, right? So what typically happens is we have a lot of people on the bottom level that really want to adopt this thing, right? So I don't care. It's Agile, AI, whatever the flavor of the day is, right? Really passionate about wanting to do this. And right now the passion in my mind is all around climate sustainability, right? And people are frustrated and wanting to do it. So the way that we've seen this work is like a bottom-up and top-down approach, right? yes, it's great if you can get the whole organization, if you're Patagonia, right? And you're able to do this through in, throughout. Right? The cultures change. It's beautiful. But we know that there's two different ways. Agilent, we always wanted it to be done from the top down because we know that that's where the biggest impact will be. And it'll be a lot faster if it's adopted from there. Because then all the systems that are required to support, you know, the objectives and it be passed down straight to the team. reality is that doesn't happen. Right? So it really has to start from the two different spots.

But I think from the bottom up, this is where your tech community is super smart. So they know that there is front end changes that they can make, the back end changes that they can make. They know that they can make changes at a lot of different levels. And so really it's back to them. I would be going at the team level having the first step as to what discussions do we want to have? Modify the product in whatever way that we feel that we can make it greener. If we don't know, can we research it? Can we come to podcasts like this, where I can figure out different ways? I was listening to one of your podcasts around how do you balance the energy, basically, and where can we host some of the servers so that it's more greener? And that was so brilliant. I think we have to go out and we have to figure out the different ways and different parts of our applications to make greener. But it could just start with a bunch of different ideas, a backlog, something that we can then incorporate every single sprint and then ask the question though, because from an agility perspective is how will we know it will work? So it is one of those things where we create experiments where we kind of look at and try and figure out what the results are that we want. So we run that experiment every single sprint to kind of see whether or not the results, we're gonna get the results and then we reflect on it and figure out where we need to go next after we've learned it. So that's the way that I would sit there and approach it. I don't think there's any concrete kind of way in terms of we start here in the front end or the back end or whatever the case may be from a tech perspective. I think you have to work with the team and the team's expertise and start getting them excited about doing this and start including it as part of the backlog so that they can start working on it. So that's the way I would kind of approach it.

Gaël Duez (20:21)

It's a great reminder that agility is about experimenting things and that we don't have necessarily to change the definition of ready or the definition of done, whatever, so my question might be to you, Joanna, is like, what kind of experiments did you experience in the different coaching situations that you've been doing?

Joanne Stone (20:25)

Yeah.

Joanna Masraff (20:44)

Yeah, absolutely. can I just jump and answer a little bit of the other question first, if that's okay. So just to bust a myth a little bit, because one of the things that you said, struck a chord was, you know, what key result can you use? Yeah. And actually cost generally you can use. So if you reduce your cost, you are making your digital product more sustainable.

Gaël Duez (20:50)

Be my guest.

Joanna Masraff (21:12)

So, and that is one of the ones which is a win-win-win, let's be fair. It's a win for the people who are interested, a win for the company, and it's a win for the planet. there's lots of studies out there that are ongoing and information you can get to show that being sustainable is profitable. So if you have some stakeholders who are, you're trying to talk about sustainability and they're coming back and saying, we don't want to do it or whatever, you can go to them and you can say, do you want to save money? Because this will save you money. Whether you care about the fact that we're destroying the world or not, that's up to you. But if you're only interested in money, then actually we can save you money by doing this. And I believe that that's actually one of the experiments that one of my coaches did was to actually look at their cloud costs as they reduced their energy use rather than trying to translate it directly to carbon. Because let's be fair, I'm sure most of your audience are aware that the figures that you get on our hyper scalers and our cloud providers are not correct when it comes to their emissions. So instead of looking at that, they actually chose energy. They reduce their energy usage a variety of different ways and managed to reduce their cloud costs as well.

That's just kind of one of the experiments I can remember off the of my head. So it's thinking about who are your stakeholders? What might they be interested in seeing and therefore setting up your experiments so you're not just kind of satisfying your own curiosity, but also you can help push the agenda for the planet towards your stakeholders as well. and I think this is where… sustainable thinking actually comes in we're very used to thinking very specifically about the problem, about the solution that we're trying to do, but actually we need to take that step backwards and think wider, more holistically about both the problem and the solution space, maybe slower thinking is needed rather than all this now, now, now, right? And now I've forgotten the second question that you had.

Gaël Duez (23:21)

Let's put it another way. If I'm an agile coach, seriously convinced about the sustainability challenge and starting to work with an average team, not like climate denier, but not people waking up every morning thinking, how am I going to save the planet? Okay. Just average, nice folks. What kind of ideas should I put on the table for them to start thinking about it?

Joanna Masraff (23:45)

Yes, it's a great question. And I'm a little bit stumped by it, be fair. So in my mind, this brings us back to awareness, because it always starts with the awareness. one of the things that we've done at Anne Digital, so this is not a team level, this is more thinking about… and just to kind of go backwards a little as well is what you'll find, especially in Europe especially, is that a lot of companies do actually have something in their strategy now, which relates either to sustainability, net zero policies, or even responsible business, which is such a wonderful phrase, isn't it? Here's sarcasm. So maybe take that bit out because I might get fired.

Joanne Stone (24:34)

HAHAHAHA

Gaël Duez (24:35)

Keep it, but I will use AI a to mask your voice. And nobody will ever know if this is you.

Joanna Masraff (24:43)

That's it.

Gaël Duez (24:45)

So you see I've got a use case for AI.

Joanne Stone (24:47)

Hahaha.

Joanna Masraff (24:48)

Nice. So yeah, we're finding a lot of companies, especially in Europe, because of the new regulations, you know, they have some form of sustainability within their strategy. But there was some quote, I think it might have been Reuters that came out with it, which said something like, I'm going to forget the numbers. So I'm going to have to check it for you. it's 65 % of those businesses that have it in their strategy have no idea how to action that strategy. So they have it up there, but they think, you know, your recycling policies or cycle to work policies or, you know, electric car policies and things like this are going to solve that problem for it where of course it's not going to. So this is where you start with the start of your company's sustainable transformation where we believe you need your agile coaches.

What we did and digital is we started with an awareness week. So sustainability and inspiration week. We had various speakers from both inside the company and outside the company come and tell whoever wanted to attend to tell them about different aspects of digital sustainability. So it was one week this year and over 10 % of the company decided to come along off their own back, which was excellent. But we didn't stop with awareness. What we did then is we took that and we created an action week. So the action week was basically a discovery split over two days to allow people to come and take all this awareness that they had established and determine a very high level roadmap for the company as to how we can become more sustainable and create more sustainable products. So instead of it being, you know, completely a top down transformation, which we know, again, if you force change upon people, it doesn't work. What we did is we brought the strategy together with the passionate people at the bottom who were interested in what to change and how to make this change. So we created this high level roadmap. And one of the top items that everybody came out with was upskilling. So training for every different capability within the business.

So we're currently creating that training material internally, again, because then you have internal experts on specific areas that the rest of your company can go to. However, of course, there are specific people who are doing digital sustainability training that you can reach out to. But we're in the middle of creating these training sets among the different capabilities so that each different capability, starting with those who are interested, and then of course it will become mandatory as the company take on new policies and regulations. But everybody's going to end up going through this, but we start with the passionate people, the people who want to, so we're not forcing change upon them. We use those people as the influencers, the proud shouters of, I did this. You know, it was cool. I learned some really new stuff that was wonderful. You you use the power of the people rather than the power of command.

Gaël Duez (28:09)

But then it takes quite a lot of time mean, let me play a bit the devil advocates here, but basically this company had an awareness week, which then lead to an action week, which then lead to, we need to train people. And sorry to be a bit provocative here, but there is not a single gram of CO2 or water or material or whatever that has been saved so far. Am I right? Or they also managed to get some quick actions.

Joanna Masraff (28:37)

Well, the quick action was the CTO realized that he needed to clean up the cloud space. So that was great. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I know that that's what he, scooted off quickly to when he had that awareness as to how much money again, that he was losing because of the unsustainable practices with how we were using cloud. He was like, yes, we have to adopt this.

Gaël Duez (28:42)

Okay, that's good.

Joanna Masraff (29:05)

So we made a, not a denier, but maybe not a huge supporter, a bigger supporter, and we cleaned up our clouds. So not as much as I would like, and yes, it's a lot slower and I grind my teeth a lot, let's be fair. However, I believe it's the way to bring the people with us in the transformation.

Joanne Stone (29:23)

And I feel this urge of action, right? Like we gotta get in there and gotta do it, right? Because, know, the time is of the essence, right? And I think this is when we talk about agility, what I really like is the fact that we do these things at a sustainable pace so we don't burn ourselves out is one thing. the aspect of what Joe's,

Joe's saying is how do we inspire people to get into action? How do we get more people on board? what's the minimal amount of energy that we need to expand on to kind of get that going, right? That is indeed an approach where you can, you know, get everybody, the people who really want to be able to do, bring them all together in a room, talk about it, figure out exactly what we need to do and then start creating the plan. You know, get the leaders on board, know, realize that they made this, you know, my gosh, this is, this is the, this is the mess that we've created. You know, that, that starts to inspire people to get into action as well. But I think when you're asking the question, like I have a team, I'm an Agile coach, I don't care, Agile coach, Agile leader, person X, right? I want to do more work in from a sustainability, right, or to make

Joanne Stone (30:37)

like from a climate perspective or environment perspective, I want to improve what we're doing right now. And the thing that I've heard in and out of all the conversations that we've been interviewing people is the Green Software Foundation. So what Joe was saying, I think you were talking about this before too, but this is aspect of bringing in knowledge or awareness. You know as a team I might come in there and go, hey guys, let's just, why don't we go to the Green Software Foundation and learn exactly what's there. Take a course, one of us take it, let's do it on one of our learning days or whatever the case may be so that we can learn more as to how we can actually apply this. So that would be potentially a place where I would start, how we as coaches work, we're known to utilize and empower the team, right? So, the word, not the, it's been overused a huge amount of time. But within that is like, we know that we don't have all the knowledge, right? But we can point them into different directions. But starts within the team itself. So, either they have the knowledge or we have to there's a quest for knowledge, right? So it's like, we gotta learn more. Okay, where would you start? Software foundations. Okay, let's go there, right? But I would actually, for me, always starting with the team, having a conversation, putting it out there. What do you guys feel about this? Do you guys wanna do something about this? Can we try something about this, right? And then just start it, like those conversations, know, week over week when we're building the backlog or planning out what we need to do next. would do that. And if I was a leader, a manager or something like that, I would work with the team to go, okay, will be our objectives? How do we wanna measure this? How do we know we're successful at it? I would be, let's try and improve our product by, or improve our product, or basically let's ensure that 20 % of the stories that are coming in every week, it has to do with sustainability, right?

So I would do something like that. So it would encourage the team to actually start taking on the work. We did this, by the way, with DevOps and tech debt before in the past. And it was one way to allow for space for the team to actually do that work, which is really important because it's hard to stop doing the product work that we need to do right now. So someone has to create the space for the team to actually do that work.

So by giving it like 20 % or whatever the case may be is a great way of allowing for that space for that team to actually create some of that work. But I would definitely be starting off with that conversation.

Gaël Duez (33:29)

And if I try to wrap up what you've both said, it's old story again, because it's all about raising awareness, getting some training, empowering teams. as you say, Joanne, starting the conversation. Having at some point middle management some space, that's crucial here because otherwise… You know, the good intentions are squeezed between the bottom of the top down approach, but hey, it's middle manager most of the time who have the key to truly kickstart and even ramp up more than kickstart ramp up things. So is there anything specific about sustainability and more specifically environmental impacts in this discussion or is it? Quite similar to how we had to incorporate cyber security, inclusivity, or accessibility, as you mentioned. Is there anything specific to the environmental topics when it comes to onboarding them into agile practices?

Joanna Masraff (34:31)

The only thing I is back to the thing that with all of those other things you've mentioned, it hasn't been a cost saving. So that one thing generally makes it easier to bring your middle managers in because their bottom line usually is cost. Apart from that, the transformation itself, it's really not that different, which is why...

Gaël Duez (34:42)

Okay.

Joanna Masraff (34:56)

We brought Agile and sustainability and Agilist and sustainability together because we, you somebody called us, a friend of ours called Agile Coaches, the, the alchemists of change, which I really liked. So that's why I'm using it. So we really are change makers. We know how to come in and help make those changes. And I believe in JoJo's, the two Jo's minds, the next transformation is the sustainability transformation. And we can help with that. We want to help with that.

Joanne Stone (35:35)

And the reason why is because I look at all of these particular problems and challenges as wicked challenges. So and when you look at the definition of a wicked problem, right, like it's like something where, you know, we have many stakeholders, many different symptoms of the specific problem, many different solutions, right? There isn't one specific expert that knows how to do that. You need to have a diversified team in order to solve it. You, the only way that you can actually work on it is through small little experiments where you iterate and adapt, there isn't a linear way that we can actually tackle that problem. So the problems and challenges that we have today are all wicked, very much wicked. And the practices of Agile are perfectly suited to this space because we're utilizing the collaboration of the team. We have to empower the team because we experiment, because we have to slice things into small little things.

And we also have to do this at a sustainable pace because these problems won't be solved in our lifetimes, right? It'll be solved in multiple lifetimes. So we need to be able to do it in a way where we can thrive and be resilient at doing that. So that sustainable pace and the way that we've been doing things from an agility perspective has set us up to be able to work on these particular wicked problems. The cool thing though, The ability to kind of like what Joe was saying in terms of cost reduction, we can totally make that transparent, right? you know, we're all about outcome basis and producing the value and making sure that we do it in the most effective and efficient way, right? With people. And we're all about doing, not actually about planning forever. We're into doing action. but in a sustainable pace way, using the word sustainable from that perspective.

Gaël Duez (37:39)

And I really enjoy the way you wrap it up because I won't have to do it in the conclusion, but also because it's sort of a reassuring that if I'm an agile coach, if I'm a product manager with a good grasp of agile techniques, actually all my tools are not to be challenged. And that's a bit reassuring. You say it's like, okay, so I've got this extra burden But you know, my way of thinking, my way of working, the agile practices that I've honed over time, they're there. I don't have to challenge them. It's just yet another issue, yet another wicked challenges, as you said, that I need to incorporate in into my way of working and I don't know, I find it reassuring. Even if you say that problems will not be solved over a lifetime, it's still, at least this, don't need to change how I work. I just need to incorporate this question and these challenges in a, well-crafted way of working, Am I right also to see it in such a positive way?

Joanne Stone (38:46)

I would say that the one thing I would add, because I struggled with this too, is how do we bring the planet into what we're doing? there's so many great practices that we can learn from the sustainable area, for sure. Circular economy, doughnut economy, regenerative. There's so many beautiful things that the sustainability experts in this world have been doing.

And those things are not incorporated in our practices. So I say, on to our practices and bring together all the other sustainability practices which are out there and how we think about how do we reduce the waste.

Joanna Masraff (39:26)

I agree and disagree with Joe, because I think, yes, of course the sustainability has added ways of thinking about our product and about the economy, which bring the planet further in. But I don't think the changes that we may need to make to our techniques are… big, if at all. So this is why I call them the twisted techniques, right? And you've mentioned some of the ideas, you know, bringing in Maria Len, Planet as a stakeholder. So that idea can actually be added to a lot of our design techniques that we already use in the product space, right? So your customer journey mapping have a persona who is nature, for example, this can also be applied into your product techniques your and delivery phases.

Gaël Duez (40:14)

Really interesting. Thanks a lot, Joanna, for adding this other perspective. There is one angle that we didn't discuss that much is putting things the other way around, which is not usually what Green IO does, but it's also make a bit of sense to have this other perspective, the two of you, you work on, you know, agile for sustainability rather than sustainable for agile. have you been using agile techniques to accelerate projects, even if they're not like in IT per se, and even if it's not about reducing the environmental footprint of the structure using them? Because I think that, Johan, when we had early discussions, you mentioned something was a food bank, am I right?

Joanne Stone (40:58)

Yeah, love to experiment, right? So one of the things that we started to do was work with our local communities. So my first experiment was, OK, let's get in there and try and see if I can work with this restaurant owner who wants to make the restaurant more sustainable. so I brought a team together and I thought, okay, let's just do a little small little slice of that particular problem we can figure it out. But we took about two months of just discussing what sustainability is. this is where, you know, we went, okay, like, is there another practice? Like, what other tool I pull from my backpack? And so one of my friends is a design sprint facilitator, And so what we did is we utilized the design sprint techniques. We found this beautiful, passionate lady not too far away from me who has a local community garden. And she says, well, you know, I have a problem right now. I want to get more volunteers in because I want to produce more food. And if we can produce more food, I can give more food to local food bank. We went, sure, OK, let's try this thing out. So we did the design sprint. And so we have people from all over the world. And they come in. And we interviewed the clients. We interviewed the subject matter experts.

Gaël Duez (42:12)

Excellent.

Joanne Stone (42:22)

You know, we had a huge amount of problems and challenges. had stickies like galore of the problems. We sliced it down. We got it into what is a small specific thing that we can do. We created a prototype, right? So we created a flyer would bring in more volunteers, that would attract more volunteers. We tested it out, and then we provided that data back. So this is us in action. Like, Gaël I cannot believe how this is. I don't want to overanalyze. I don't want to blah, blah. But Google and the technique that they have for doing design sprints is Bella. It's brilliant. It's beautiful because it's done within 32 hours. And it has the only interview so many people. You only get just enough information. So that you can test it out, so you can figure out what to do next. So we call it SIPs, Sustainability Incubator Projects. we're SIPsters. yeah. And it was a bunch of women who were actually doing it. So it's been amazing what we're doing. Like I am really excited about it. But back to your point where we talking about earlier, and you brought it up, Gaël.

Gaël Duez (43:31)

Got it.

Joanne Stone (43:41)

We have as Agilist a lot of these beautiful skills it's not just scrum like it's not just Kanban right we've done change management we've changed culture we develop software right and it allows us to get right in there roll up our sleeves make a change make see something and then and then allow people to figure out and learn what to do next. By the way, it's been amazing. The success stories are great, and I get paid in hugs and drinks. So I'm really super happy right now. But it's lots of fun, and the people that are with this right now really enjoy it, and they want us to continue to do more.

Gaël Duez (44:25)

Agilist, get paid in hugs and beers or drinks, Join the sustainability space. Okay. It's excellent, but it's also a good illustration that you can use agile techniques also for doing tech for good

Joanne Stone (44:28)

Hiya! Hahaha!

Gaël Duez (44:41)

Being mindful of your time, I'd like to wrap up. mean, you've beautifully wrapped it up, Joanne, so I'm not going to add on what you've said, but just maybe, is there any resources that you didn't share or that you want to mention?

Joanna Masraff (44:56)

So the Agile Alliance actually has a sustainability initiative and they created a sustainability manifesto, which is really quite also, Ines Garcia is recording conversations with all of the signatories to try and spread the word that we do have an Agile sustainability manifesto.

Gaël Duez (45:00)

Okay.

Joanna Masraff (45:17)

So it's well worth people going and having a look at that. even if you don't agree with it, come and discuss it with us, you know, we'd love to have that conversation.

Joanne Stone (45:25)

Yeah, the resources that I feel would be really great is in the We Hope magazine. So there's some really amazing stories which are in there. We've just launched the last third edition. And it gets into some of the Agilists which are out there. They're doing different things from leadership to some of the projects that I've done in the past we have some tech people that are there as well. So I think that a lot of those stories that are there are a great, specific resource for people to actually look at as well.

Joanne Stone (46:01)

including what Joe just said, and that's Garcia's just doing some amazing, amazing work.

Joanna Masraff (46:07)

Interestingly, the We Hope magazine is on the Agilist for Planet website as well, that also still has, recordings of our old, the last two conferences. if you're interested, go and have a look, there's some great presentations on there. We touch into regeneration. We have the business case for sustainability. We talk about circularity, degrowth. We talk about cleaning up your digital space in your personal kind of digital space as well, your digital data. There's lots and lots and lots of different stuff on there. So please go and have a

Gaël Duez (46:42)

That's a positive trend to close the podcast as well in this episode. So thanks a lot, both of you, for joining. It was really interesting to deep dive a bit more in the agile world and agilist world, which I'm not that familiar. I've used the techniques, but I've never been an agile coach. Thanks a lot for joining.

Joanne Stone (47:00)

Thank you.

Joanna Masraff (47:00)

Thank you so much for having us. Lovely to chat.

Gaël Duez (47:04)

Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. If you enjoyed it, share it and give us five stars on Apple Podcast or Spotify. We are an independent media, relying solely on you to get more listeners. Sharing this episode on social media or directly with a colleague or a relative would be a nice move. Everyone deserves to get this energy booster than Joe and Joe provided during this interview.

In our next episode, which will be quite technical, I will welcome Flavia Paganelli and Niki Manoledaki to talk about sustainability in cloud computing using new open source solutions for containers and orchestration in the Kubernetes world. Stay tuned. And one last thing, Green IO is a podcast and much more. So visit greenio.tech to subscribe to our free monthly newsletter, read the latest articles on our blog, and check the conferences we organize across the globe. Singapore is in one month, and its full agenda is now available. New York is in two months, and many speakers have now been disclosed. As usual, you can get a free ticket on any Greenio conferences using the voucher GREENIOVIP.

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Changing its Cloud provider is never small potatoes, especially when a platform operates up to 40,000 containers and has about 4 million unique visitors a day to its website. Yet Back Market made the move from AWS to Google Cloud Platform motivated primarily by … sustainability concerns! In this episode its CTO, Dawn Backer, chats with Gaël Duez and covers a wide range of GreenOps topics such as: 

   ☁️ Why they switched from AWs to GCP

   📏 The needed granularity in carbon measurement 

   💸 Why FinOps is a no brainer to boost sustainability

   🏦 The importance of carbon P&L in decision making

   ⚖️ The Dilemma of running GreenOps between carbon reduction and faster cloud instances

   And much more!

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Dawn (00:00)

It is always important to be controlling costs when you're a CTO and infrastructure is always a significant component of the PNL. And if you can make sure people are focused on the environmental impact, it will have a cost impact. And so you can advocate for GreenOps because it is tied to the bottom line.

Gaël Duez (00:04)

Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO, the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Every two Tuesdays, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. Migrating to a new cloud provider because of the lack of sustainability commitment from the previous one is almost never seen in our IT industry. So I was really impressed with the talk delivered by two Back Market senior engineers at Green IO Paris last year. So impressed that I wanted to learn more about Back Market engineering culture. I discovered teams who have seriously embraced the GreenOps approach and whose feedback could greatly benefit product and tech teams, no matter the industry they work in. This is why I'm so excited to welcome Dawn Becker, Back Market CTO, on the show today. Dawn is a senior engineering leader who has managed infrastructure, operations, and software development teams in organizations ranging from 50 to more than 100,000 employees, from startups to Fortune 500 companies and her functional expertise spans across many layers of the technology stack, including data center, network systems and database operations, software engineering, course, you name it, I guess you understood that she is a very versatile expert. Welcome to the show Dawn and thanks for making room in your busy calendar for this interview.

Dawn (02:06)

Thank you for inviting me, Gaël. It's a pleasure to be here.

Gaël Duez (02:09)

Pleasure is mine. I'd to start asking you what is the achievement from your teams which you are the proudest in terms of sustainability.

Dawn (02:19)

So it is definitely the migration of our infrastructure to a new cloud provider. We did it in under six months. And we have up to 40,000 containers in our infrastructure. So it's a significant achievement. And it's been great results for us so far.

Gaël Duez (02:42)

Yeah, what was the result that you were looking such a massive project? just before you answer this question, for the sake of understanding, what size of the tech stack and the human power are we talking about at Back Market? How many engineers?

Dawn (03:00)

Yes, so we have about 260 engineers at Back Market. We operate up to 40,000 containers and we have about 4 million unique visitors a day to our site. We work really hard as a company to be conscious about our impact on the environment. And so when we were evaluating our next steps for infrastructure. were at a point where we needed to modernize our infrastructure. We're a 10 year old company and as happens in 10 year old companies, we had a bit of debt that we needed to pay down and it was going to require us to recast our infrastructure. And to do that, it gives you the opportunity, which doesn't come along very often to do a change in cloud providers.

Gaël Duez (04:00)

That was also an opportunistic move because it's not like you were scaling up the tech stack and suddenly in the morning you say, okay, enough is enough. I want to change my cloud provider. It was also connected with a reflection on the current state of your tech stack and the level of technical debt you have reached. And okay, enough is enough. We need to refactor a bit and maybe even that's a great timing to ask ourselves on which platforms do we want to be hosted? Am I correct to state it that way?

Dawn (04:31)

Exactly.

Gaël Duez (04:32)

And what were the results that you wanted to achieve in terms of sustainability by migrating from, I guess we can name them, it was made public in Green IO Paris that you migrated from AWS to Google Cloud Platform.

Dawn (04:48)

Yes, so the biggest factor in the decision in the end was the impact and our ability to track it. number one, the visibility we get from Google Cloud on our CO2 emissions and the ability to locations with renewable power was a big factor in our decision we're a B Corp and this becomes a very important aspect of what we do is to be able to report on that. So that became an important component of the decision-making process. And it's also that we can start to break down and start to invest in breaking down not only that information for the infrastructure, but each component of what we run and be able to align teams around the impact that they have. we're still at the early stages of this because we've just finished our migration in April. But we have ambitions to create greater and greater insights with more and more detail so that we can have a clear view of what it costs to serve our users specifically for certain functionality and be able to make decisions about engineering investment on ways to improve that over time.

Gaël Duez (06:11)

So it means that the ultimate goal is that each team, feature team, impact teams, I don't know how you name them, are accountable of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions they emit.

Dawn (06:27)

Yeah, exactly.

Gaël Duez (06:28)

And that was the number one reason for you to migrate into Google Cloud because they can provide this level of accuracy.

Dawn (06:38)

it was the biggest weight in the decision. There are of course other factors. There's a better visibility and higher impact we have on the roadmap and discussions that we can have with our, our account team, the level of partnership that's provided. were also big factors. We run on Kubernetes. So having the managed GKE offering with definite uplift for us.

Gaël Duez (07:06)

You mentioned Kubernetes. There are several projects around incorporating sustainability natively in K8 and also putting them in the CI-CD. Is it the sort of project that you're looking for

Dawn (07:22)

Well, first we want to be able to have the level of granularity, which doesn't really exist today, on knowing for what type of instance that we choose, what can be the carbon footprint for that. And we did this. One of the engineers on my team, Florian Valeye he wrote an open source contribution that would, for AWS, using data set provided by Teeds. They did some research in 2021. So he wrote an open source tool called Track Carbon. And that allowed anyone to track the energy consumption and calculate carbon emissions for their use in AWS. That research course was a point in time and it didn't continue to evolve. And so we didn't have the data for the evolving instance types. So it became obsolete. But we would love to be able to do that at this level of detail, not only for ourselves, but make it available to others as well so that we could track with greater accuracy the impact at the instance level.

Gaël Duez (08:22)

And on Google Cloud, because maybe I missed some recent updates, but I remember that Google shares some sustainability metrics for the different instances that are running. the feedback I had so far is that it's not that much actionable for engineering teams, mostly because of the lag that it is updated on a monthly basis.

Once again, if I remember that well, that most of the time a software engineering team, want to experiment things and see the next day or within the next few days if the change they made in the architecture, in the code, whatever the design has provided an impact. So maybe could you clarify a how teams are actually using this information from Google Cloud to reduce their carbon footprint?

Dawn (09:29)

So today, we're not actually using it to reduce our carbon footprint. We're using it to create visibility. And visibility is the first step for accountability. If people are aware of the impact that they're having, they are more likely to take action on their own. And you're right, the data doesn't come in fast enough, right?

Gaël Duez (09:36)

Okay.

Dawn (09:56)

Which is part of why we are looking at what different tooling we could have for ourselves to be able to take it a step further than gets provided from Google today. One of the things that we envision doing over time is having costs to serve through infrastructure costs, but also through carbon impact because how well optimized your code is uses more or less CPU and uses more or less energy. And it correlates of course to how much spend you have, but not only. And so being able to have that picture, think is really important. It's also, I think every organization at some point starts to scrutinize the amount that they're spending on infrastructure because you get to a size and scale. If things are going well, that it starts to become a significant part of your, of your P and L and every team then ends up having to put focus on cost cutting optimization. never fun, right? It's never a super motivating task for people. When you think about the other way you can look at this, that is a different cost cutting measure, far more motivating and highly correlated is thinking about how can you reduce your carbon emissions? How can you reduce your impact on the planet? And it's a very different way to think about how to optimize your code, how to optimize your infrastructure to have an impact on, yes, the bottom line from a cost perspective, but it also has a big impact on the cost on the planet.

Gaël Duez (11:53)

And so is it something that, I mean, do you have FinOps team today at Back Market?

Dawn (11:58)

There's, I would say it's a, we don't have a specific team. have a focus area on FinOps

Gaël Duez (12:04)

Okay, which means that each team has at least one person who's in charge of paying attention to the FinOps detail.

Dawn (12:13)

Right now this is concentrated in our platform teams looking at this to create the visibility across the feature teams.

Gaël Duez (12:24)

And is it the same people within the platform team who will have the same focus on carbon accounting and creating visibility on carbon or will there be different profiles?

Dawn (12:38)

It's the same people for us today. Again, we're at the beginning of this journey and there are not a lot of models out there to follow.

Gaël Duez (12:51)

I got it. actually going back to what you've said previously about the tooling and the fact that you're still in search of the tooling, what are the tools that you've considered using, whether they're open source or paid tools, or are you actually considering building your own?

Dawn (13:08)

Well, one of the reasons we are looking building our own tooling around this is because to do what we want, which is reproduce some of the work that was done by Florian on that open source project is that it doesn't exist today. There's not a tool that will do that for us there are some tools, I think, that show up that can give you some help but they're still very high level and a bit generic and maybe not as actionable as they could be with a little more detail. And so us trying a path forward that would allow us to give real insights to our engineers to be able to make everyday decisions that can have an impact they do their work to optimize for carbon emissions.

Gaël Duez (14:07)

Really interesting because there are several tools popping up here and there. There are obvious open source tools such as Cloud Carbon Footprint or Cloud Scanner from Boavizta There are also several paid solutions. and most of the time they take the, financial inputs from cloud provider, they cross it with an emission factor or information from providers such as electricity maps, for instance, to get the carbon intensity of the electricity grid at a certain time in a certain day. And I was wondering what other features do you find missing? Especially you mentioned the granularity that you want to develop your own tool.

Dawn (14:55)

All of those things you said are true and there is definitely... We have the ability to look at what type of power in which data center, what percentage is renewable. When are, when can you run your, your intense job so that it's not competing at the time where there's a heavy load on the grid? So all of that is true. And there are things certainly today that we could even do better with the tools that exist, sure we are able to scale to zero at times when everything's idle right, and to do that in an automated way. There's, think, more work to do there. And again, very tied to cost as well in those cases. But when it comes to what can, and I think this is the question that everyone has about their daily lives, is like, what can I do? Like, I'm just one person out of, you know, seven or eight billion on the planet. What does it matter what I do? And when we think about this, there's, I think there's so much that we're not. We don't pay attention to, such as, and I'm going to put this in terms of the everyday human experience, where people don't think about it. And then let's talk about how that translates into engineering. So if you think about how many email addresses do you have and how much storage are you using and how many photos do you have that are uploaded into the cloud? When was the last time you looked at all of them, right? And every bite that is out there, your digital footprint, it also has a carbon cost because it's costing for that. And so when we think about that from an engineering perspective, what are the things that you store and never access? You know, how much logging are you doing? And do you need to do that much logging? How long are you storing it for? And do you need to store it that long? And having some visibility into that, that is your daily dashboard would be hugely, hugely helpful to hold yourself accountable for, are you putting your effort and the cost that you're doing in the right way.

Gaël Duez (17:28)

That means that you're incorporating in this green ops dashboarding that you're building at Back Market also management approach. You want to focus on storage, not only the amount of time that you're doing computing or using servers at a certain time of the day and certain location, but also incorporating this data management principles that we store too much, we load too much, et cetera, et cetera. Am I right?

Dawn (17:58)

It's a, part of my vision for it. And I would say maybe a little too optimistic to say that we're in the process of building that functionality right now. But when you think about how people as individuals can have the impact. This is, you have to go to that level of detail because that's where it starts. Everything starts from just a small amount of impact that compounds over time and suddenly it's huge.

Gaël Duez (18:30)

and that you can scale this impact. And what other features do you envision for this environmental dashboard and tooling that you want your teams to be able to build now that you've migrated to Google. So obviously, we mentioned carbon aware and was also a bit of grid aware. We've just mentioned data management. Is there other aspect where you want to empower your engineering team to make better decision?

Dawn (18:57)

That's a big question. I think the perspective of software engineering work that we do for writing and executing code and hosting it in production. Because that is also really important. the run part of software development is where probably the highest carbon costs are because it's going all the time and it is the most obvious place to look. It's not only that, right? Because we're also doing monitoring. We also have a bunch of other tool sets we run to do our job. And all of those things combined. It's just one on top of another, on top of another that is consuming energy I think would be an advanced step here. Because the first most obvious place to look is absolutely on the run, on how what you're doing runs every day and what that impact is. And it's the biggest chunk. At least we think that right now. I don't know if it would turn out, it would, it turned out to be true if you add up all the costs of day-to-day operations that aren't really about what's running. It's probably not, not as insignificant as we think, or we don't think about it. So I don't know, but it's an interesting place. think that we should start to look and validate where do we have impact and where along the way can we optimize it? Because I find that when you start to think about this, start to make different choices.

Gaël Duez (20:42)

Could you give us an example of one of these choice that you've made differently thanks to sustainability inputs?

Dawn (20:51)

Okay, so we are reconsidering our business continuity disaster recovery planning and there's a non-zero cost to having a solid plan in place, right? And being able to make sure that we have the best possible RPO and RTO for the most reasonable impact, right? Because you can go… can do warm backup and you can do full redundancy. full redundancy obviously has the largest impact. It also costs the most, but it gives you the greatest peace of mind. You end up with so much just sitting and unused completely cold is a bit too long for recovery time at scale, right? So it can be a pretty long time. But especially in a cloud environment, having a warm, small footprint that you're able to manage closely can be a really nice compromise between two and gives you the flexibility with a much lower impact.

Gaël Duez (22:17)

Got it and that's interesting to see that the carbon price has become part of the equation as much as the financial price of recovery plans. And that leads me to another question which is how do you make GreenOps efficient and part of the discussion on almost every aspect of your engineering culture? Because we took the example of the cloud migration, of the example you just provided about the recovery plans. But I got it that you don't have yet all the tools that you want to provide the most accurate insights possible. But when I've discussed with your engineer, they were already very, very focused on green ops. I was wondering, how did you achieve this focus on green ops across your teams?

Dawn (23:12)

So we're at a slight advantage maybe in this area because we are a mission-driven company with an environmental mission. And one of our corporate values is that it's not green enough. So this is a mantra that shows up everywhere in the culture. And having that kind of mindset, it's not only about your job, it really is about your life and the mission and the values that the back market holds attracts people who are aligned with them and it becomes a part of everybody's thought process.

Gaël Duez (23:52)

That raises a very interesting point because do you believe that achieving such a green ops culture in focus would have been possible in, I would say, a regular Fortune 500 company? Or does it require first that the environmental culture is high enough? And, my question is for all the other CTO and CPO and head of engineering listening to you, like, do you have a chance to actually move the needle in the right direction to embrace green ops if you work in a more like, you know, business as usual, I would say company.

Dawn (24:31)

Yeah, it's an interesting question. when I first started talking about carbon PNL with my peers,

I met Patrick at an event for Google Cloud. And I was talking with him about Carbon P &L because we at Back Market have started on the journey of a Carbon P &L. And his company does it already. And they're a very big company. And they have a very active focus on this. And so it's possible. And I think that that is very inspiring that that's the case.

Gaël Duez (25:05)

It is.

Dawn (25:07)

I've also, so I've seen the power of the employee base in this way as well. spent some time at Google. The employees at Google are very environmentally oriented and they do make noise about this. And Google as a company does respond to the things that their employees value in this way. It's harder, I think, in companies that are perhaps not as successful as that to get it to be a focus. There was a lot of discussion during the time I was at Fitbit from the employee base about making the devices more recyclable, having a better sustainability mindset around it which was difficult to make a focus. when the company isn't hugely profitable or hugely growing, you know, when you're facing business headwinds, it is the first thing to fall to the back. is a hard to fight against.

Gaël Duez (26:06)

That's interesting because the way I framed the question was the wrong one. I expected that the mission of the company would influence how much a CTO has some leeway to implement GreenOps practices. And actually your answer points toward a slightly different directions, which is it's not really the mission in itself, but it's more the power of employee engagement and the financial situation of the company, which might be even for a B Corp, highly environmentally focused company, facing a lot of turmoil business-wise, we might actually experience a reduction in the to achieve some environmental goals. Very interesting point of view. Thank you.

Dawn (27:02)

Yeah. So on the question you were actually asking, I do believe that a CTO in any company can push green ops because today, younger generation of workers is far more aware of environmental impact than anyone was 20 years ago. And as I said earlier, it's always important to be controlling costs when you're a CTO and infrastructure is always a significant component of the PNL. And if you can make sure people are focused on the environmental impact, it will have a cost impact. And so you can advocate for GreenOps because it is tied to the bottom line. And I do believe that the business. We'll buy into it because the correlation is there.

Gaël Duez (28:00)

Which is a great enabler. And you were discussing about advocating and that's another question I was wondering how much you managed to have a discussion with your CPO or CMO. I don't know how you're structured regarding product and marketing, but basically people pushing for some features,

when it comes to Green Ops, like, do you manage to say, hey, well, maybe we shall not use video or maybe this feature is not that useful how much they are involved in this Green Ops process? Because we know that design set the tone for most of the music when it comes to Green Ops. So CTO, if they ask to provide more and more features or more and more products, that can completely offset all their efforts to reduce their environmental footprint. So how is the level of the discussion at back market?

Dawn (28:51)

Again, because we have the it's not green enough value, it is the topic that comes up. I think we can do better than we're doing and, and the engineering team has a greater responsibility and a bigger role to play in this than any other department, because we have that information. either have access to the information or we can get access to that information in a way that is a bit more difficult perhaps for the CMO and the CPO if engineering teams are very conscientious about it, and if we provide the carbon impact as part of the planning, it can have a different impact and change people's minds. We are also the ones that are best positioned to propose alternatives and say, you are asking for this, for an objective we understand as this, and we can achieve that same objective with a lower impact. One of the superpowers of engineering that we forget that we have. It was just to have this level of influence over the entire corporation because we have the information, we have access to it or we can get it. And with a little bit of effort, we can educate people and really influence the decisions that get made and costs

Gaël Duez (30:25)

And maybe just to close the episode, because you've already shared in full transparency and humility, I must say, it's not all shiny and perfect at Back Market, but it's really this focus and these first steps that you've already started and this culture that you managed to But we've briefly mentioned Back Market has being environmentally focused because of its very nature. How the discussion regarding e-waste, and maybe you can explain a bit what Back Market is doing to the audience, how this focus on e-waste, which is at the very core of Back Market mission, influences also the discussion within the engineering teams when it comes to green ops. I was wondering how much weight do you put on creating software that will not… Accelerate hardware obsolescence.

Dawn (31:22)

For me, that's a super interesting question. We have a fight against ways of working for the OEMs, which is to make their devices obsolete. They stop updating them. You can no longer get the latest OS update, the security updates, et cetera, beyond a certain model. And thanks to government regulations, these things are being extended more and more. And you see commitments from companies to provide longer term support for the devices that they make than they were 10 years ago. It's a good trend. So from a influence perspective, this is a focus at Back Market is to make sure that we are active in this discussion and advocating for every person out there who wants to keep what they have and they just want it to work longer because they're happy with what they have and through software development, that is what we do and what we advocate for and what we educate people about. Again, something interesting that I think we don't talk about very much is that we are, as engineers, probably almost worse than the general population when it comes to pushing for the latest technology on things. And I don't know how to change this, actually, because when you think about every time new cloud provider or our cloud provider puts out their newest version of instances. They're faster and they're more efficient. And you have a dilemma in that you want to get the speed gains and the efficiency gains you can get from the latest hardware refresh. But the very nature of that hardware refresh can create e-waste. And so we have opposing forces and the best that we can do to serve our business because there's a, have to stay competitive and responsive to fulfill the mission of getting people to buy through the circular economy this is where the carbon PNL comes in as well, to make sure that you're holding yourself accountable for what you put out, what you emit and what you try to save, what you can save. But can we extend, can you choose providers or hardware if you're doing on-prem that is upgradable in place? So maybe you don't have to replace entire chassis every time you're doing an upgrade. Can you choose a cloud provider that has documented and certified recycling practices because we haven't found a way today to get out of this cycle of the constant upgrades for faster, better compute power.

Gaël Duez (34:36)

So if I understood you right, that's a very open and transparent way that you put the issue on the table it's a day-to-day dilemma of running green ops based on carbon PNL. I think it could wrap up the entire episode thank you joining and sharing that openly. And it was a pleasure to listening to your team also on Green IO Paris stage. So thanks for all the support.

Dawn (35:05)

Thank you, Gaël It was a pleasure talking with you

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“Today I learned that we have a sustainability team.Thank you for your effort in this area, looking at results of the team so far, and the ROI of time invested, it's probably a good time to officially dissolve the team entirely”. 

In 3 sentences, almost 3 years of work from the WordPress Sustainability Group vanished and their Slack channel archived on the spot. To get clarity on what happened at WordPress and to understand what a WordPress practitioner can do to reduce the environmental footprint of her digital services, Gaël Duez welcomes 3 of the 4 founders of the original sustainability team: Csaba Varszegi, Nahuai Badiola, and Nora Ferreiros. 

In their much more nuanced exchange that could have been expected due to the current situation, they covered many topics including: 

   👏 The power of applause to kick start a sustainability team

   🔧 How changing HTTPS check made WordPress save 471 kWh / month

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Csaba (00:00)
So I was thinking to myself, I can try to do things on my own, but what is the impact of those things? So if we could contribute at a higher level, let's say, at WordPress level, that could have a lot larger impact

Gaël Duez (00:15)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Green IO. I'm Gaël Duez, and in this podcast, we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the full transcript, are in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform and, of course, on the website greenio.tech.

Today, I learned that we have a sustainability team. Thank you for your effort in this area. Looking at results of the team so far and the return on investment of time invested, it's probably a good time to officially dissolve the team entirely. In three sentences, almost three years of work from the WordPress Sustainability Group vanished and their Slack channel was archived on the spot. It reminds me of the Elon Musk style when he arrived at Twitter, except that WordPress CMS still powers almost 40 % of all the websites around the globe, with many being heavy traffic websites. And with heavy traffic comes significant environmental impacts. So to get clarity on what happened at WordPress and to understand what a WordPress practitioner can do to reduce the environmental footprint of digital services now that the sustainability team is gone, I'm glad to welcome today three people who are active members of the WordPress community, especially on sustainability topics. Actually, they were part of the four founders of the original sustainability team.

Csaba is a sustainable web designer based in Antwerp, Belgium. Nahuai is a freelance WordPress developer, theme and plugin creator. And Nora Ferreiros is a freelance UX UI designer.

and both Nahuai and Nora are based in Barcelona. So welcome Csaba, Nahuai and Nora. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.

Nahuai (02:49)
Hello.

Nora (02:49)
Thank you.

Csaba (02:50)
Hello, hi.

Nora (02:51)
Thank you for

Nahuai (02:51)
Yeah, thanks for having us.

Csaba (02:52)
Hi, hello.

Gaël Duez (02:53)
You're

more than welcome. So maybe before we start, could each of you share what is the main fact or figure that leads you to care about sustainability as a WordPress practitioner?

Nora (03:09)
Well, actually, Nahuai is the person who led me to care about sustainability in WordPress and in the details sustainability and life in general,

Nahuai (03:20)
That was super nice to hear, Nora. In my case, the eye-opening moment was a lightning talk by Roberto Vázquez in a work camp that just putting together the energy consumed by data centers and the environmental impact. It's pretty straightforward, but it was the first time that I it was like, okay, this makes sense.

Gaël Duez (03:22)
Now you have to deal with this.

Nora (03:24)
It's true.

Nahuai (03:48)
and I started to go down the rabbit hole. And short after that, I started to talk with Hannah Smith, who has been a key person in my sustainability journey. And yeah, pretty much in that point, I started to research and start giving talks about it. And yeah, probably.

Nora (04:06)
Yeah, have to say that I was in this talk also, but for me it was later. Nahuai was the one that said to me, look at this, sustainability is important, but I also was in this talk and it was important to me to think about internet consumes energy.

Csaba (04:23)
For me, it's a bit similar, just like you mentioned, and as you mentioned in the intro, like WordPress having a large market share. So I was thinking to myself, I can try to do things on my own, but what is the impact of those things? So if we could contribute at a higher level, let's say, at WordPress level, that could have a lot larger impact and maybe a lot more interesting for other people to...

profit from as well.

Gaël Duez (04:50)
you're right, Shaba, that WordPress is just huge in terms of CMS share and I was delighted to hear about the creation of a sustainability team at WordPress. I've heard, but maybe I'm wrong, that it all started at a WordPress convention with Nora speaking up on these aspects, but maybe I'm completely wrong. Could you enlighten me a bit on this?

Nora (05:16)
Yeah, it was kind of this way and honestly it was kind of around the situation, it wasn't something planned because it all started at the WordCamp Europe in 2022. This is the annual big WordPress event in Europe and it was also my first international event and I was super excited and nervous because I was about to spend...

four whole people who I only could communicate in English. I'm in Spanish, so you can imagine it is a little tricky. So I was talking one day, I was talking with Rocio Valdivia. She's a lead of global WordPress community programs. I had to read this because I have not been able to remember it. So she...

Nahuai (05:49)
you

Nora (06:03)
blindly believing my newly acquired language skills. And she encouraged me to ask a question during this Q &A session with Matt Mullenberg and Joseph Heiden-Champonsy, who was the executive director of WordPress at the moment. So basically two of the most important people involved in the project at the time. And for some reason I said, yeah, sure, why not? But the thing is, as time passed,

I started to panic because I had no idea what to ask about. So I turned to Nahuai and I asked him for help and he rightly suggests sustainability as a topic. So with this in mind, I knew, I yeah, I knew if I ask a general question like, what about sustainability? I would just...

Nahuai (06:35)
You

Gaël Duez (06:36)
Ha ha ha ha.

Nora (06:56)
get a polite non-committal answer like, cool that's interesting we will think about it, thank you. So I decided to directly ask them for a team or at least for a Slack channel and for whatever reason they went for the latter. So I did it and when I returned to my seat 18 people had already joined the channel and are rising but the funny thing is I never intended to.

achieve this. My goal was just to, I don't know, get sustainability on the table or maybe use this visibility to draw some attention of some attendees interested in the topic and then maybe connect with them after the event or whatever. But things went unspectral differently and I'm very happy about it.

After that, the four people that finally make the team work as a working group for a year and the next WordCamp Europe, we have the support of some amazing people and we could officially became a team. And this is the story. And I would clarify something. I think it's really important. I voiced the demand, but I'm pretty sure that

was the people who cheer and applaud the thing, my suggestion. That main matter, and Joseph said, okay, let's create the channel because the people want something and we have to do something. So if any of the personnel listening to this, thank you very much for making it possible. And remember that voices lead, but it's the community that moves things forward.

Gaël Duez (08:34)
Power of applause

Nora (08:36)
Yeah.

Csaba (08:36)
Hehehe.

Gaël Duez (08:37)
so you wanted to put sustainability on the table. You actually managed to put sustainability within the Slack workspace of WordPress. Csaba, were you one of these people jumping on this newly created Slack channel?

Csaba (08:55)
I think I was actually one of the first people to join because I remember, I remember Nora asking this question, but the funny thing is that I was like kind of falling asleep during the question and answer, not because it wasn't interesting, but then I just heard the word sustainability. I was, what, what? So I started listening and then I heard that the channel was created. I think I was one of the first and I remember.

Gaël Duez (08:59)
Ha ha ha ha.

Nahuai (09:06)
Thank

Csaba (09:21)
Thijs was there as well and we already arranged something to meet during the conference, the after party, let's say, which we did as well. And the other funny thing is that I ran into Nora and Nahuai as well somewhere during a walk. So we actually really met in Porto and yeah, that's where things probably started up. still we had a long way to go.

Gaël Duez (09:46)
Yeah, the stars were aligned. And maybe for the non-adverted listeners, we talk a lot about the WordPress community at WordPress, but as far as I've understood, WordPress is an open source software, but there is also a company called WordPress. And when we talk about a sustainability team, a lot of people could believe maybe that you're employees at

WordPress or some sort of WordPress company. could you maybe Nahuai you clarify a bit this ecosystem

Nahuai (10:16)
Yeah.

It is kind of tricky to make sense of it because of the naming. So I will try to keep it simple. you said, WordPress, the thing that we've been talking till now is the CMS, it's open source. And it has a vibrant community doing things because they believe on that open source and democratizing the publishing and everything that is behind the motto or the meaning of WordPress. But then after, and this was...

co-founded by Matt Mullenberg and Mike Little. Shortly after this creation, Matt Mullenberg created the company Automatic. And Automatic owns WordPress.com, which is a huge confusion for a lot of people. So WordPress.com is just a hosting company using the CMS WordPress. And that's pretty much all the resemblance between the two of them.

Gaël Duez (10:54)
Mm-hmm.

Nahuai (11:10)
And the tricky part to make it a bit more difficult to understand is to the community, we are all volunteers. This is an open source, but some companies are putting people, sponsoring people to contribute. And Automatic was until one month ago, the one that was putting more people and time on it. It was around 4,000 hours in people, the sponsor, to move forward.

So some of the teams that are in Make WordPress, that is how it's leader by people on automatic. Okay, because since they have a lot of people contributing, it's more than a hundred people. A lot of teams had someone from automatic having 40 hours week to put into there, which is super cool. The sustainability team...

Gaël Duez (11:44)
Hmm.

Nahuai (11:58)
we were a bit different in that sense because we were created in this special way as Nora explained. And the 14 reps were self-sponsored, meaning that we were putting our time because we believe in the CMS and in sustainability and then more people of course joined to the Slack and the meetings. But we were mainly people self-sponsored. There were also some sponsored by companies, but

the sustainability team was quite diverse in that sense. it was not run by, none of the teams are run by automatic, okay, just to be clear, but some teams have a lot of, or had a lot of people from automatic because one month ago, more or less, Matt decided to reduce the time that are putting back into the project. But this is because our legal,

battle that we didn't discuss yet, so I don't want to go down there. I hope I made sense a bit of how it's organized.

Gaël Duez (12:55)
Okay.

actually, thanks a lot because it's crystal clear. I didn't really understand what was automatic. And this is not the first time in the open source community that you have actually a software that is sort of maintained by a company, even if it's an open source software. you think about Red

but usually it's a bit clearer because they share the same name and sometimes the intellectual property is even clarified in that sense. Okay, got it. Thanks a lot. What did you do,

Nora (13:31)
Great question. when we make the team, they ask us to work on sustainability, not just on environmental

Csaba (13:31)
Mm-hmm.

Nora (13:39)
sustainability but also in social and economic part of sustainability. So

We have been working together with other working groups like Fight for the Future, for example, or the V Groups for Diversity. So we can together cover all the things because it was a big thing. And the original founders, we were more into environmental sustainability and it is the part we work more on. For example,

we worked in a handbook for making WordPress events more sustainable. We published it. We were able to translate it to Spanish and to French.

And we were actually working on making guidelines for creating a WordPress website in a more sustainable way. It was, for me, the more exciting project because we were making something similar to what W3C guidelines were making, but applied to WordPress.

And we were also working in a plugin that I think Csaba and Nahuai can explain better about how it works to help on this about creating more sustainable WordPress websites.

Csaba (14:57)
Yes, we

were working on a plugin. Yes, plugins are like kind of extensions of WordPress, functional extensions of WordPress. And the plan was to create a canonical plugin, which means that it's supported by the community or even maybe on the long-term be included in core WordPress. So the WordPress software itself. And the idea was to spread awareness about digital sustainability to give people an idea about their websites in the sense of carbon footprints.

And the two basic ideas were to surface whether the website was hosted on renewable energy and to measure the home page's weight and carbon footprint and to compare it with data from the website's carbon API, like compare it to other websites, other webpages measured and warn people if their homepage has a too large footprint. And of course give them

feedback or assist them how to improve it. And that's where the guidance part would come

Nahuai (15:57)
I wanted to point out as Nora said, we were collaborating with working groups, because this is the naming we are using in WordPress. And one of them was with the performance team, which are also working and job, by the way, reducing

the energy that is needed. And one of the things they did because of somehow the synergy between us was a saving, changing some technical part of how to check the HTTPS. But the number was like 471 kilowatts hour a month was saved because of the large market share of WordPress.

our idea in the sustainability was to raise awareness. So maybe in the performance team, they are already doing great work to reduce the emissions.

But our team, sorry, I have to laugh because our team is no longer alive. it's strange to phrase it this way, but I'm going to continue this way. So our team, the idea was to raise awareness of what the performance team was doing or create guidelines as Nora said. So it was not only reducing the CO2 or whatever, but...

Nora (16:56)
Yeah.

Nahuai (17:15)
is spreading the word of the impact that a website has.

Gaël Duez (17:19)
That's an important point because I was about to ask, but what about other environmental variables or what about using other proxy than just the web page weight? For instance, know, some other tool, they check the DOM size or they check the number of API call, et cetera. But I think if the main idea was really to raise awareness, the simpler you keep it, the better it is.

correct to assume things that way.

Csaba (17:50)
Yes, I think so. funny enough, it's sometimes very hard to keep things simple or just give a quiet, good estimation on what's, what's wrong and what can, what people can do about it. so it wasn't a simple task.

And I also have to note maybe that there is a site help feature of WordPress, which is quite a cool tool, which actually gives you information. does a couple of tests on your environment and gives you a couple of things you can improve for your website. And the idea was to include this.

into that tool, is a native tool of WordPress Core itself,

Gaël Duez (18:27)
And today, the plugin that you developed, is it still available somewhere? even if it's not included in the core WordPress, but can anyone still use it?

Csaba (18:39)
Yes, it's not in the plugin repository, but you can download from GitHub. it probably should undergo a couple of refactoring, but you can try it and use it as it is now.

Gaël Duez (18:50)
and what were the feedback from the community?

Nora (18:54)
The feedback from the community, I was thinking about this thing you said about keep things simple. And it was really hard to keep things simple because people were to use two numbers, like what have you achieved? Numbers. And sustainability is kind of difficult to do that if you don't want to stay in the tunnel carbon.

Gaël Duez (19:08)
Hmm.

Nora (19:18)
so there were many people interested in I want to do something to make WordPress more sustainable but they were feeling really confused because the team didn't have many resources to make practical things so we were in a theoretical place most of the time creating awareness and so and

I think people were interested, motivated, excited maybe, but confused about what they should do to make things more sustainable in a practical way.

Nahuai (19:58)
and having the aim of touching the three pillars of sustainability, the environmental, the social and the economic, made that even more difficult. Not that I didn't like it because I like the holistic point of view, but it was more difficult to communicate sometimes. So yeah, that didn't help to simplify. as Nora was stressing out, we moved

slowly because we were self-sponsored people and that was also something to take into account. And we could just allocate maybe two, four hours a week, but not more because we are mostly freelancers and trying to make our own living. So that was also part of the thing that was not easy to balance, let's say.

Csaba (20:42)
Also, I think it's important to add that you're also spending a lot of time in searching for how to get things done within the community, how the procedures were, which is not always clear, let's say not clear. so you have to, yeah, you have to dig in and then it takes a lot of time to find that out.

Nahuai (20:49)
Yep, the bureaucracy.

Gaël Duez (21:00)
maybe before we move to what happened in the dismantling quite abrupt as I mentioned in the introduction, I'd like and I'm very sorry for this to play a bit the devil advocates here and ask you a naive question. Why do we need WordPress guidelines when we start having W3C guidelines?

Nora (21:24)
Well, from a point of view as a designer, I am always in the side of the user. So for me, the WordPress guidelines were important to specifically explain people who is not into sustainability What they specifically have to do with their WordPress

website in the WordPress world. I suppose all the CMS works this way. There are many users, I think the most of the users making their own websites. So I thought it was important to explain these people are non-developer people, how to specifically set in their WordPress or use their WordPress.

to make things more sustainable.

from the WordPress perspective alone

Nahuai (22:11)
I couldn't agree more. I'm part of the group of the sustainable web of the W3C and it's an amazing work. What we are doing, mainly other colleagues, I have to say I have limited time to put into it, but I love it. And I try to do my best on that regard, but it's a very technical and long document. So even if sustainable web design did a great job filtering, because there is an open API, so you can go and grab the

different criteria and filter it. It's really nicely done, technically. Even if you go to the Sustainable Web Design, It's website in general, which is super cool, but I think that people that is working every day with WordPress, having something more linked with visuals and things that they say, okay, I know where I can do this or this other, I think

Nora (22:53)
you

Nahuai (23:01)
this really helps because it's more familiar. So I think everything we can do to make it easier for people that is interested on doing something, it's a move in a good direction.

Gaël Duez (23:13)
Fair point.

I was expecting that kind of answers

but I wanted to understand how much overlapped was possible there because actually I was wondering if it was one of the reasons why the WordPress SustainB group was dismantled. And maybe now it's time for the three of you to explain what you feel and how you analyzed the, let's be honest, of

brutal dismantling of the sustainability group as I described in the introduction. hypothesis number one, we've got W3C guidelines, no need for anything specific WordPress. I think you already answered this point, but hypothesis number two was like, is it some kind of a Trump-fueled backlash against everything which is sustainable and...

you want to look nice to the new leader of the United States and as some other big tech behemoths just did recently kissing their new ring. So was it like a political move? Was it more maybe some sort of internal feud? What led to such abrupt end of your working group?

Csaba (24:24)
I have been thinking about it and to be honest, I don't think there was really that much of thinking behind the decision. It was a bit of a one-sided decision without any discussion questions asked. So it happened also very quickly after Thijs has resigned, let's say between quotes. Maybe what strikes me the most about this is that we were a group of individuals, contributors, not sponsored.

most of us who were just contributing to WordPress and trying to make it better or at least environmentally, socially and so on better. yeah, it's kind of somewhere surprising, but also not regarding the current situation of WordPress.

Nora (25:06)
I don't have a clear picture of the whole thing because I wasn't into WordPress drama until it affected me and some community fellows I don't know Madd or his circumstances well enough to have a solid opinion about the why I think it is a personal thing it's not something bigger

Nahuai (25:20)
Thank

Nora (25:27)
I mean, I don't have an explanation, but it's pretty obvious to me that we can draw up parallel between his attitude and that of attitude of other big tech founders also at the moment. But I don't know.

Nahuai (25:42)
I have an hypothesis trying to be a bit more specific maybe for the people that is not inside the community and the WP drama and everything. So I think we cannot understand this decision without talking about the legal battle between automatic math because both are and WP engine. And this started in September of the last year and

The main reason to keep it simple was that Matt went into the stage in the keynote and publicly said that WP Engine, which is a WordPress hosting that is making a lot of money from WordPress, was not contributing enough. In that moment, they were contributing like 40 hours a week, something like that. And Automatic was contributing around 4,000. Okay. So he felt that it wasn't fair.

if every company went this route, WordPress would probably die because there wouldn't be enough resources. So fair point till here. At least all I'm going to say is my vision. Okay. So don't take it as a representation of the sustainability team or anything. It's just now I took it. So after Engine started a legal battle against Matt.

basically damaging the brand. Okay, let's say, let's put it that way. And there is more things that Matt say and everything, but I don't want to go down that road. And from this moment to the, probably the sustainability closing, team closing, it has been a different Matt.

for us at least, maybe Matt was always like that. But what happened is that Matt asked to the community to take part on this. So he wanted to know if you were behind him or if you were not behind him and his...

opinions and the things he was doing, you were against, pretty much, just to keep it simple. So the people that were vocal and going against Matt or his opinions, some of them were banned from Slack or from WordPress.org and things like that. again, my hypothesis is that Matt is...

kind of in a battle mode because it's in a legal battle and he needs the community to be behind him. And I think the trigger point in our case, was Thais stepping down as a team rep of the sustainability team because he was not aligned with the new direction that Matt was giving to WordPress okay?

And he made it public and he made it clear to Matt directly. And I think this was the trigger point. as I say, don't think there is much thinking about it. I think it was like, okay, these people were doing something. I don't recall knowing about it. Oh yes. I don't know. He said he didn't. And he was another power move. He made other power moves before. So this is my...

vision. Of course, it's subjective and maybe it's wrong, but I felt like Matt took it as a little attack somehow. And he said, okay, this is not very dear to my heart either. And so we can close it. Well, he can close it. That's probably the more frightening part is that Matt can do a lot of things

without anybody saying nothing and that's the part that is yeah more difficult to swallow.

Gaël Duez (29:11)
you're actually reading my mind because I was about to say that sort of reassuring that very bad decisions are still taken not because of a grand schema to change the world in my humble opinion for the worst and having like this kind of a techno crazy agenda and all this, you know.

movement that we see since the beginning of the year in the US within the tech sector, but just because of good old internal dilemma, feuds and the it should question

any source of open source or community of goodwill trying to achieve something about the governance model? Because how come that so many unilateral decisions were able to be made at WordPress? I mean, maybe the decision to close the sustainability was the right one. don't know. mean, obviously, I believe no, but I was not part of this community. So, you know, from an external perspective, I don't know. But what I do know for sure is that

Nora (29:46)
you

Gaël Duez (30:14)
when as a manager you take such a big decisions, literally firing people, there is a way to do things, even if different cultures, you do things differently. Usually you don't do it the way I've just presented in the introduction. And you must get all people's opinions and you absolutely need to get all the insights, starting with the people who are obviously the most involved in the situation, who are the members of the teams.

and in your case, the sustainability team. that really strikes me. what would you do differently?

from a governance perspective to prevent this to happen if you were to work again in a very engaged and good-willing community as the WordPress one.

Nora (30:56)
Well, for me,

as I have seen the community from external perspective is we trust too much in a voice, in a lead or in the vision one person had.

But as I said before, the voice is not the community. Contributors are the community. I think sometimes we forget this. I think we have to do the effort to step up the inertia in the communities, not just WordPress, but any other.

open source community and reflect on the continuity of the project

And I personally think we should go more into a democratic way of managing the thing, as many other people have said, like a governance with few people, not just one people, not because it is mad. I think a huge community or any other community should not be led by

just one person, but for a group of person choose or representative of the community itself. I don't know, for me it's kind of obvious, but when I get into this community, things were this way. So I was like, okay, if you are happy with this, I'm here just for working. So let's go for it.

Gaël Duez (32:09)
Hmm.

So I got your point that even the most powerful voice is powerful because of

the the community behind But there is something that I still don't understand is what is a governance structure? Actually, what is WordPress? what is the legal even structure of WordPress? Is it a foundation? Is it an association, an NGO? And how come that one person has

all the power

Nahuai (32:39)
It's tricky because there is a foundation, there is a WordPress foundation, okay? And Automatic gave the trademark. So this trademark, which is a huge trademark, was moved to the WordPress foundation, which is good, okay?

Gaël Duez (32:43)
Okay.

Okay.

Nahuai (32:56)
And the WordPress foundation, it has a board of three people, Matt and another two members. But even if there is a foundation, the more important part of the community is probably the WordPress.org, which is the domain and everything make and everything and the plugins and everything is behind.

Gaël Duez (33:10)
Mm-hmm.

Csaba (33:15)
you

Nahuai (33:16)
that domain and Matt is the owner of that. That's why he has quite a lot of power. Indeed, one of the moves he did was blocking the possibility of WP Engine to access to the repository of plugins, which is a kind of a big deal. Okay. And he can do it because he is the owner of the domain. So that part is not in the foundation. That's why it's tricky. And we discovered this lately because of...

Gaël Duez (33:35)
working.

Okay.

Nahuai (33:45)
these things that didn't happen before. Because I have to say, I've been following Matt's path and I was pretty happy with the direction that WordPress was going. Mainly because of the community, but also because Matt was going in the same direction

Gaël Duez (34:00)
that's very interesting what you're saying,

because you can create a foundation, put some intellectual property within it, even the brands.

But if you withhold some strategic assets, such as a domain name or some small pieces of intellectual property, actually, your foundation is still some sort of 100 % under your control. Am I right rephrasing a bit what you say that way?

Nahuai (34:25)
I think so. Sometimes I have doubts if we understand well enough the structure, because it wasn't clear enough before this storm came. Not the team closure, but the legal battle against WP. So I'm pretty sure that this is the way I described minutes ago. And I think if it is like that, it's not optimal, because

Gaël Duez (34:37)
Hmm.

Nahuai (34:50)
As Nora said, I think these big things like the domain of WordPress.org and this kind of decision should be taken by more than one person. And till now there was no problem because Matt was being quite generous with the time he was putting with automaticians into the, in the community and with the trademark and everything. So till not that much time, it was pretty okay, everything.

Gaël Duez (34:59)
Hmm.

Nahuai (35:16)
And this battle kind of put into perspective how much power Matt has.

Csaba (35:21)
I very much agree upon how Nahuai has explained it. And also I think the bottom line we have learned, we learned a lot of things the last couple of months, but the bottom line is that we are very much dependent on WordPress.org for plugin updates, for team updates, everything that is very much hard-coded in WordPress. And that's something that we should, yeah.

Gaël Duez (35:25)
Hmm.

Csaba (35:44)
Think about a bit more if that's the way to go and probably not so.

Nahuai (35:47)
Yeah.

I think Drupal has a pretty interesting structure of how they have the governance structure. And it would be super cool if we moved to something more closer to Drupal or other CMSs or other open source products for that sake. I'm not sure if right now it's going to happen. I still feel like...

we are in a battle somehow, kind of in a battle. So I'm really hoping for the legal battle to finish and maybe the dust settle a bit and maybe some of the proposals can be look more calmly because there are some proposals right now. But I think Matt still sees them as a kind of an attack or power takeover or something like that again.

My opinion, I'm not sure I don't usually talk with Matt about this, but hopefully if this goes, this inflammation, let's call it, goes down, maybe we can talk more calmly about how we want to move forward. That's my hope.

Nora (36:42)
Yeah.

Gaël Duez (36:56)
Nahuai you are a perfect guest because I was about asked what were the repercussions of this battle mode in the WordPress community, quoting you for other CMS providers. And if we could get lessons from other open source projects and you mentioned Drupal. So maybe

Could you elaborate a bit on how Drupal is organized

Nahuai (37:19)
Yeah, probably I'm not the best person to talk about Drupal because I'm not inside it, but

I really recall well is a post from the founder of Drupal, which was explaining how they try to reward the companies that are giving back to the Drupal project. Okay. And there is a system of credits on how if you give more back, you can...

take some advantages, like being, I don't recall exactly, but maybe being highlighted as a plug-in maker or as a company or whatever. So that was one of the ideas that I found interesting because at the end, the main problem that we started this is that WP Engine was making a lot of money without giving anything back or very little back.

But maybe if we put some kind of rewards on people that is giving back, we could solve that part.

Gaël Duez (38:15)
thanks, Nehru, to clarify this Drupal governance Did you get some feedback on how did people react to the closing of the sustainability teams and what do they want to do now to keep on moving on their sustainability journey?

Nora (38:31)
Well, something I'm happy this all brings is many people ask, or at least ask me, the question why technology thing, why WordPress, why any other project like that need a sustainability team or a sustainability group working on this. And many people were asking,

in a bad way, like, we don't need this, but I think this question is important because many people, like Hannah Smith, for example, were answering this question, or even many people were just thinking about it, like, we don't need this, maybe we do. So I'm quite happy taking into account the situation because this situation with the sustainability team, I think, made people reflect on...

If we need in technology groups for working towards sustainability

Gaël Duez (39:28)
Thanks a lot. Nora, about the guidelines, are they still maintained somewhere? Did you migrate the working group on climate action tech or any other thought of a welcoming Slack community where you can keep on working or everything has been paused for the moment?

Nora (39:46)
Everything has been posted for a moment, but some people have asked us like, where are you going to work now on this? I don't have an answer for that because I didn't decide the thing, but we are still open to work on this. So if anybody listen to this says, okay, I'm into this and I want to collaborate, we can create something, but there is nothing at this moment.

Gaël Duez (39:48)
Okay.

Hmm. So it's a hard stop. OK.

Nahuai (40:17)
same for me. My

main idea is to keep contributing to the W3C group as far as I can. We are also in a very, very nice project from the GreenWeb Foundation that maybe later Nora can touch on it. And I will also continue to talk about sustainability in my podcast and in WordPress events. And as a plugin and theme maker, I have it.

embedded in my workflow and I try to also explain it as one of the key features of the plugin or the theme. So I will continue to be interested and talking about it but as Anora said there is since we don't have an official channel and way of working right now we just paused and let's see where it goes but for now it's paused.

Gaël Duez (41:06)
And actually, before talking about this GreenWeb Foundation project, which I believe is very closely related to what you've tried to achieve at WordPress. That's true Nahuai I should have mentioned that we are colleagues because you've also got your own podcast. And can you maybe just pitch us for one minute? Because I reckon that they are very valuable resources for anyone working with WordPress tool to become more sustainable. Am I right?

Nahuai (41:32)
Yeah, yeah, I was lucky enough to be selected by the GreenWeb Foundation the fellowship they have. So as a project, I created a podcast. It's a limited series podcast. So it's just eight episodes and it's about WordPress and sustainability. And I was also lucky enough to have very nice and interesting people like Nora, Csaba Thjis, the team reps, but also Tim Frick, Tom Greenwood.

people from the data sustainability and also for WordPress sphere. So I think if you're interested in the topic, could be a nice resource.

Gaël Duez (42:05)
Got it. And so because the GreenWide Foundation seems to be everywhere with the usual suspects that many of them were and surely will be again in the future, guests or speakers in Green IO or events. Maybe, Nora, to close on a more positive note this podcast, because

Nahuai (42:10)
Thank you.

Gaël Duez (42:26)
just as a side note, I was expecting a bit more of a happy ending, that you've already some sort of bounce back and found an agreement that Matt realized that, okay, maybe I shouldn't close or that abruptly, or you've been welcomed by the performance team or you created already some something else. So it's really a bit of a runes at the moment and I feel...

I'm kind of terribly sorry for all the hard work that you put you and hundreds of people, if I just count the numbers on the Slack channel. So yeah, it's a very disturbing thought that so much hard work that aim to go in the right direction with the pro and the con of every project, obviously, is, yeah, cancelled, I would say. But anyway, so to finish on a more optimistic note, Nora, you wanted also to talk about the

project that you are heavily involved within the GreenWeb Foundation. And it's all about carbon aware computing or am I misunderstanding something here?

Nora (43:31)
yeah, I'm super happy being part of this advisory group because we are working on making grid aware websites. We are trying to find a way to help developers to build websites without compromising user experience.

So that's it. We are working on this and I hope this project achieves their objectives.

Gaël Duez (43:56)
So it's a grid aware computing and not a carbon aware computing. I should have known and sorry, but that's interesting to put it from a user rather than a purely technical perspective. I really like it. Okay. That was quite a long episode for you talking about things that are still obviously quite emotional. So I would like to thank you again a lot for joining and taking the time to

Nora (44:00)
Yeah.

Gaël Duez (44:21)
pose and reflect on what happened and also share other projects and other potential resources for WordPress developer and designers. Is there any final positive piece of news that you'd like to share about sustainability at large or digital sustainability more specifically?

Nahuai (44:43)
I would say a general one. Even if the team is closed, I still feel like the people care about the sustainability. for the moment is enough for me to keep going and being somehow rewarded

And they usually are willing to change something. So yeah, let's keep that as a positive note if we can.

Gaël Duez (45:07)
No, but the buzz is-

Nora (45:07)
Yeah, you can

shoot down the team but you cannot make people disappear.

Gaël Duez (45:12)
Yeah.

Csaba (45:13)
hmm, hmm, hmm.

Gaël Duez (45:17)
Excellent. I guess that, there is no bad publicity as the marketers love to say. So I guess this buzz will at least help some of us to reach out new people or to highlight how strategic is sustainably within the digital sector. So thanks a lot for joining. I hope this episode will contribute a bit to this.

noble task. once again, I'm sorry about what happened. And I feel very honored that you've chosen the Green Eye Podcast to share a bit more in details the story of the WordPress sustainability Team version one. And I hope that we will hear soon about version two.

Nahuai (45:59)
Thank you for having us, Gael.

Csaba (46:00)
Thank for having us, yes.

Nora (45:59)
Thank you.

Gaël Duez (46:02)
Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. If you enjoyed it, please take 30 seconds to give us 5 stars on Apple Podcast or Spotify. I know it's not easy to find a feature on these apps, but I trust you to succeed.

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It’s a 252 pages report with the foreword of António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, talking about digitalization and sustainability. And, for once, it’s not another report from the UN stating “let’s digitize everything to boost sustainability”. Quite the contrary as it states a “unequal ecological exchange between developed and developing countries regarding digitization”. 
To discuss this “scientific report based on an ethical approach” as he described it, we welcome one of its contributors, Pablo José Gamez Cersosimo, based in the Netherlands. Another contributor, Paz Pena Ochoa, based in Chile, joined us to share her unique perspective on Latin America. Together they shared great insights about: 

   🗺️ Colonialism and Digitalization

   🪨 Geopolitical Importance of Critical Minerals

   💧 Water Footprint of Digitalization

   ⚒️ Water Usage and Mining in Chile

   🔎 The Digital Divide: A Growing Gap

   🇺🇳 The Role of the UN in Digital Sustainability

   And much more!

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Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (00:00)

our digital world is literally liquids. It is the water that makes virtuality possible. That digital light is as blue as the fresh water that make it possible.

Gaël Duez (00:19)

Hello everyone, welcome to Green.io. I'm Gaël Duez and in this podcast we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. This episode is the first of 2025. And being released on January 30th, I can still wish you a happy new year, full of positive impacts. I hope you will find many occasions in 2025 for using technology responsibly, in order to maintain our world livable and our societies just inclusive and at peace. 

Full disclosure, I am sorry if I couldn't release this first episode of the year sooner, but January was a bit rough both on professional and personal level. Fortunately, everything is getting back on track, including your bi-monthly podcast. And something that is still on track is accessibility and transparent information remaining in the DNA of Green.io, so all the references mentioned in this episode as well as the full transcript are in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform and of course on our website, greenio.tech.

Gaël Duez (01:53)

it's a 252 pages report with the foreword of Antonio Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, talking about digitalization and sustainability. And for once, it's not another report from the UN stating, let's digitize everything to boost sustainability. Quite the contrary, the report highlights the growing environmental impact of the digital economy and underscores the urgent need for environmentally sustainable and inclusive digitalization strategies. Quite a change. To discuss their insights and their implications, I am delighted to have with me two of its contributors. Pablo Jose Gámez-Certrozimo, based in the Netherlands, and Paz Pena Ochoa based in Chile. So yes, another 3 time zones Paz has dedicated more than 15 years to studying the intersection between technologies, social justice and gender. She has spent the last 5 years researching the socio-environmental impacts of digital technologies in Latin America, creating in 2021 the Latin American Institute of Terraforming. And in 2023, she published a summary of that research in the book Technologies for a Burning Planet, which is in Spanish, but I won't try to say it in Spanish, but you will have the link as usual in the show notes. And by the way, this book also made a great contribution to the branch magazine of Climate Action Tech. Pablo is an external researcher for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, as well as a coach and a scientific journalist. His research includes the publication of Depreda... I shouldn't say it in Spanish as well, but I'm going to try. His research includes the publication of Depredadores Digitales 2021, which is a global investigation that sheds light on the complex digital carbon water and waste footprints of digitalizations.

Welcome Paz, welcome Pablo. It's great to have you on the show today.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (04:15)

Thank you for having us in your program.

Paz Peña (04:18)

Yeah, thank you very much for having us.

Gaël Duez (04:20)

My pleasure, both of you.

So Paz, is it the first UN-backed report ever to address the environmental impact of digitalization?

Paz Peña (04:30)

Yes, it is.

Gaël Duez (04:32)

So that's a kind of a game changer, isn't it?

Paz Peña (04:34)

Yes, I will say absolutely. As you said before, is a report that I will say one of the first reports by the UN saying that digitalization is not all good. Even more saying that the social environmental impacts of digitization are huge, but not only huge, are differential depending on where you are in the world.

And this is very important because what it's saying is that the social environmental impacts of digitization, which are growing through the time, is being paid by the poorest of the world. The developing countries, the poorest countries. And again, the benefits of digitization.

are being enjoyed almost only for the developed world, which brings us a very classical and difficult concept, which is the colonial relationships that are again being deployed in digitization, which is something really difficult to address in the UN, but it's so necessary in these times where sustainable or sustainability is being discussed as a justice issue. And that actually brings us to discuss how digitization can be a justice issue in terms of sustainability.

Gaël Duez (06:09)

And just to understand like the concept of colonialism or neo colonialism was brought to light in the UN report or is it more like an underlying evolution in the state of mind of UN representatives starting to incorporate this concept also in a main report as this one?

Paz Peña (06:30)

Yeah, they will not name colonialism as it is. I don't know, Pablo, if you saw that concept as it is, because it's a very political, difficult concept for a UN fora, However, yeah, exactly. However you can see powerful concepts as, you know, unjusties, you know, different effects between the world, etc. You can see actually what they are saying is about colonialism, but of course they are not named as it is, because probably it's a very difficult concept to address in the UN.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (07:01)

It is in between lines, I will say it. And to add what Paz already said, this report is the result of a process of a critical thinking process that took almost 18 months from 2023 to 2024. And it is also the result of the work of several scientific researchers from all over the world that were here for the first time, let's call it the first time at Geneva, to address the externalities regarding the digital ecosystem we are dealing with and not only that, that we are seeing intensifying in a way that we have never seen before. This is really important to address and this is the timely that explains the importance of this critical report. It is a scientific report based on an ethical approach.

If you go deeply in this report, it says developing countries are suffering disproportionately from digitalization's negative environmental externalities of effects, as well as missing out on economic development opportunities to digital divides.

It used the term unequal ecological exchange between developed and developing countries regarding digitalization. And this is also an complementary part of what Bas already said and your question. It is in between colonialism or neocolonialism.

Gaël Duez (09:20)

just before we deep dive into the importance of this report and maybe what's in this report, two short questions. The first one you mentioned that it was a scientific work. Was it mostly based on primary data or is it more an aggregation of other scientific studies that were used to build the end results?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (09:44)

It took and it used several primary and secondary resources. it is the most comprehensive integral report until now. It looks back from 1996 from the first ever report on digital sustainability until now. It addressed the problematic behind the methodologies that every single report used to say this and to say that. And there is no continuity at all because there is no universal understanding of methodology on how to deal with what we call the digital ecosystem. What is the digital ecosystem? That's your e-bike right now is part of the digital ecosystem or your Tesla car because they are already computers. They are already intelligent. They are already smart. We use also the primary data United Nations has with several agencies all around the world. And what you read, And this is really important to say also is a really comprehensive report. It is right in a common language that you and me can understand.

Gaël Duez (11:22)

So if I understand both of you right and if you indulge me to sum up a bit what you've said, this is the first of its kind tackling this issue. It has a broad ambition of tackling quite difficult topics, even if some of them are not named, but at least they are addressed.

And it's also one of the most comprehensive based on several studies, quite a lot of researchers being involved. So I think it's a fair statement to say that pretty much everyone working in the digital economy should have a look at it. Am I right?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (12:04)

it is for everyone, for you and me, for the common ones, for all the ones involved in a digital transformation society. It is not only for politicians, it's not only for ICT. No, it is for the common people, for you and me.

Gaël Duez (12:27)

So I think we've teased enough about this report. Maybe Paz, if you allow me to ask you these questions. On the impact side, and we will talk a bit later on this very important social justice concept that you've raised, but on the impact size, what are the main findings? Maybe what are the one or two numbers that you believe everyone should be aware when it comes to the environmental impact of digitalization?

Paz Peña (12:56)

Sure, so first I will say that one of the greatest thing about this report is that Big Tech is not present there in terms of giving their reports as evidence. It's a very independent report, which is not so common even in the UN. I will say ANTAT is one of the few UN agencies that is still very independent in terms of funding, et cetera. And you can find here that this is a proof that big tech, these big companies are not present there. Actually, we were with Pablo doing the peer review in a couple of meetings with people of, UNCTAD's people, they were all independent researchers, which was very, very rich because the discussion was very, very honest. That is the first thing that is important to say because what you're gonna see in this report, it's scientific evidence, it's not big tech evidence, And the second thing that is really interesting is when you see actually the evidence of environmental impacts of sustainability is not a conversation only focused on CO2 emissions, which is a very important thing because of the use of energy and increase of the use of energy of digitization, but it's very...focus on the necessities of the global north, which is of course very important because the global north doesn't have energy matrix that is clean yet. But that is not actually a very big issue for the global south. For example, Latin America is the continent that has today the most clean energy matrix in the world.

So the use of energy of digitization, it's important, of course, but it's not really the main issue here in the global south in terms of the environmental effects of digitization. 

So one of the things that for me, it's more interesting about the report is that actually has complete evidence there about carbon and digital technologies largely compete for the same critical minerals, especially in the global South. So...

Minerals are a geopolitical factor that is actually activating policies around the global south from the global north to actually have access to these minerals. And then here you can actually start the discussion about how these geopolitical necessity of the global north of accessing to these critical minerals is actually affecting developing countries in terms of how this is feeding illegal mining for example or unsustainable practices in mining because that is where the money is today.

Gaël Duez (16:07)

I'd like to ask you one last question to get things a bit more concrete here, because you mentioned several times how the report is important, but most of the listeners, will not have read the report. So let me ask you this question to give you the opportunity to provide a bit of numbers or facts that are mind blowing enough for people to remember and to understand what you are highlighting. So, Paz, you've mentioned that actually digitalizations and the transition towards low carbon economy, they tend to compete for the same resources, especially minerals.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (16:54)

By 2050, we will need more than 150 billion tons of minerals annually. And that will include 50 new lithium mines, 60 new nickel mines, and the production of rare earth metals must be increased at last 12 folds. If you look...into e-waste this year or just published a couple of days ago by 2022 the world generated 62 billion kilograms of e-waste.

It is extremely important to say the complexity we are dealing with when we try to define once again what is a digital device, what is a digital infrastructure, and what is not. Because if you look once again the example of an e-bike or a Tesla car.

then we have to consider them as part of this digital ecosystem, but at the same time as part of the transitional electrification that we are dealing with. The way IoT devices are being created is a moving target that makes really difficult the definition right now of what is a digital device, what is not a digital device. But the main point here is how transitional minerals, that's the word we use in the report to refer to critical minerals, how the amounts of transitional minerals we are going to need. We are talking about open-bit mining. We are talking about the renaissance of the mining industry. We are talking about that we are completely dependent on all elements of the periodic and to obtain them you are not going to find them in Europe. You have to go to Global South to get them.

Gaël Duez (19:19)

And my question, Pablo, regarding this is really, what is the share of digital? mean, if I understand you right, what you're saying is pretty much everything is digital now. Am I right?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (19:29)

electrify and digital. We are living an electrification era and at the same time we are dealing with an internet intelligent era that is taking for its own almost everything, almost every device we use daily.

Gaël Duez (19:52)

Because in the research field, there are several, I would say, debates still going on on how you define what is the ICT sector and what is not the ICT sector. And what is the share of greenhouse gases emitted by the ICT sector? And usually it's believed between 2 and 4%, depending on the studies, et cetera, et cetera. And your point is...

It's slightly irrelevant because the digital economy is fueling the entire economy I mean, you follow Malmöder, for instance, he has a very strong stance on what should be in the digital economy or counted as ICT and what should not like the TV debate, et cetera, et cetera. Your point is

And that's maybe the point in this report as well. That doesn't really matter that strongly to draw a very clear boundary because electrification is everywhere, digitalization is everywhere, and that fueled the trend in this massive increase in mineral resources that you've just described a bit earlier. Am I correct to rephrase you that way?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (21:06)

you are completely correct.

Gaël Duez (21:08)

Okay, thanks. I got it.

Pablo, you were mentioning having a holistic view on everything and I guess both of you, you stressed quite a lot the abiotic resources, mostly metals and minerals. But there are also other impacts that are touched upon in this report.

We cannot list all of them, but can I briefly ask you to share maybe one or two figures or one or two facts that you believe are also very important when it comes to environmental impacts? And as far as I know, Pablo, you're quite keen on studying the water usage of the digital sector. Maybe you've got some things to tell us about.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (21:55)

Sure. we can understand this better if we say that the more virtual we become, the more fresh and potable water we need for that. And that means that our digital world is literally liquids. We surf the internet, navigating and diving into its waters. And I want to be here clear enough, Kyle. It is the water that makes virtuality possible. That digital light is as blue as the fresh water that make it possible.

Now I'm talking here about data center industry. Here I'm talking now about the semiconductor industry. I'm talking here about the open pit mining industry.

I'm talking here about the production of our gadgets,

Gaël Duez (23:04)

I there are quite a lot of examples about this, maybe Paz being based in Chile. I think this is one of the countries where the tension between the mining industries and the population regarding water usage has been one of the fiercest. So do you want to comment on what Pablo just said?

Paz Peña (23:26)

Yes, absolutely. in all Latin America, one of the biggest climate effects today is drought. And you can see that in different states. But in the case of Chile, Chile is suffering a historical drought for over 30 years where water is scarce, even for human consumption. And you can see that many of the territorial fights for different communities is actually the access of fresh water. And this is something that is present in mining activities, but also which are related to the digitization, for example, in terms of the lithium mining in the north of Chile, which is one of the biggest worldwide resources of lithium to digitization and green energies. And the fight there from indigenous communities is actually how this mining is affecting the access of fresh water for indigenous community there, which is basically

having a very concrete impact in terms of the environment. Natural, different animals, for example, are being displaced from that place because of this scarcity of water. But also these indigenous communities are being displaced of their territories because of this, which is again something that we must discuss as a society why indigenous communities that haven't actually contributed to the ecological crisis and climate crisis that we are facing as a world, why they are paying the price of having green energies and digitization. This is one thing. But also, Gael...

For example, here in Santiago, public policies are being deployed to be some sort of data center hub in Latin America. So there's a lot of data centers being built here in Santiago from like Big Tech, Alphabet, Microsoft, et cetera.

And it's very interesting because many of the territorial fights that you can see here in Santiago are regarding the access of fresh water. It's about fighting the building of this huge infrastructure, digital infrastructure for example, in this year, actually at the beginning of this year, in February, I think, a court of law rescinded part of the authorization of the construction of this data center built by Google because there wasn't enough proof of the effects on the access of water for communities, how that will be affected by this huge infrastructure. And actually a couple of weeks ago, Alphabet desisted from insisting on the original design of this data center. And this, it means that they will modify and start all over again. But this is important, Gael, because it shows that people, organized people can actually fight this kind of infrastructure that is designed without seeing actually the environmental effects of its deployment, especially in terms of freshwater in this context of drought, but also in the context of the ecological and climate crisis.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (27:15)

Absolutely right.

Gaël Duez (27:16)

And Paz, what is the current trend in I've heard about some water quotas also for the mining industry. I've heard also that the mining industry was now building massive water pipeline to bring seawater into the mountains, has obviously a huge environmental and ecological and energy toll, but also to mitigate the water crisis. is it just one piece of news completely out of context that doesn't really describe properly what is at stake in the current train or actually is Chile getting more and more concerned about this water consumption issues and has started to regulate or to mitigate or to slow down the rising water consumption by both the mining industry and now because you've put that under the spotlight as well, the data center industry.

Paz Peña (28:19)

That's a very interesting question, Gael, because in Latin America, and especially, for example, in countries as Chile, we call ourselves a mineral country. We basically provide minerals to the world. So copper, for example, is a very important mineral for the Chilean economy. And now lithium, it is being really important because of this, because of green energies and because of digitization. So all our public policies are based on that extraction in terms of get money and pay everything that we need as an estate. So it's a very historical discussion are the environmental costs of mining in Chile because of this. But I will say in the last 15 years, the discussion around the access of fresh water is increasing, especially in the public opinion, because of the ecological and climate crisis that we're facing. we are now understanding that we are not going back to our earlier climate condition. Now we are living with drought for all our life. So this is a discussion that is increasing. It's a very difficult discussion to have because it depends on the economy, know, mineral economy which is why it's so important actually this kind of reports because it shows you actually who is paying the costs of green energies but also digitization in terms actually of access of fresh water.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (30:14)

I mean, without the natural resources of global south, it's no possibility to talk about digital transition or green energies. Another really interesting example, not only talking about the mineral countries in Latin America or the ones that are dealing with data centers, it is now the semiconductor industry that is taking over the region. And do not forget that this industry consumes over 264 billions gallons of water per year. And that is more than Hong Kong. And this industry needs a lot of ultra-pure water and you can find it in places as Costa Rica, for example, chosen from the Biden administration to hold Intel expansion in the region. And this is, again, one of the new debates that are taking over in the region.

is this the economical progress we want to go in and with and that will cost this precious element we need to survive. put it in another way, data needs at this moment more water daily than you and me to exist.

Gaël Duez (31:47)

So we've covered quite a lot of the environmental impacts. We could also talk about the energy consumption. We could also talk about a bit more in details, greenhouse gasses. We could also talk about the share of electricity consumption used by the digital economy. But actually both of you at the very beginning of the interview, brought under the spotlight some very key and differentiator aspects with this report around social justice and some geopolitical significance of this report. And maybe I'd like to give you the floor now to talk a bit more about what I've understood to be some sort of a digital revolution paradox which is that those contributing the most in terms of resources, including human resources, I mean workers, are not the one benefiting more of it, of this digital revolution. I know that this is one of your specialties. Could you tell us a bit more? how you analyze this discrepancy.

Paz Peña (32:52)

Yeah, actually in the report you can see that UNCTAD is addressing that today digitalization is under a very concentrated market. That means that few companies actually are available to actually developed these very digital economies of the 21st century. And many of those companies are based in the US, others are in China, some of them very few are in Europe. And many of them are what we known as big tech companies. They have the power to have the infrastructure, the worldwide infrastructure to actually be able to address this need of digital economy in the world. So when we talk about digitization, for me it's really interesting to say, but who is behind that digitization? There are not many companies behind that. There are not many countries behind that.

you can count the companies that are available to actually address this task. And there are a few of them, probably 20, 25 in the world. So this is the first thing that I think we need to discuss. Who is actually enjoying the benefit, the economic benefits? Yes, they are, you 

know, developing countries, industrialized countries of digitization, But not all the people actually. The ones that are enjoying the benefits of digitization the most is, these companies, no? Why there's this need to make everything digital is because there's a big push in terms of lobby to do that because these companies know that is where the money come from. So this is the first thing I believe is important to understand and this report will help us to understand that. The UNCTAD is addressing that there's a concentration of market in digital economy and this is a huge problem. This is the first thing. And the second thing I will say is that, as you said, Gaël the biggest question that we need to address here is also who is bearing the costs of digitization.

And you can see this worldwide where there's a gap between developing countries with industrialized countries. And there's a gap there that we have been discussing in this podcast. But also we need to address that even in developed countries, there is also communities that are bearing the cost of digitization. communities that are actually being cut off the access of fresh water in, for example, Europe, etc. And also this is a question of justice, but it's not only a question of justice between developed and developing world, but also in our communities in all the world, which is something that is very important to understand.

Gaël Duez (36:20)

when you say, and let me be the devil advocates here. When you say, Big Tech is benefiting the most from digitalization. Does it overlook all the benefits that quite a lot of people get also from digitalization via new jobs, better services, more productivity, you name it. mean, there are countless of reports and you've mentioned at the beginning that quite a lot of them are also sponsored by the digital industry, a lot of them are biased. But I would say for the average North American or European or Japanese or Chinese citizen, believing that digitalization doesn't bring mostly valuable things would be quite hard to sell. question is, sure, Big Tech is reaping quite a lot of the benefit, at least in the global north, does overall the population also benefit from this digital revolution?

Paz Peña (37:28)

Yes, but that is something that you can actually discuss. how digitization is actually benefiting our economies because you can say also that you are lowering the work standards that we had before digitization, for example. You can see, and there's many reports on how digitization is influencing this trend of uberization of economy, there's no doubt that developed countries are having more benefits because they have a more digital economy.

But you have to understand that today in the current state of capitalism, for many theorists, digitization is actually lowering the standards of work, for example, without even discussing all the other implications of digitization in terms of

techno-capitalism today in terms of, for example, mental health through being connected all day to social media, cetera. So this is not so clear. It's not so clear that all is benefits. But also, I think it's important to say that in developing countries, many developing countries, even I'm from Chile, so Latin America is a region that I know. In many countries in Latin America, the digital economy is not well developed yet. So when we are going through this global discourse of saying, so to be sustainable enough, we need digitization, digitization of everything. That means concretely today that the gap between these countries that are not having a digital economy well developed, that means that those countries will increase the with industrialized countries, with Europe, with Japan, et cetera. So that gap, that inequality gap is something that is not being discussed very seriously in the world. And I think, again, this and that report help us to understand that kind of new gap that we are creating with this discourse of saying, OK, we need to digitalize everything. Yes, that's maybe something good for the developed countries, but you have to be aware that developing countries are still behind that. And this could actually widening that gap, which is very, very serious matter.

Gaël Duez (40:09)

how would you define social injustice actually when it comes to the digital economy and could you provide one or two examples of this imbalance that you've described previously?

Paz Peña (40:22)

Sure, so I think we can define that... ...unjustice in the context of digitization is that... ...most of the added value created in the digital economy is captured by developed and digital advanced developing countries. many of the social environmental costs of digitization are paid by developing countries. And this is especially important, for example, in terms of mineral extraction, where the global south is basically the most affected by the extraction of minerals that are needed by the digital economy.

And minerals are being extracted from the Global South, that means a lot of pollution, a lot of illegal mining, which means human rights violations of people, displacement of indigenous communities, scarcity of fresh water, et cetera. Many people, for example, say that there's no way that green mining is possible. All mining have a lot of social environmental costs. And that is something that is as important to examine. So the latest UNTAD report actually what does is to examine those social environmental impacts of digitization in developing countries, which means to not only review evidence, scientific evidence, but also have a call, an international call for countries not only developing countries, but also industrialized countries to understand the need of sustainable digitization

But also, Gael, I just want to add something that I believe is really important to understand. It's that what we're seeing today is a geopolitical discussion where digital economy is really important. today digitalization or the digital economy is being discussed together with the transformation of our energy matrix to a more greener one. These two things, green energies and digitizations, is being discussed as one thing, as something that is needed for a more sustainable world. who is the boss in digital economy and who is available and have the capacity to have most important share of green energies in the world. So this is where the discussion is happening today.

Gaël Duez (43:17)

And what about the UN with this geopolitical impact? I this is supposed to be the place where nations are talking to each other. And, know, when I've read the report, I've seen all the recommendations about what should be done. And it sounded a bit like a wishful thinking list. And I was discussing it with a Green IO listener, Benjamin Davy, and he was really questioning whether the UN should or even is able to actually shift a bit from a reporting stance. This is how things are going to a more pedagogical stance and even maybe a bit of name and shame if possible, So my question is, what can actually the United Nations do about it and what actually should we do about it also?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (44:16)

United Nations UNCTAD in this case has adopted digital sustainability as a priority under the understanding the principle of common but differentiated responsibility as high relevant.

It is time also to extend the calls for both actions to the entire life cycle of digitalization and to systematically track its social environmental footprint. Be aware of the socio-environmental footprint of the mechanics behind the digital economy and be aware that the problem or part of the problem can be solved with the circular design. But be aware that if we do not follow that way, we are going to deal with really complex problems in the near future. I think this is the main thing, or one of the main things of this UNTACD report.

Gaël Duez (45:31)

Paz what do you think about the potential for collaboration at UN level and what the UN should do about it?

Paz Peña (45:39)

The UN is going through a huge political crisis because of the war between Israel and Palestine and Lebanon. And also because the lack of concrete action in terms of the climate and ecological crisis we are facing through. But there's also a lot of critics regarding the UN forum and its role in the technological, digital internet governance, because mainly there's a lot of big tech influence in there, et cetera. So I think we need to be realistic and understand the political limits of the UN. There's a lot of fight inside. There's a lot of interest there. I mean, I'm very critical about that, but that doesn't mean that you can actually take these kind of reports and do your own political work as a community, as a territory, as a researcher, et cetera. I do like a lot of many of the conclusion of this report and that reports. really believe that circular as Pablo said, can be something important in terms of the designing of the digital economy. But I do also believe that circular economy is just a mitigation policy. It's not addressing the biggest problem of digital economy, which is basically this logic, this capitalist logic of extraction. This idea, as Pablo said, the idea that we have infinite resources for the economy, which is a completely crazy idea in terms of our reality, in terms of natural resources. And I don't think we can find in any report, including the UNCTAD report, a recommendation that is addressing the problem of capitalism today in digitization, which for me is the biggest problem. But that doesn't mean that these kind of reports that are designed with independent scientific science can help actually communities to understand their reality and actually start to have a more political reaction to it. So I will say, of course, I don't think the UN can do something more relevant in this issue, but I do believe that this kind of report can actually be very useful for communities around the world.

Gaël Duez (48:32)

So more awareness than actual actions because of the ongoing political crisis, according to you, Paz. I? Okay, got it. And my last question for both of you would be,

Paz Peña (48:40)

I will say, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gaël Duez (48:46)

As someone working in this digital economy and many listeners of this show are actually workers of the digital economy.

What can we do? How should we react to such a report? And what would be your two cents on tackling the different large issues that are highlighted in this report?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (49:02)

We need to go back to our critical thinking.

And with the critical thinking, break the magical digital thinking we are dealing with.

Understand that cyberspace has a growing footprint, multi-dimensional, that every time we use, we deal with our digital environment has a consequence.

Paz Peña (49:38)

I believe that digital workers are essential for change in digitization and in digital economies, are essential. And I actually have two concrete suggestions for workers in the digital industry. First, one of the most important is think about tech differently. try to experiment with new designs of tech that can be actually more sustainable, that cannot necessarily think in growth and growth and growth and maybe think in technology that can be used in territories with the participation of communities, et cetera. Let's try to think out of the box and believe in other tech is possible.

the second thing, if you're working in a big tech company and in the industry, it's so, so important for workers to fight for more transparency in terms of the social environmental impacts of that company in different territories. fight for transparency. You are key in this. Today what we are dealing with is that companies tend to be very obscure in how they report their environmental impacts. If we can fight for more transparency, it's something that is so key not only for scientific but also for territories, for people in their territories that can actually start a dialogue with companies. And I think workers are key for that. And for me, this is the second very concrete suggestion. Fight for transparency.

Gaël Duez (51:34)

fight for transparency. Quite a tagline for this episode.

What would be a positive piece of news that both of you would like to share regarding the ongoing trend in the digital economy?

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (51:47)

I see there is more attention to the importance of the circular design in our digital world. I also see more efforts, for example, at the… European Union level to address critical matters regarding not only the circular design, but also the power of Big Tech Corporates regarding artificial intelligence.

And what I'm also is a more critical thinking approach on the digital ecosystem we have, the nature of it, and the chances we have to correct.

Paz Peña (52:35)

I completely agree with Pablo. Five years ago, even three years ago, you didn't see many news in the outlets around the social environmental impacts, for example, of AI, of the digital economy. Today that is completely changed, I think.

There's also a lot of critical thinking or more critical thinking around digitization, but also that means there's a lot of territorial movements saying, know, these digital technologies have a very concrete material impact in our realities. That means that there are people, not necessarily

people that is related to tech, but people in their communities saying, you know, let's discuss about this. And this is something that you can see in the media outlets. And I think that is very, very positive because that means that people is alive actually, know, trying to change and to have a better world, a sustainable world, even in digital technologies.

Gaël Duez (53:49)

thanks a lot, both of you for highlighting the rise in awareness, at least in our industry. And let's hope that it will have some impact at some point, but awareness is always the first step. And this is a very reason of this podcast as well.

And yeah, it was really nice to have you both of you on the show, not talking the regular green software or responsible AI topics, but zooming out a bit and discussing massive geopolitical and social issues. So thanks a lot, both of you for this.

Paz Peña (54:12)

Thank you, Gael, for the invitation.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (54:20)

thank you very much for make this space possible. And this is also really positive to mention the attention that you are giving also to this issue. Thank you very much.

Paz Peña (54:30)

Yeah.

Thank you and so nice to see you, Pablo.

Pablo Gámez Cersosimo (54:39)

That's it. Bye!

Gaël Duez (54:44)

Thank you for listening to this Green.io episode. Sharing it on social media or directly with, well, pretty much everyone working in the digital sector or using digital services seems a good idea regarding what is at stake here. You know the drill, being an independent media, we rely mostly on you to get more responsible technologists on board. In our next episode,

We were supposed to welcome the CTO of Backmarket, Dawn Baker, to tell us more about some radical choices she made in the GreenOps field. However, the brutal dismantling of the sustainability team at WordPress requires some coverage. And I will be honored to welcome in the next episode three of the initiators of this grassroots movement. Nahuai Badiola, Nora Ferreiros and Csaba Varszegi

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Moore’s law is dead! Long live Eroom’s law!

This provocative statement from Tristan Nitot highlights the pivotal role of software engineers in our journey as an industry toward a sustainable and more frugal digital world. The majority of our old devices, from smartphones to desktop, still work. How come that we waste such a massive gathering of precious resources such as minerals, energy, water and even our human time which we use to manufacture and maintain them? What should we do to break the trend of electronic waste and the ever-increasing footprint of the IT sector on our physical world? 

Gael Duez sat down with Tristan Nitot to start answering these questions in this Green IO episode where we covered: 

   ⚖️ Why Wirth’s law matters more than Moore’s law

   🗑️ How the Auvergnat cultural aversion for waste accelerated the birth of the Eroom’s law

   🔎 How to find (sustainability) weakness in your software, 

   🐍 Why Python is not (always) guilty of being resource hungry and how to embrace a wise use of alternative libraries such as Polars,

   ✨The real ROII of using AI to optimize software.

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Tristan Nitot (00:00)
basically if you manage to double the speed of your software every other year, then you don't need to change your hardware. Because every other year, you have like Moore's Law, you're liberating half of your computing power and resources. And so you have half of it which is available. And half of it means you can invent

new stuff. And I call it Erooms Law.

It's like more in reverse, because it's basically the same.

Gaël Duez (00:32)
Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO

I'm Gaël Duez and in this podcast, we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world one bite at a time. Twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. And because accessible and transparent information

is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the full transcript, will be in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform and of course on our website greenio.tech.

Gaël Duez (01:19)
It was a late evening in December 2021 in my small Parisian flat. The wind was blowing and a bit of rain was making me feel very comfortable being at home. I was staring at my living room wall, which happened to also be my kitchen wall. I told you this is a Parisian flat. And on this wall were dozens of post-its with voting dotes and names on it, such as Take It Green,

Green Coding, Green Technologists, Eco IO, well, as

I was on the final stage of finding the names of this podcast. The final battle was between Green IO and Green Bytes. And here comes a surprise, the winner was Green Bytes. But Tristan Nitot had been broadcasting for years a successful podcast in French named

L'Octet Vert, the green octet. And I wanted his permission to use a similar title in English. And he told me, I'd rather not. Back in those days, he had plans to expand the podcast internationally. And after he told me this, we talked for an hour. And the amount of tips and support he provided me was mind blowing.

This call was one of the best investments I made while launching the Green IO adventure. So Green IO won and as far as I know from your feedback, that's a pretty cool name as well.

to have him on the show to celebrate this milestone. But we don't have Tristan today with us only for celebrations. We have him to discuss how we will run weather forecasts in 10 years from now on an Amstrad computer from the 80s. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit here, but it illustrates well the concept that Tristan has been pushing relentlessly for a year now about his Eeroom's law and the fact that more law is dead.

This focus on sustainability in Tristan's life started 15 years ago in parallel of a successful career in Mozilla Europe,

which he co-founded, then Cozy Cloud as a CPO and Quant as its CEO. He now works at Octo Technology to work on digital sustainability and frugality, but Tristan is also well known for

being one of the strongest voices in Europe for open source software and privacy, a topic he even wrote a book about, surveillance. Welcome back on the show, Tristan. It's always a pleasure to have you here.

Tristan Nitot (04:09)
Bye.

It's a pleasure too and an honor.

Gaël Duez (04:14)
let's get started right now. And I've got a question for you, Tristan. From podcaster to podcaster, just between you and me and a few thousands listeners. Did you kill it? Did you kill Moore's law

Tristan Nitot (04:30)
No, it's not my fault. It happened. Well, I think they say that trees don't grow up to the sky. They have to end sometimes. And has experienced a fantastic run for more than 50 years. But it's pretty close to being

It may be a shock for many people because we've all been living with Moore's Law around us. And to the point it's a fact of life. And to the point we forget about it, it's just like Next year's computers are going to be faster, except that it's slowing And they keep improving stuff, but more Law basically is almost dead.

Gaël Duez (05:22)
and for the listeners not that familiar with the concept of more law, could you just describe it in one sentence?

Tristan Nitot (05:28)
Sure, of course. It was created by Gordon Moore, who was a co-founder of Intel. It pronounced in 1965 in the very early days of semiconductors. Moore realized that basically because they were making so quickly

progress about manufacturing microchips and semiconductors, they were able to double the number of transistors they could put into a semiconductor, basically a computer chip, memory, processor, and stuff. And if they could manage to double the number of transistors per chip every two years, like they've been doing,

And it would be fantastic. And so they decided it's not a physical law, is a programmatic decision of investing in research and development in order to double the number of choices store every other year so that microchip will double in computing power every two years. And they managed to basically pull it off.

for more than 40 years. But now, starting in the mid 2010s, it's really slowing down. they managed to put it off for 40 years, which is amazing.

Gaël Duez (06:51)
which is amazing for a non-physical law. As you stated, it's almost a research and investment program rather than a law, followed by humans at Intel and then everywhere around the world in the semiconductor

Tristan Nitot (06:59)
Yes.

Gaël Duez (07:06)
Now I'd like to ask you a question about whether it's really dead or not. Because someone would argue that with the current trend on GPU chips achieving an etching smaller and smaller, we're talking about two nanometers now, the computing power intensity of our chips is still going up. So dead or not dead, Mauslo, or just being rewritten somehow?

Tristan Nitot (07:32)
Yeah, that's a really good question. Basically, Moslo was interesting because you could make a microprocessor core go faster. And as we write a program, it's executed sequentially with loops on one single core. That was the model from the very start, and it lasted

for a very long time. And if you look at the improvements year over year of the speed of the power of a single core microprocessor, would see it increases very almost in a way. Well, it's a.

It's linear if you have a logarithmic scale. So it really doubles every other year. Actually, sometimes it goes faster than that, and sometimes a little slower, depending on the period of time. And then the curve is making a plateau around 2012 in terms of the speed of one single core. And basically,

If you could put it that way, you could add more transistors into a microprocessor, but at some point, it doesn't make it any faster. It's plateauing, and it's over.

So what they manage to do is they multiply the number of cores. And this is why you have several cores in a microprocessor. But it completely changes the model. And cores is a lot more complex than programming a single core, because you have to synchronize each core altogether. So the complexity is increasing really fast. It's mind blowing.

And so it's a lot harder to manage. So what we see now is with AI and neural networks, we can have a solution to basically split the computing neurons and each core being like a neuron.

But this model is very different from programming like an application or something. It really is about LLMs and AI and stuff like that. Well, you can use thousands of core and being efficient at using them. But the single core thing, it's really over. are slight improvements like Apple did it with the Apple Silicon because they started integrating everything all at once in a single piece of silicon, putting

the processor and the memory and also the GPU and stuff like that, all in the same box, like a tiny box. And so it's faster mostly because the connectioners are shorter and it's more efficient. And as you can see now, even Apple Silicon is plateauing.

Gaël Duez (10:26)
So dead or plateaued, but in any case, significantly slow in down. This is your main takeaway of what is going on at the hardware level of our IT industry, if I understood you right exactly.

Tristan Nitot (10:41)
Yes, yes.

Gaël Duez (10:42)
And in parallel of more law

there is a second law that you love to quote a lot and to put into perspective with more law, which is Weir's law. Can you elaborate a bit on it and why you like to put these two in parallel?

Tristan Nitot (10:57)
so basically there is this famous German Swiss computer scientist which name is Niklaus Wirth.

And so he's a very, he's almost a genius. He's got several prizes for his work. He has invented several innovative languages like Pascal. So he's a really top-notch computer scientist and researcher.

so Niklaus Wirth was actually pretty unhappy about the state of affairs in computing.

because what he saw is that the more someone has a powerful computer, the more lazy the person is when it comes to writing software. So his law is said, software is becoming slower, faster than hardware is accelerating. So the more power you have, more hardware power you have, the more you

misuse it and the lazier you become when writing

Gaël Duez (12:02)
I think it was coined in a different way in the 90s when it was stated like what Intel gives you, Microsoft takes it back.

Tristan Nitot (12:12)
Indeed, yes. It was a popular way to summarize the VEOT slow. And it's exactly that. What Intel gives you Microsoft takes back. And in the time where computing was Intel making the hardware and it was Microsoft delivering the software, you could see that, in fact, you get a new generation. And you see that Windows and Microsoft Office and

They get slower. They get more features, but they get slower. And Intel was super happy about that because it will enable them to sell new computers and new processors and everything. And they loved it. So it was nice.

Gaël Duez (12:54)
So now Gordon Moore is dead. Maybe his law is dead or at least platooning. are still pretty unhappy with the way we run our software. I people are still changing hardware mostly on software reason or on psychological obsolescence, but that's a completely different topic. And a few years ago,

came up with an idea about a new low, E room's low. And that's the reason you're on this show today.

could you tell us a bit more, how did you get this idea of Eroom's law?

Tristan Nitot (13:28)
I wish I could tell you that one day an apple fell on my head and I had this wonderful idea of Irrumsloh. Yeah, but it was a Mac, not an apple. It hurts quite a bit. Just kidding. And so, no, no, it was actually pretty painful. I knew about Morsloh and Wiertzloh.

Gaël Duez (13:33)
I've heard this story already.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Tristan Nitot (13:51)
for a long time and then it came back when I had a conversation with Frédéric Bordage, who is one of the godfather of green IT in France and he mentioned that in a training that I was participating to. And it was nice having my memory refreshed about it.

And so I used this. was trying to do giving talks here and there because I thought that we needed to do something about global warming.

biodiversity collapse and stuff. And I was trying to ways to introduce people to the issue that we should stop wasting competing power. to be honest, I wasn't very successful because basically my idea at the time was that people should give up on

new things all the time. And maybe we should cut down on the amount of computing resources we use. And nobody was ready to hear that. And I understand that. mean, being myself a computer scientist and being myself like in love with the progress and advancement, technical advancement of computing,

It's like everybody in the industry has this feeling that we are going to do more computing in the future and not less,

And so I wanted to explain to the people that computing is not free. Of course, it's getting cheaper and all of that. But it has an impact when it comes to digging mines in many places of the world and pollution and energy consumption and greenhouse gases and stuff.

And they were, I mean, they were not exciting conferences. People would get unhappy And suddenly I realized that there were people that could do optimization of software in amazing ways. And I mean, a friend of mine had written something in Python and realized it was

taking too long for his program to run and decided to optimize it. In just half an hour, he managed to optimize it by a factor of 60. He made his program run 60 times faster.

You could put it in a different way. Until then, he was wasting 60 times too much computing power to achieve the results he wanted to get from his computer. and I am from a region in France, which is a poor region, historically, which is Auvergne. And so people in

they want to save money. wasting resources is just unacceptable.

And it happens, but my friend is also from Auvergne. And he said exactly, he felt exactly the same way. Like, what? I've been wasting 60 times. So he felt ashamed about it. And so I kept researching about optimization.

And there was that one thing that I discussed when I was last here at Green IO Paris 2023 of one guy in the UK named Matt Parker, who made a fantastic video about his code being improved by a factor of 408 million. So he was basically wasting 400 million times

too many power to solve a problem, which actually was not a really interesting problem, by the way.

And he wrote a Python script And this Python script has been running for 32 days to find one solution. And he made a podcast about it.

and people starting making fun of him because really 32 days to solve such a basic problem was way too much. And somebody decided to rewrite another version and made it run in 15 minutes instead of 32 days. so Matt mentioned that in another podcast.

And so other people say, what? 15 minutes is way too slow. I can do better. And so they started first competing and then collaborating altogether to share the best tricks like, no, you don't want to use Python. You want to use Rust. Or no, you can use C. And no, you can use Assembler and all of that in order to go faster.

And one of the latest version, which is not the fastest version, now runs in 6.8 milliseconds instead of 32 days. And so that's more than 400 million times faster.

So basically, overall, what it made me realize is that in most cases, when someone writes software,

We don't really care about quality and the need of resources. And sometimes it's OK. Maybe we could rewrite it. We could redo the work. We could rewrite it and gain maybe 20 % performance. And we don't have to do that. mean, doing the work twice in order to gain 20%, it's not worth the thing. But if you can.

manage to make it 100 times faster, then it makes sense. And basically, the issue is finding where in your code base you behaved like Matt Parker and where you have written a terrible piece of code

So we need to spot that and fix it.

basically if you manage to double the speed of your software every other year, then you don't need to change your hardware. Because every other year, you have like Moore's Law, you're liberating half of your computing power and resources. And so you have half of it which is available. And half of it means you can invent

new stuff. And I call it Erooms Law. It's like more in reverse, because it's basically the same.

Same thing is more law, except that you don't need to change the so does it make a big difference? It does. Why does it? Because actually,

the manufacturing of the hardware

is the thing that has the biggest impact by far because basically it's just not electricity, electricity which can be green electricity by the way. No, this is basically diesel caterpillars being used in some foreign country whether it's South Africa or South America.

Gaël Duez (20:48)
layer.

Tristan Nitot (20:49)
and digging mines pushing earth and soil in huge amounts, and literally tons and tons of these, And then taking all of this and putting on a chip sent to China, which is going to go through, well,

all the oceans for months and stuff like that. And then in China, it's making the chips and the hardware and the steel that goes around it. So basically, when you see your smartphone arrive in front of you, before you switch it on, of the footprint and most of the damage has been done. And so the biggest thing it can do

as a person is make your hardware last longer. And with Eroom's law, we can make it last longer because we will remove the need to change the hardware because we are optimizing software.

Gaël Duez (21:38)
And that's.

that's absolutely true because what you've described is super well described in the digital collage workshop, all this visual with big mine and all of this. you really see that, especially for end user devices, like between 70 and 90 % of the oncological footprint happens before you start using it, as you rightfully said. And

What is very interesting most of the time when people are starting to get aware of it, they get past the psychological obsolescence, like the need to get the latest and shiniest iPhone, laptop, earplugs, whatever. they start willingly to keep their hardware longer and longer. But the problem most of the time they say it's like, comes with a cost that more and more and more softwares will not be available or will not run properly. So it's kind of a

double side push, I would say that crunch any good willing, environmentally aware IT users, which is like, okay, so I've got this big marketing push that, hey, you need the latest stuff, you're not in, you're not cool, you're not whatever, or you're not even a productive enough worker. On one side and on the other side, actually, you've got this

hardware slash software push And I think we're focusing a lot on the marketing push,

But with your E-Rooms low, we open the Pandora box of this other push, is Obsolescence and

the very strong link between software and hardware and how actually is driving most of the hardware obsolescence. So thanks for this clarification. And I Emmanuel talks that was at BraceCamp actually. And that was very interesting because he was using a

Tristan Nitot (23:35)
Hmm

Gaël Duez (23:37)
very largely used software as an example, which was COVID Tracker, if I remember well, and how all the architectural choices that were enabled the applications to be super small and super efficient to run, despite serving millions of calls per hours at the peak of the pandemic. And this leads to my next question, which is,

If I get the concept right, as you described it and why it is important, as a software engineer trying to lower the environmental footprint of my code, starting with the fact that my code should be made in such a way that it could be used on hardware older and older and older, how can I leverage this concept? How can I make it concrete?

Tristan Nitot (24:29)
Well, it's something I'm working on at Octo, but I certainly hope that other companies are going to embrace to with or without Octo.

And they will implement a methodology that I'm trying to write with the community, which is basically

how you find weaknesses in your software. And by weaknesses, I mean the pieces of code that are terribly under-optimized, how you spot them because you have millions of lines of code in your information systems. How do you know where they are? Maybe you already know.

Maybe your Cloud Monthly bill is helping you spot them. Maybe you have a FinOps efforts underway that could help spotting them. then put up a task force with probably senior.

Gaël Duez (25:23)
Spot the culprits.

Tristan Nitot (25:39)
developers that will come and audit the code and spot where the issues are. You will be using tools like profilers that will inspect the code and say, this place is basically taking 98 % of the time and the CPU power and the memory. It's being used right there.

If you use a profiler, you would see flame graphs. You see the heat, if you will, where basically the power is consumed within the code. And so it's there where you want to intervene and send the task force and fix the issue. And so we're working on creating a methodology to spot the places and fix

the issues where they are, in order to basically implement these rooms law at information systems.

Gaël Duez (26:37)
And what are the top three takeaways that you've found so far? Is it more in the architecture Is it more on the way we code? Is it more the language we choose for different tasks? What are the main takeaways that you've found while working with your colleagues so far?

Tristan Nitot (26:56)
There are basically several buckets. For some reason, people think, yeah, you're using Python. So the language is the problem. And it is true that Python is not super fast compared to C++ or C or Brust. It's true. But basically, it's how you use it. Python is amazing.

in having a whole ecosystem of libraries that do a lot of things. for example, I've heard

of libraries in Python called Panda that can be replaced by another library which is written in Rust. So basically you spend most of your time running Rust without even knowing it because you're programming it from Python. so if you use Polars, which is written in Rust, it's a lot faster than Pandas, which is written in Python. So these are the kind of things you can change. So it's a matter of language. It's a matter of libraries. It can be also a matter of

storage where you basically have a database it's an old issue that we all know is basically you try it on a small subset of data and it works and that's fine. But if you end up deploying it and two years after you have three million rows in your database, the problem is completely different by nature.

And maybe you need an index that was not noticeable in the first place because the dataset was small. But now you have millions of rows and without the index, you're wasting a lot of time. Maybe just having an index is going to fix your problem. Maybe it's going to be more complicated than that. So storage is also a problem. But it's something you find in

data science where you manipulate very significant volumes of data. A lot of times you import some JSON or CSV and it's slow, but now you have fantastic libraries that enable you to do this kind of thing but a lot faster and things like that. can be also architecture.

You could have very powerful machines that, on the way they have been set together, they keep waiting for each other all the time. So it's basically very inefficient. And then you need to have a systemic approach to find out what the issue is and that kind of thing. it's hard to say, because IT is fantastic in its diversity. But we can spot that they are.

some families or buckets of problems that we find.

Gaël Duez (29:42)
okay Tristan now I would love you to indulge me to play a bit the devil advocate and I have two questions for the first one is about AI and what you've described spotting the inefficiency in the code rewriting the code etc we've seen a lot of production recently

explaining that with AI and being more precise with machine learning techniques, we will be able to rewrite code in a more efficient way, sports, anti-patterns, et cetera, et cetera. the methodology you've mentioned, the buckets,

you've described. Isn't it ultimately a job of a very well and efficient AI to rewrite all the code of the word and to make us save millions of tons of CO2 and also money?

Tristan Nitot (30:35)
It's a really good question. First, I need to say that I've chatted recently with a young lady called Justine Bono, who happens to be French, and has a company named We Do Low, L-O-W, like low energy or low consumption, I don't know. She is co-founder of a startup

that does software optimization, automatic software optimization, especially in the embedded world. So stuff that you find on cars and stuff like that. Not really on general purpose computers, on PCs and stuff. And basically, her approach has nothing to do with AI. And she is already really good at doing stuff, like

automated ways to improve your code by 40 with no AI involved. So yes, there are promises there. Now, I must admit, I am very impressed and for several years about what AI is able to do.

it's amazing. it's amazing. But let's be honest. Resource-wise, it's crazy. It's consuming an amount of resources. It's like,

thousands or million times more complicated than running a normal piece of software. It's amazing, but I think the cost is even more amazing. And it's something we don't see. Like earlier on, you mentioned digital collage, where they talk about the mines and stuff like that.

It's something we don't see and we never talk and you don't see minds in Apple advertising about the new iPhone, right? Because that's not something they want to see. You want to see a pristine white box with an all new shining hardware. That's what they want to see. It's they want to create desire. And so they are not going to show you kids going down in mines. But it does exist still. It's just they don't show it to you.

And exactly the same with AI. It's fantastic what it can do, but it's orders of magnitude more energy consuming than regular computing. And so it's something we need not to forget. I sense, I understand the enthusiasm.

around AI because it's amazing what it can do. But there is a price associated to it and nobody really wants us to know about it. So let's not fall for that.

Gaël Duez (33:12)
So if I follow you here, what you would say is, yes, it's a potential answer to use AI to optimize code, but let's make sure that the cost and especially the environmental cost of using this kind of tool, worse, it's investments

Am I understanding you right here? Yeah.

Tristan Nitot (33:31)
Yes, yes. I think first, I need to see whether AI is going to deliver on its promises of being able to optimize software. Because for now, it's just a promise. And maybe it's not going to be true. We never know. That's one thing. Second thing, we need to sure that we use AI for things that are worth it.

and was the cost and the impact. And third, I'm not sure this is the tendency to use it. Right now, I see AI for helping you

see AI for helping students do their work. if you ask me, because the point is not making them write. It's making them learn. And they learn by writing. But if a machine does the writing for you, you don't learn. It's like bringing a lift to the gym to lift

Gaël Duez (34:24)
You don't know.

Tristan Nitot (34:28)
the weights instead of you. Okay, well, the weights are lifted by the form, but well, you're not making any muscle in the process.

Gaël Duez (34:32)
you

really love this one. I think I'm gonna keep it for my students.

Tristan Nitot (34:41)
So right now, I see this is how AI is used. There is this cartoon that I really like where someone says, you know, I have written this bullet point, and I'm using AI to expand it into a long email. I can't pretend I wrote. But I'm lazy. I don't want to write the whole email. And on the receiving end,

And the person says, there is this long email. I don't have time to read, so I'm going to use AI to sum it up into a bullet point. And that's a well, it's exaggerated, but not so much. think this is really how AI is used these days. And so it's consuming a lot of resources for basically adding no value, other than I pretend I wrote a long email and I pretend I read a long email. If you could only write just a bullet point and set it like that.

it would be a lot more efficient, there would be less noise into the signal anyway, and more efficient in every way. So we should question whether to use AI properly or not.

Gaël Duez (35:40)
That's a fair answer to my first question. But I'm still with my devil's advocate hat on. And that will be actually my last question before closing the podcast. How much of this eRooms law is actually new? just like good old fashioned software optimization with a sustainable angle? Or what is the catch here? Am I misunderstanding something?

Tristan Nitot (36:04)
I think really boils down to a Wirtz law. Basically, the more power we have, the lazier we become as an industry. And if you think about it, even 20 or 30 years ago, which is basically midway from now and the invention of microcomputing,

People knew that they had to optimize. They knew how the computer was working precisely. they knew because they've been hitting the wall of hardware, like the limits of the hardware, you don't have infinite memory. You don't have infinite storage. You don't have infinite computing power. So,

they would be careful and they would learn what to do in order to optimize when they hit a limit of the computer. of course, it took time and energy, but it forced them to become smarter and do smarter things. And it was cool. Now basically, if you don't have enough computing power, basically you fire up another pod. The cloud is going to take care of you. It will scale infinitely.

except that your wallet is not a scale indefinitely. But it's going to cost you a lot, but you don't realize that. And so you don't learn from this. Researching about optimization made me realize one thing is we only optimize under constraint. If there is no constraint, we don't optimize.

And I think we do have two constraints that are with us. The first one is more slow slowing down. It won't keep up forever. That's one thing. And the second thing is basically climate change and biodiversity collapse. We have the moral obligation to do something. I mean, these two things.

climate change and biodiversity collapse are the biggest challenges for mankind.

Basically, Irun's law is saying there are these two new constraints. There is a solution. You can keep building new innovative stuff. But in order to do that, you need to optimize, which is something that we basically have given up because we didn't feel any constraints with computing.

Gaël Duez (38:35)
Okay, so it's not good old fashioned optimization because it comes with a twist about what are the metrics, what are the goals that you're actually chasing and it's not only about financial optimization but also about having an impact and positive impact regarding all this crisis that you've mentioned and also the physical limits that we are about to

got it. Two constraints that are re-incorporated in optimizations to make it much more urgent and top priority. Thanks a lot Tristan for answering all my questions. I've got maybe

Two last ones just to close the podcast. You've mentioned tons of references. All of these references and resources will be put in the show notes as usual and as I mentioned in the introduction. However, is there one final resource or content that you'd like to share with us?

Tristan Nitot (39:30)
listen to Green.io. There are a lot of things. Go to Green.io Paris or the Green.io conference that is taking place near where you live. It's really exciting. And you're going to meet some

new people. So do yourself a favor and listen to more of this information and meet the community. They're very nice people and they're addressing a challenge that deserves to be addressed.

Gaël Duez (40:00)
Well, thanks lot, Tristan. I'm going to hire you as a salesman. But I'm going to mention also that people should keep on listening Octave or Fugazia because it's resources in French, but they're also highly valuable. But thanks a lot for mentioning Green IO in such a positive way. And my last question will be...

Tristan Nitot (40:02)
You

Thank you.

Gaël Duez (40:20)
Actually, you've already started a bit by saying something positive about the momentum and the resources we can find, but is it a positive piece of news that you'd like to share about digital sustainability or maybe sustainability at large to close the podcast?

Tristan Nitot (40:36)
I think every organization is understanding more and more that they need to do something. In Europe, there is the CSRD, Corporate Social Responsibility Directive, that is basically forcing organizations to publish every year a report on how they are improving their corporate social responsibility,

is good because it's not only individuals that need to do something. Of course, individuals need to decide to change, but organizations will change too. So I think everybody will get on board and it will become obvious that we will

be applying the changes that we need to apply.

Gaël Duez (41:24)
Thanks a lot for sharing this positive thoughts and mentioning that sometimes regulation does have an interesting impact, positive impact. actually, we're going to see each other in a matter of days on Green Eye of Paris stage to celebrate the podcast birthday and also to have dozens of amazing speakers and panelists to talk about.

green IT and digital sustainability under different angles, from different perspectives, which is how actually we make the world better and how scientific progress is made. So hope to see a lot of you there and we will see you Tristan. So thanks a lot for joining again and thanks for joining the show. It's always a pleasure to have you there.

Tristan Nitot (42:01)
Yes, with pleasure.

Thank you.

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Have you ever heard “The complaint of the lonely sustainability champion”? Its IT sector version? 

Here it is “I listen to the Green IO podcast and others as well, I read newsletters and articles from CAT, GWF, Boavizta, Greenit.fr, GSF, etc. But I’m isolated as a green software champion. I have the feeling that I cannot achieve much by myself. How could we actually do green software in my company?”

This episode is all about sharing one concrete use case of someone, Annie Freeman, who achieved to build and deploy an internal tool monitoring carbon emissions in a SaaS company, Xero, with more than 4M users of its accounting software across a dozen countries. 

This achievement, among others, has won her to be named a finalist in the New Zealand Sustainable Business Network Awards in 2024

And she started it all by herself when she raised her voice in 2022 at a Xero’s internal technology conference despite having joined the company as a software engineer just a few months ago.   

In this episode, Annie Freeman shares great insights with host Gaël Duez on: 

   💪 How two motivated engineers can start a movement in a 4K employees company,
   🔎 Tracking the cultural change signals,
   🔄 Bringing carbon awareness in existing process rather than creating new ones,
   🎓🛠️ Making Community of Practices & tooling working hands in hands, 
   📊 How Data management primes over UI when deciding to build a carbon dashboard,
   🎙️ Why listening to Green IO actually helps (not Gaël saying 😉). 

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Annie Freeman (00:00)

one thing is just simply sharing screenshots of the data, the carbon emissions data during a sprint review with stakeholders the first time I shared the data, I noted out some interesting things and everyone was like, yeah, okay, cool. And then the second time I did the same thing, I just put out the data and just left it there and everyone was kind of silent for a minute. But then people are like, well actually that's really interesting that that component has got the highest emissions. Surely there's something we can do there to bring that down just leaving it there without any pressure to do anything with it, I think really sparks that problem solving nature and that curiosity with people.

Gaël Duez (00:40)

Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO. I'm Gaël Duez and in this podcast, we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world one bite at a time. Twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the full transcript, will be in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform and of course on our website greenio.tech.

Here is the feedback I hear quite often. Gaël, I listen to your podcast and others. I read newsletters and articles from Climate Action Tech, GreenWeb Foundation, BoaVista, GreenIT.fr, Green Software Foundation, etc. etc. But I'm isolated as a green software champion. I have the feeling that I cannot achieve much by myself. How could we actually do green software in my company?

Well, this episode is all about sharing one concrete use case of someone, Annie Freeman, who achieved to build and deploy an internal tool monitoring carbon emissions in a software as a service company, Xero, with more than 4 million users of its accounting software across a dozen countries. This achievement, among others, has won her to be named a finalist in the New Zealand Sustainable Business Network Awards in 2024. And she started it all by herself when she raised her voice in 2022 at Xero's internal technology conference, despite having joined the company as a software engineer just a few months ago.

Gaël Duez (02:38)

Welcome, Annie. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.

Annie Freeman (02:42)

Hi Gail, thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited that we're finally chatting.

Gaël Duez (02:47)

Finally, with a bit of time difference because as I should have mentioned, Annie is based in New Zealand. 

And maybe you could start with the beginning. How did this initiative at Xero started and how did you build this tool and manage to leverage that much when it comes to mostly carbon footprint reduction?

Annie Freeman (03:34)

Yeah, of course. So it's kind of been a few years in the making. A few years ago, Xero started this internal technology conference and they were getting speakers from around the business. And I was a little young graduate engineer at the time and I thought, this would be a great way to stand out and prove myself. But I didn't, I had nothing to talk about. And it was the night before the submissions were due and I came across this one really random article about sustainability in software. And this was 2021 and it was only a few months after the Green Software Foundation had been founded. So there was really not many resources, not much discourse on this topic at all at the time, but it felt really aligned with me and I was like, this feels like it could be something really interesting. And so I submitted that. and it got accepted unexpectedly. And it was just a 10 minute talk, but it ended up having some of the most engagement of the whole conference, which was so exciting. But as I said, I was literally in my first year of work and I really needed to learn how to be an engineer. So not too much happened after that, but I continued to share this talk at different events and meetups and things until last year I spoke at the Grace Hopper conference, which is the largest women in tech event in the world. And I think I got a lot of confidence from that. And I was like, right, I'm ready. We're going to make change at zero. We're going to start something. So that brings us to this year where

In April, I led a hackathon team to start building out a carbon footprint calculator for our internal resources. And then that led to starting up what we call a community of practice. So building up the group of people who are interested and want to come along and learn and start making changes. And we've started to build things up from there.

Gaël Duez (05:29)

So just to unpack a bit what you've said, what is interesting is A, you dared B, it took a bit of time. It wasn't straightforward. Like you had a very positive reactions at first, but nothing that much happened, as you say, because you had to learn the job, but also maybe because things needed to get their way into people's mind. And eventually, it was a grassroot movement that resumed last year. Am I correct here?

Annie Freeman (05:58)

Yes, grassroots movement started earlier this year, 2024.

Gaël Duez (06:02)

Okay. usually when I discuss with people sponsoring or being ambassador of grassroots movements, they tend to tell me it's okay at the beginning. We get a lot of excitement. People are really willing to join, willing to participate. We start doing a bit of things, but quite often it reaches the plateau and not that much happened. And it seemed that that was not the case for you because you've been able to deliver something and to deploy it. So how did you manage this moment where you've got this excitement, you've got these people willing to work together, starting to regroup? up to the point where you were actually delivering something.

Annie Freeman (06:48)

Yeah, I definitely didn't do it by myself. When I started that first hackathon team, one of the people who joined me as another engineer at Xero called Adria Snow, who's been absolutely incredible taking on building out the carbon footprint calculator. And I think Adria's persistence and just impressive dedication to it has been so key to us being able to continue saying, hey, we've got this new exciting tool, here's a new feature, we've added this new visualization, you can now see this breakdown. So there's been lots of exciting updates in that respect. And also I connected with the sustainability team at Xero pretty early on and They loved it. They were like, yes, we want to support this. This is fantastic. And really helped push things forward as well, especially kind of more from like a upper management level as well, considering Adri and I are engineers. being able to get that from both perspectives as well has been really helpful.

Gaël Duez (07:55)

So it was basically a team of two plus good connections with the sustainability team that managed to get approval from top management. Is it correct?

Annie Freeman (08:05)

Pretty much, we've had a few other people help out, but those have been the key players.

Gaël Duez (08:10)

And my question is, how many employees do we have at Xero?

Annie Freeman (08:14)

Yeah, I believe it's over 4,000, between 4 5,000 I think.

Gaël Duez (08:20)

Okay, so that's a pretty small ratio. And when you started to build this carbon calculator, how was your top management or even your management, your middle management supporting you? Did you have some time? Did you have some resources? Did you have a green light, but hey, you still need to do your job? How did all this happen?

Annie Freeman (08:41)

Yeah, definitely. mean, Xero's been really great. We have week-long hackathons every six months, so they're a perfect opportunity to put all your normal work to the side and work on something new. In that first hackathon in April of this year, I got a free trial of a tool called Climatic, which is a carbon footprint

Annie Freeman (09:05)

calculation API and they do all sorts of different carbon calculations, including cloud computing. So with a free trial of that, we were able to put together a proof of concept product and get a little bit of data around some of Xero's key products and say, hey, we've made these calculations. We can share this data with you. And from there, with that data, with that proof of concept, we were then able to go to the sustainability team and say, can we get funding for Climatic for this tool? Can we keep promoting this at zero? And yeah, I think as we'll probably come back to the data is always so key in getting things moving, I think. So that was that was how we were able to get started.

Gaël Duez (09:55)

And did you have some extra time to work on this topic? Or was it side project, as I see very often, or did you have a share of your bandwidth allocated to it?

Annie Freeman (10:10)

No, it was fully a side project for both Adria and I. Adria doing the development on the carbon footprint tool and I've been doing leading all the community practice and outreach and things like that. So yeah, all a side project.

Gaël Duez (10:24)

And that's an interesting point because it seems that your initiative kind of forked if I understand you right here, because on one side you have the two of you spear heading the development of an internal tool based on climatic data. but on the other end, you also have launched a community of practice could you tell us a bit more about the outcomes of this community of practice and how it interacted or maybe not at all with your calculator project?

Annie Freeman (10:54)

Yeah, definitely. Well, I think… we're trying to change the culture, the engineering culture at Xero. And I continuously am reminded and something you probably are as well, you we're so involved in this green IT space and it's, there's still so many people that just have no idea of the impact that software has in terms of carbon footprint. And so, I knew that it was going to be so important to really push that education, that like getting people excited. And while the having the data is a really key part of that, there needs to be so much more around it to get people excited. we have a few different community of practices at Xero. So it's a standard way of getting people involved. yeah, started up a group. started with an initial learning session basically introducing people to what is green software, what is the impact, what have we done so far and ran a few sessions around the world as well. we've got offices in the UK, US and Singapore and things. So really tried to push it out there as much as possible. And then since then we've had a few sessions talking about the role that data centers have to play in the whole sustainability and software space. We've had brainstorming sessions to figure out what people are interested in. Something we're organizing at the moment is what best practices are there for running Kubernetes workloads to use that most efficiently and things like that. So that's been the crux of that. And then I've shared a lot of like, hey, here's an interesting article. I'd love to know what you guys think. Or here's a really easy way to start using the data that we're collecting. And then on top of that, just sharing documentation around how to use our carbon footprint tool and really try to engage with people as much as possible.

Gaël Duez (12:40)

and how many people are we talking about?

Annie Freeman (12:59)

So far, believe about 80 people have joined the community of practice.

Gaël Duez (13:04)

80 people. You mentioned that… you trained a lot, you raised awareness, then you trained, that you shared information, but you also mentioned that you achieved a few things, Could you give us one or two examples of achievements that you get via this community of practice?

Annie Freeman (13:23)

Yes, definitely. And these probably seem kind of small, but I think to me they were quite exciting. So one thing we did was some user testing with some other engineers and I've just showed them the tool and I was like, you know, let's use this. How can you improve it? What would you like to see? And I think that sort of started to get people thinking a bit more because they've like properly sat with it and thought about it themselves and like critically analyzed it. And so was really cool. The other day I had an engineer come over to me and he's like, Annie, I have a feature request for footprint. I have a theory that our team is doing something weird with our test environment, something weird is going on and I really want to prove it. Can you add this feature?

And I thought that was just so cool that people are really getting excited and thinking a bit deeper and really trying to figure out what's going on and how they can improve things, which is so cool. And the other thing, which was really small, a team mate of mine was writing up sort of like a pros and cons list about whether we should deprecate an old service and whether we should put the resources into doing that. And she'd mentioned that we would save X amount of dollars if we remove all these resources and things. And so I added a comment to the report saying, and we would also save X amount of carbon emissions each month. And then the next day, one of the architects was commenting on the report and referenced that comment about the carbon emissions in his opinion of what we should be doing as well. And it was the smallest thing and no one probably thought much of it. But to me, I think that was very indicative of that sort of slow culture change starting to happen slowly, that it's becoming kind of more normal in our working lives.

Gaël Duez (15:20)

Yeah, yet another boring data to handle carbon. But that's a good news.

Annie Freeman (15:24)

Yes, exactly, yeah, just add that into the mix, it's fine.

Gaël Duez (15:30)

Excellent. Annie could you tell us a bit more about the tool? I've got a dozen questions about it, but can you briefly explain the scope, the technological stack that you've chosen to use?

Annie Freeman (15:45)

So as I said before, huge shout out to Adria for her amazing, amazing work on this. But so we call this tool Footprint and it's based in Go. So the decision for that was that Go is in itself a really lightweight language. So try to be as efficient as possible for the tool to tell you how efficient you are. So we use, we collect all our AWS billing data. So Xero's resources are mostly hosted on AWS. We have access to all our billing data from the Phenops team and we can collect that workout. For example, we used X number of EC2 instances for X number of hours in this particular region. And we can collect that data and send it off to Climatic, the carbon calculator API. And that'll come back to us with the emissions data, the emissions factors, and we can return that to people. if you are an engineer at Xero, you can go to Footprint, the internal tool, type in your team name and you will get a list of all the components that your team owns. How much carbon each product has been emitting for the past month. You can see a breakdown of each AWS resource within that component. So a pie chart of, was it 30 % lambdas, 20%, S3 bucket, whatever it is which is quite helpful in diagnosing what might be going on. And then just to help visualize it all a bit more, we've also got the equivalent amount in a couple of different statistics. So for example, the equivalent amount of kilometers you would have to drive in a regular gas car to produce the same amount of emissions.

Gaël Duez (17:41)

And just to understand right here, when you mentioned the word product, is it product in an AWS meaning? So as you mentioned, EC2, S3 bucket, et cetera, et cetera. Or is it also products in a Xero way, which means that maybe this service or the sub-service that you offer to some of your customers are also track, which means that ultimately you would be able to answer a customer asking, what is my carbon footprint using your product? Or you've got product A, product C, product F, you've used it for six months, 12 months, 12 months. This is the carbon footprint that you've emitted by using our product. So is it one of the two or both?

Annie Freeman (18:32)

Well, that letter would be very cool. We're definitely not there yet. So yeah, when I mean product, I basically mean microservices that a team owns. And so that microservice might be made up of a couple of lambdas, some instances, or it runs its workloads on Kubernetes and also connects to a queue or something like that.

Gaël Duez (18:52)

how often is the data updated and how easily it is for an engineer to leverage it to fine tune his or her code or choices when it comes to the infrastructure, for instance.

Annie Freeman (19:06)

Yeah, sure. So at the moment, we update it monthly. And so you'll be able to see your emissions for the previous month. And then an engineer can click into each component and see the breakdown.

Gaël Duez (19:18)

I understand. yet, having a refreshing rate on a monthly basis helped you already get some significant results. mean, you can share some success stories or is it just for awareness or was it already actionable for many teams?

Annie Freeman (19:33)

Yeah, definitely. I think the best example we've had so far, Adria, who's been building this out, was looking at one of her team's components. And this was while Footprint was in development, and it was being developed kind of each AWS service at the time. So when we first released it, it only did S3 buckets, EC2 instances, and lambdas. And so Adria was looking at this component that her team owned and was thinking, okay, this component produces a small amount of emissions, but we haven't got everything in the calculation yet because it was still being developed. And so Adria worked through all the different services and when CodeBuild was added in, CodeBuild was being used as one of the resources in this tool. Suddenly the emissions of this product jumped up a huge amount and it ended up being that CodeBuild was responsible for about 80 % of that component's emissions, which was really surprising to the team. And so they were able to, the team were able to use that data and say to their team lead, know, like, we've recognized this, can we get the engineering time to change this to a more efficient way of building and deploying? And so now that component is on Kubernetes and they were able to drop their omissions for that product down quite a lot.

Gaël Duez (21:00)

Can you share some numbers to illustrate or is it confidential?

Annie Freeman (21:05)

the moment we're keeping these numbers internal to Xero. Of course it's data where it's for engineers, so it's not audited and can't be publicly released. So I can't share that with you unfortunately, but yeah.

Gaël Duez (21:22)

That's all good.

It's perfectly understandable. Can you still share in terms of order of magnitude, what is the share of the tech stack and all the IT department, I would say, in regards to the overall greenhouse gas emissions at Xero? Is it something like negligible or is it a few dozen percent?

Annie Freeman (21:44)

Yeah, so I think like many technology companies, it is a really small amount, believe around 1 % or less than 1%. I don't have the exact number. And I know you referenced this in your The Green IT Curse article recently. Yeah, so it's a great article. And so I think zero is very similar in that respect.

Gaël Duez (21:58)

You read it! Okay, got it. Just wanted to know if Xero was an exception or not.

Now, before moving on on how you deploy the tool and so on, Earlier in our discussion, you mentioned data as being absolutely pivotal, which leads me to a few questions regarding the choices you've made. My first one would be, why did you choose Climatic? And the second being, because they might be bit intertwined. Why didn't you go for another open source solution like Boavista, or Cloud Carbon Footprints from ThoughtWorks? What makes you willing to develop this interface tool, collecting data, analyzing it with the emission factors from Climatic, and then pushing it back to the end users being software engineers? 

Annie Freeman (23:05)

Yeah. So kind of a funny story, full circle moment. I was listening to this podcast, to Green IO, a while back. And you had Therese Gale on as one of your guests. And I absolutely loved the episode. I thought it was really inspiring what she had been doing at Salesforce, MuleSoft. And I realized that she was based in New Zealand. So I reached out to her and we ended up meeting up and she gave me so much fantastic advice about how to sort of start a grassroots initiative at Xero. And one of her pieces of advice was use Climatic. So I kind of just went with that. I was like, sweet, that sounds good to me. So we went with that and it worked really well for us. We've had fantastic support from the Climatic team as well. So it's worked really well. I believe Climatic does use Cloud Carbon footprint for its calculations as well. So it is, as you say, kind of intertwined.

Gaël Duez (24:03)

I got it. I didn't know that the Green IO podcast, who's hosted by a guy living in a super small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, is connecting people all around the world, including within their own country. That's quite fun. But thanks for sharing. But Thérèse was in London at Green IO London and she gave an amazing talk as well on

Annie Freeman (24:17)

You're pretty amazing. Yes, absolutely.

Gaël Duez (24:28)

the job she managed to do at Salesforce. yeah, I really enjoyed my discussion with her. She's a very pragmatic yet stubborn enough person to make things moving forward. that's great. That being said, thanks a lot for sharing this anecdote. And what is interesting here is that you still decided to build things on your own. was the main driver not to use something off the shelf?

Annie Freeman (24:54)

Yeah, I think probably like many companies, Xero is quite large and there's a lot of interconnected complex systems and things that are just unique to each company. And for such a sort of niche thing that we really just were starting off, we wanted to do one job and it was easiest to be able to just use the data that we had and make it work exactly for the setup that we have at Xero. And so far that's been working and maybe in the future we'll expand to something else.

Gaël Duez (25:33)

That's great. And that's also very interesting because you didn't make that choice on a user interface perspective. You clearly made that choice for data management issues and being able to collect the data, clean the data, store the data and leverage the data, analyze the data in a very consistent way. that's interesting because from time to time I hear, but that's a question of a user experience, actually the user experience here is really around data management. I correct?

Annie Freeman (26:04)

Yeah, I think we touched on this before. It comes back down to the data and having the quality data that people are like, yes, this makes sense. I'm going to take action because of this data. And so we did really want to prioritize making sure we were able to do that correctly.

Gaël Duez (26:22)

Okay, so. Annie, you managed to deliver with Adria a tool, fully functional tool reporting carbon based on the internal use of zero, you managed to get data from Climatic and AWS. It was mostly a work based on data management. So you've got something, you've got a great output. How did you manage to achieve your outcomes? maybe this is the moment where it's more the human side of the story. How did people accepted the tool and embraced the tool and leverage the tools? Basically, how did you roll it out?

Annie Freeman (27:02)

Yeah, I think that's such a great question, because that is so important that the human side of things on top of the data. And one thing I think many of us are probably aware of, especially in in large companies, there's so many competing priorities, there's always so much work, and adding in another thing for people to do to review to improve upon. It's it can be really hard. So I've been taking the approach of first of all, and I will say we're very much in the middle of this, this is not widespread yet at zero. I'm doing this at the moment. But taking the approach of how can we visualize the data, make more people see it, make it just become a normal part of your ways of working. And so I've been sharing ideas with the community of practice, what are like the most low effort things that you can start with. So it doesn't feel like an extra thing that you have to add to to your to-do list. So for example, one thing is just simply sharing screenshots of the data, the carbon emissions data during a sprint review with stakeholders or an operational health update. And I've done this a couple of times with my team now. And the first time I shared the data, I noted out some interesting things and everyone was like, yeah, okay, cool. And then the second time I did the same thing, I just put out the data and just left it there and everyone was kind of silent for a minute. But then people are like, well actually that's really interesting that that component has got the highest emissions. Surely there's something we can do there to bring that down or that's actually really weird because that component is supposed to be archived. So why is that producing any emissions? And so just leaving it there without any pressure to do anything with it, I think really sparks that problem solving nature and that curiosity with people. So a few other things that I've been sharing and getting people to do is potentially discussing how you're going to review carbon emissions metrics during retrospective meetings or adding a regular task to your sprint planning to just review the metrics. And so it's those easy things like that that will help embed and footprint tracking and taking action into the normal ways of working.

Gaël Duez (29:22)

If I follow you there, think your magical recipe is blend data visualizations, so make things explicit, plus… adjust to existing process. Just do not build something new. It's just you've got a retrospective. Let's just have five minutes to talk about this data, but no extra organizational burden on top of the teams. Am I right?

Annie Freeman (29:33)

Yes. Yes, just slot it in, make it as easy as possible. And then suddenly it's just a normal part of your day.

Gaël Duez (29:51)

yeah, the boring sustainability stuff to do. And how would you measure the success of the deployment today?

Annie Freeman (29:59)

Yeah, great question. think, you know, as I said, we're still very much in the middle of it. But it's more those those smaller things of people taking notice and coming up with their own ideas that I think are showing that that culture is starting to take root and changes are happening. We always whenever we share an update or a new feature, we always see the usage go way up and everyone gets really excited and things. But of course it's an ongoing challenge to just keep pushing it and keep making it a part of people's work lives.

Gaël Duez (30:34)

Excellent. I love the idea of checking the usage just after an update. That's interesting. Like, what's new? What's new? Let's check or something. Annie, you already shared a lot, and I thank you a lot for this. Is there any specific resources that you would like to advise people willing to kickstart things as you did or ramp up things if there is already a good momentum in their own company?

Annie Freeman (31:01)

Ooh, yes. What can I share? Obviously, the Green Software Foundation has so many amazing resources. And we've used Climatics, which I would recommend, but also Cloud Carbon Footprint is really great. I've written up some of the things that I've talked about today on my website as well. So I can share that article with sort of those low effort actions and things and some ways you can start taking action. I feel like most of the things that I use have probably already been talked about. Your newsletter, this podcast, the environment variables podcast. There's just so many fantastic people in the space who are really, really knowledgeable and they've got really great ideas.

Gaël Duez (31:41)

Thanks a lot. And hi to Chris, Asim, and Anne, who very often are the host of the environment podcast, Viable. I really enjoy this show as well. As usual, we will put all the references that you mentioned during the episode and that you've just mentioned right now in the show notes, because it's all about sharing information and getting people into action mode, would say. And for this, having these kind of resources is very useful. My last question, and you're familiar with the show, so you already know it, is would you share a piece of positive news about sustainability and maybe even digital sustainability with the audience?

Annie Freeman (32:05)

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, well, I feel like this might be really niche, but this definitely caught my eye the other day learning about the fact that Microsoft is now building its first data center partially made out of wood. So trying to reduce emissions from steel and concrete, which are really high meters. And I thought that was really cool. There's definitely so many things like that that we just don't even think that we could innovate on. And I that was really interesting.

Gaël Duez (32:48)

That's pretty crazy because I didn't know about it. So I'm going to really enjoy reading the link to the source. Plus, that's cool that you mentioned something positive about Microsoft because the two last episodes, they were a bit under pressure. you know, it's a subtle world and things are a bit complex and it's not all white or all dark. So it's good to know that they're still innovating when it comes to sustainability despite some challenges they've got elsewhere. So excellent. Thanks a lot, Annie. And thanks for joining the show. It was really great to have you there. Who knows, maybe if we decide to launch a Green IO Melbourne, so moving a bit down under, we will have the pleasure to meet and to have you on stage as well, obviously.

Annie Freeman (33:20)

You're very welcome. Yes. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure and I would love if you came down under. It would be awesome to meet you down there and everyone else who is interested in green software.

Gaël Duez (33:51)

Let's try to make this happen and let's try to find also the participants that will commit to reduce drastically their carbon to offset the fact that I will have to jump on the plane emitting a lot of CO2. So that's always something I'm very, very concerned about. Like, do we have a community which has a big enough size to accelerate things and to make an impact? Because when you invest, I would say, in carbon, you definitely want a

Annie Freeman (34:03)

Yes.

Gaël Duez (34:17)

return on investment and impact. So obviously the impact word is more important for me than the investment one. But anyway, we'll see.

Annie Freeman (34:21)

Mmm, nice. Yes.

Gaël Duez (34:28)

Maybe Green Eye or Melbourne, at least for the moment, a lot of people in the Southern Hemisphere and in Oceania, they will benefit from this episode and your great advices. So thanks a lot, Annie, and talk to you later.

Annie Freeman (34:40)

very welcome. Talk to you later.

Gaël Duez (34:43)

Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. If you enjoyed it, please take 30 seconds to give us five stars on Apple Podcast or Spotify. I know it's not easy to find the feature on these apps, but it gives your vote a much bigger weight and I trust you to succeed. Sharing this episode on social media or directly with relatives working as software practitioners seems also a good idea to provide them with inspiration. You got the point. Being an independent media, we rely mostly on you to get more responsible technologists on board. In our next episode, which will be the 50th episode, yes, five zero, we will welcome Tristan Nito, a respected French veteran in open source and digital sustainability to go to a funeral. Yes, according to Tristan, Moore's law is dead and we should welcome the e-room law instead to boost sustainability in the tech industry. One last word. We already mentioned the Greenio conferences during this episode. The last one of this year will be in Paris on December 3rd, 4th and 5th. As usual, you can get a free ticket using the voucher GREENIOVIP Just make sure to have one before the remaining 15 free tickets are all gone. I'm looking forward to meeting you there to help you, fellow responsible technologists, build a greener digital world.

Roxane

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3 billion gamers worldwide, billions of devices, terabytes of data streamed, the gaming industry comes with pretty big numbers starting with its $455 billion sales in 2023. 

Is its environmental footprint as big? (Not) fun fact, not a single executive in this sector could answer the question. 

A new non-profit initiative, the Sustainable Gaming Alliance, is trying to get these numbers right and to equip the industry with the right framework. Its Managing Director, Maria Wagner, and its Research and Standard lead, Dr Benjamin Abraham joined this Green IO episode where great insights were shared on:

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Ben (00:00)

the idea that the gaming industry globally has a footprint probably the size of a country like Sweden.

was just on no one's kind of radar. My best guess is that it's somewhere in the tens of millions of tons. The disclosures that I've added up over the last couple of years from the biggest game companies in the world point to a figure somewhere around about 20 to 50 million tons per annum.

Gaël Duez (00:24)

Hello everyone, welcome to Green.io. I'm Gael Duez and in this podcast we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month, on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green.io,

All the references mentioned in this episode as well as the full transcript will be in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform and of course on the website greenayo.tech.

I'm all in mushrooms at the moment. This is how a few months ago Giovanni Celeste started to describe his new game. He kept on. They're incredible and you can tell great stories with them. Of course, to be more mainstream, the first part of my new game is about bees. But I'll do scenes with mushrooms. Giovanni is a pillar of the small but vibrant gaming sector in Réunion Island where I live.

He crafts games focusing on the ecological transition. He works either with a small team or by himself. He's what is called an indie developer. Before our discussions, I hadn't realized how diverse and complex the gaming industry was. For me, it was mostly massive studios delivering entertainment to more than three billions of gamers worldwide.

or discussions, reactivated a question I had in the back of my mind for some time. How is the gaming industry doing with its environmental footprint? With massive data transfers, billions of devices sold, and all of the computing power used to develop and run the games, it cannot be negligible. Thomas Bouffis, from the Tales from the Tech newsletter, pointed out to me several signs showing a modest interest in the sector.

Starting with very few C-level offices exclusively in charge of sustainability in the main studios. Sure, here and there some initiatives are emerging such as a petition against developing games in the metaverse, the ongoing work of the French agency ADEME on a referential for sustainable gaming, or what was the active game jam on the energy consumption of video games.

Still, most of the buzz is about the gaming industry helping to raise awareness on climate change and ecological transition, almost nothing about its own

This is where Giovanni told me about the Sustainable Gaming Alliance. And voila, I eventually found experts to discuss the gaming industry environmental footprint.

Maria Wagner and Dr Benjamin Abram respectively the SGA Managing Director and SGA Research and Standard Lead kindly agreed to answer my questions about the footprint and more importantly what a tech worker in the game industry sector should do about it. Ben has written an entire book on the topic digital games after climate change based on his PhD work. Maria's personal story could be the scenario for a video game.

Before becoming a seasoned actor in the gaming industry, she worked in diplomacy, intercultural conflict management, as a political observer in Syria, or ran a refugee camp. Wow,

the perfect fit to run a global multi-stackholders initiative to green a 455 billion dollar market.

Gaël Duez (04:00)

So welcome Ben, welcome Maria. It's great to have you on the show today.

Ben (04:06)

Thanks, Gael. It's great to be here.

Maria Wagner (04:06)

Thanks for having us.

Gaël Duez (04:09)

You're welcome. Just to understand a bit the context before deep diving into the environmental footprint of the gaming industry and the many, many, different topics that I'd like to cover with you. What make

Gaël Duez (04:24)

The gaming industry is so specific within the tech industry. And how come that we usually don't incorporate in the big green software, green IT, sustainable IT, you name it, momentum, which is happening around the world, what is related to the gaming industry itself. And as I said in my introduction, the gaming industry is pretty big, both in terms of a number of gamers, employees and workers.

So I guess in terms of footprint as well. Maria, you're a very knowledgeable person of this industry. Could you maybe try to give us an answer?

Maria Wagner (05:00)

Yeah, I think the games industry is very special when it comes to the connection to the people and of course also the reach, right? As you have said, we are reaching basically half of the globe and this is something which a lot of people forget that we are the medium of

the times. So compared to movies and films or the TV, there is no other medium which reaches so many people and I think this makes us really special.

Gaël Duez (05:33)

It's a question of reach according to you more than the technical setup behind it.

Maria Wagner (05:38)

The technical setup behind it, of course, as well, I would say it's way more complicated because it connects so many different parts when it comes to games. There are so many parts which need to come together to make a game happen and this is maybe something also Ben can cover perfectly because he looks into the value chain.

Ben (05:55)

The thing that separates the game industry from just general software and tech to my mind is that it is a software industry, but it's also an art form. It's an art industry. it's both artistic practitioners who work with digital tools. So there's like 3D artists, there's also coders, there's also community managers. There's a really strong emphasis on engagement with the end users.

Games companies are very aware of what their users are interested in and care about. And so it is just a software company. Games are just a software development exercise, but they are also an artistic exercise as well. There's a creative dimension to it.

Gaël Duez (06:47)

Which makes them pretty specific, I would say, because I've never heard about a piece of SAP reporting being branded as arty.

What about its environmental footprint? We're talking about billions of users. We're talking about hundreds of millions of devices worldwide. So I guess it's pretty big. I couldn't really see any global report on

the environment and footprint of the gaming industry. So maybe that's an issue that we should discuss a bit later in the episode. But what are the numbers or the order of magnitude that you could share with us to grasp how much is the gaming industry impacting the planet?

Ben (07:29)

So in terms of orders of magnitude, I think that's the right question to ask because we really only have a rough sense. It is in the tens of millions, almost certainly. Is it less than a hundred million? Possibly. When I started the research work that became the book that I wrote, Digital Games After Climate Change, there was

hardly any kind of research out there. I couldn't find anyone who was even really thinking about what the impact globally of the games industry was in terms of emissions at any rate. There was a bit of awareness of things like e-waste, resource consumption, that, know, vaguely there's this thing called the cloud that's probably not great for the environment. But the idea that the gaming industry globally has a footprint probably the size of a country like Sweden.

was, was just on no one's kind of radar. and so My best guess is that it's somewhere in the tens of millions of tons. The disclosures that I've added up over the last couple of years from the biggest game companies in the world point to a figure somewhere around about 20 to 50 million tons per annum. And that's just, just playing games. That's players that's.

infrastructure, making the games themselves, offices, it's everything. the complexity of it really does sprawl.

Gaël Duez (08:54)

And Ben, you're mentioning to greenhouse gas emissions when you mentioned talking about millions. That was the main focus of your study in terms of environmental impact. Am I right here?

Ben (09:05)

It was, yeah. So I, I tried to break down the production process into different phases and looked at what is involved in each phase. So developing games, it's a lot of power in offices, it's IT purchases, new equipment. distributing games involves data centers, the digital distribution networks of steam, the Apple store, the Google play store, you know, all these devices that are getting games downloaded to them.

And then the end users themselves and the devices that they play games on, whether that's a games console or a PC or a smartphone. And each one of them has vastly different levers of decarbonization potential and vastly different levels of transparency even in terms of what we know about each phase.

Gaël Duez (09:56)

And did you manage to calculate also the embedded carbon or was it only carbon emitted by the energy consumption or also

the carbon emitted during the manufacturing and extraction phase, so through the entire life cycle of all the devices.

Ben (10:14)

So I did also look at embodied carbon and I also actually looked at a little bit of the other non-climate environmental impacts, so things from like mining rare earth materials and things like that. So actually in my book, there's a really interesting table, like I call it the periodic table of torture, where I go through a list of elements that were detected via this advanced ICPMS method.

of analyzing what are the atomic elements inside a PS4 chip. And I go, okay, well, what are they probably doing in there? Where do they come from? What are they used for? Are they part of the transistors? Are they part of some other part of the lithography process? Yeah. And so when it comes to games consoles, at least, companies like Microsoft and Sony have gotten a bit better over the years at disclosing what the embodied carbon is in those.

consoles. So we know a little bit about them, but PCs, because there's so many device manufacturers, there's so many different hardware components. Yeah, again, that's just this big question mark unknown area.

Gaël Duez (11:18)

That's interesting because you mentioned embedded carbon, so everything related to greenhouse gas emissions, but you also touched upon the material footprint, which is how much we need to extract to get one piece of console or chip to be manufactured.

When I facilitate digital collage workshop, that's a figure we use a lot, which is basically for two, 300 grams smartphones, we need to extract around 70 kilos of resources. this ecological backpack is pretty big. Do you know if this is this same order of magnitude for a console or

Can it be a bit smaller?

Ben (12:00)

It's a really hard question to answer. My suspicions are that they're about the same.

I don't have any hard numbers exactly, so my study was done on the smell of an oily rag. I had no money to do it and my research lab couldn't actually tell me the exact quantities that are in them. it's a good guess that most games consoles are probably equivalent to like a smartphone.

Okay, well, that's pretty big. It's a ratio in terms of hundreds times more than the actual weight of the device. pretty good. Maria, are there other environmental impacts that the gaming industry is starting to get aware of?

Maria Wagner (12:37)

At the moment we are in the phase of raising awareness in general when it comes to the footprint of the value chain and really producing games because I think there is a big focus when it comes to the reach and what people can communicate through their games. when it comes to

getting their own house in order and looking at the value chain and decarbonizing the value chain itself. There we still have a long way to go.

Gaël Duez (13:09)

I think I'm going to hire you to explain to everyone why this podcast is about cleaning our hand house rather than doing green tech or tech saving the world, etc. That's exactly the approach I've got. Okay, so before deep diving into the industry and more specifically a tech worker in the gaming industry can do, I've got one question

So as a gamer in my personal life, are there some things that I should specifically focus on to reduce my environmental footprint? Maybe Maria, do you have some idea?

Maria Wagner (13:46)

you can look at your electricity grid. So where do you get your electricity from is a huge factor. And of course, you also have to ask yourself if you always have to have the newest hardware, which is out there, or if it's possible to play your favorite game, maybe on like an older device.

Yeah, so I think this is something what players can do for sure. And of course, being more vocal about it. Ask your favorite game studios about their footprint and responsibility and the same goes, of course, also for the hardware.

Gaël Duez (14:24)

Regarding the devices, what is the churn rate? Smartphones used to be crazy. the average use span of a smartphone used to be a year and a half. So people were literally dropping perfectly functionable devices to get the newest one. It gets a bit better since a few years. I think it's a bit above two years, which is completely insane.

And you think about all the energy and materials and resources put into this incredibly sophisticated device. anyway, I've heard that the gaming industry, the console, people tend to use them a bit longer. So how much the device is something that we as gamers should also focus on? Or how much is it more about energy consumption, as you mentioned a bit before?

Ben (14:48)

It's still so short, yeah.

Maria Wagner (15:16)

I mean, this is a question or this is a topic we actually discussed, I think, just like last week. So, of course, it takes up a lot of resources to produce new hardware. So I think we should in general question our culture of...

having software which always needs new devices, know, so basically adapting the software in a way that we can still use the old devices and it still would run perfectly. So it's hard to say because of course if we would use hardware way longer then it would be more an energy question and optimizing

the software to use less energy. But as long as we keep pushing the boundaries and need always new hardware, this is still a big question.

Ben (16:15)

Maybe I'll just add a little bit extra context or a little bit extra color there then. The games industry has been basically since the 1980s, it's relied on selling games or marketing games via a kind of approach that

that sells based on graphics, right? Like this, it's slowed down a little bit in the last five to 10 years, but for the longest time it was like, you know, it went from eight bit graphics to 16 bit to 32, and then you get polygon counts, resolutions, frame rates. And so that's been kind of embedded in the games industry for a really, really long time now. The expectation is we're going to sell games by saying, ooh, this year's model is better.

There's more polygons or it's, you know, it goes up to 200 frames per second or it's more responsive or it's got this new engine or that new feature. And that drives the hardware upgrade cycle. So even though console generations, so if we're just talking about console gaming last for somewhere between six, seven, maybe eight years at the very most in terms of like, you know, a new one comes along and it's upgraded and better.

Usually what ends up happening is we get these mid cycle refreshes where you know get the ps4 pro or the ps5 pro or you know these upgraded ones Yeah, so basically the games industry has been locked into the hardware upgrade cycle for a really really long time And we're really really reaching the limit of that in in the last year or so The games industry has been through a real shake-up. It's been through a real crisis

It's because production costs of making games has been so high because of this churn of graphics and visual fidelity that just means you need to throw more and more artists at the problem, more and more 3D modelers, more and more texture and all of this sort of stuff. And that's to sell more consoles, to sell more games. And that's part of this unsustainable trajectory that we really need to rein in.

Gaël Duez (18:21)

And you know, Ben, it super interesting because I remember that when I used to magazine, yes, paper magazine on games, the best way to praise a game was, is beautiful. It is an interesting choice of word. Like, it is a beautiful game. And it was,

As you say, a lot based on graphic and not necessarily how enjoyable it was to play with this game. we could have expected a journalist wanting to praise a game saying, it's incredibly gameable or enjoyable to play with, or it got many twists or you get completely hooked by the story.

That's true that most of the time it's all about how beautiful, how well crafted, how pixel perfect the game is. I think it has started to change a bit in the industry. it was really something that struck my mind when you mentioned it, this vicious cycle of always more hardware. to wrap up what you both said for a gamer, it's really about...

questioning the need for the latest shiny stuff and considering keeping the hardware longer and make sure that the electricity grid is as decarbonized as possible, especially, I guess, if the person plays a lot via streaming solutions. Am I right to summarize it that way?

Maria Wagner (19:47)

I maybe would also just add there are so many beautiful games out there which don't have like the craziest newest like graphic and the craziest needs when it comes to hardware and this is something which we need to cherish and I think it's just like as you said before a marketing question that

especially like the big corporations is on the shiniest versions and like the games which need a lot of resources but there are also games out there which are completely the opposite and are beautiful as well.

Ben (20:25)

Just to add on to that as well, I think one of the things that I want to emphasize too is that this is what we know at the moment, right? So the ability for consumers to actually affect their end emissions when they're playing games is actually quite limited, right? A lot of the power is in the choices that have already been made by people upstream, by big corporations, by big companies.

will be things that consumers can do. And that's sort of what I think needs to kind of happen. And what we're hoping to do with the SGA actually is to get the whole of the industry, consumers, producers, fans, know, even people who hate the games industry, all to be on the same page about, where do the biggest interventions need to happen? Where do we get the most bang for our buck?

Gaël Duez (21:19)

Ben, what a wonderful transition. Let's talk about the gaming industry itself.

So maybe it's time to talk a bit of, first of all, as a worker in the IT industry, sorry, in the gaming industry.

How much am I exposed to the fact that I'm also part of the problem and I emit greenhouse gases and I consume a lot of non-renewable resources, et cetera, et cetera? What is the level of awareness in the gaming industry at the moment?

Maria Wagner (21:49)

Yeah, I mean, this is exactly the question which, like one of the other co-founders, Jiri Kupjainen and I was asking ourselves when we did our 10 weeks to save the games industry tour, where we really wanted to interview the leaders of the industry and just find out what is their knowledge level on this topic. so...

Maria Wagner (22:14)

like we interviewed around like 40 industry leaders within 25 cities and found out that they don't know anything about it. most of the people,

Maria Wagner (22:30)

A lot of people think that because games are digital that they are automatically green or that they say, okay, compared to other industries, we don't have such a huge footprint. So we don't need to focus on that, which is of course crazy because we don't have any data.

Gaël Duez (22:51)

The level of awareness seems to be very, very low, even compared to other subparts of the IT industry. mean, usually, the, it's in the cloud, so it doesn't pollute anymore.

It's something a bit of the past now in the IT industry. That was something that you could hear maybe five years ago, but not that much today.

Gaël Duez (23:10)

So you mentioned the Sustainable Gaming Alliance and I guess you created the SGA as a reaction when you realized with Yuri and other people that the level of awareness was super low. Could you tell us a bit more about this organization? Why you created it and how is it helping to contribute today to a greener, if I may use the word, gaming industry?

Maria Wagner (23:33)

Yeah, basically, before founding the Sustainable Games Alliance, I for my part was leading the Games Forest Club, another NGO, was helping games companies to donate to forest protection. And there I realized very fast that a lot of companies use

the forest protection or planting trees as a way to, you know, think of themselves that they're done their part and being green. But the problem is, of course, that they never looked at themselves and at the value chain. So they did not understand that they need to decarbonize and need to, yeah, really basically change the way they're doing business.

to be sustainable. So in the conversations which we were having together with Jiri, found out that we need numbers. We basically need numbers to be able to address this topic. there are no comparable numbers at the moment. At the moment, every company can just like...

publish and say whatever they basically want, what their current footprint is. And this is something we want to address because like only with comparable numbers, we will be able to talk about best practices and how to optimize and yeah, more efficiently reduce the footprint and decarbonize the industry.

Gaël Duez (25:02)

Maria, there is something that I don't understand. Most of these companies, they are pretty big. they already, they should already report carbon audit. mean, especially if they're European based or even in some states in the US, you've got now compulsory carbon reporting following GSG protocol or other protocol in France. So how come that the numbers are not comparable?

Maria Wagner (25:08)

Yeah. It's because these reports are based on the greenhouse gas protocol so far. mean, there is the corporate sustainability reporting directive in Europe, which is based on the ESRS. But the problem is it's not game specific. So basically, when you do your reporting, the framework and methodology is so vague, it leaves so much room for you to make decisions and

adapt your numbers, that in the end you get non-comparable results. for example, up until now, companies could leave out category 11, the use of the product. And it's like in gaming, a huge part of the mission.

Maria Wagner (26:15)

If companies leave this out, the numbers are not comparable.

Ben (26:18)

Yeah. The reason I think that a lot of that happens is that again, because games like they like the games industry relies on these larger tech platforms. Like there's not a lot of direct to consumer sales of games, right? It all goes through the steam or the app store or that's about it. Really. There's no buying a game directly from the producer. Usually there's like a platform between you.

And so what that's meant is that most of the companies have been like, well, I didn't design the Xbox. I didn't design the PlayStation. So that energy profile is like outside of my control. So I guess they just decide, and this is like open to them based on the interpretation of the greenhouse gas protocol that yeah, use for sold products. That's not my responsibility. It's actually the console owners responsibility. like Microsoft's or Sony's responsibility.

It ends up with this situation where there are large parts of the games industry that are number one, just not being added up, they're not being calculated properly. And then number two, we have no plan for how to reduce them. No real actionable strategy for how to get to net zero in the games industry.

Gaël Duez (27:26)

There is no in the SBTi framework any specific guidelines for the gaming industry. Not at all.

Ben (27:37)

I don't believe so, no.

Gaël Duez (27:38)

And could you share another example? Is there any discrepancies or way of calculating that creates so incomparable reports?

Ben (27:52)

well, I think a lot of it just comes down to it not being a practice for lots of games companies, right? yes, it is quite surprising that a lot of the big companies aren't disclosing, that is changing over time, but, quite a lot of the biggest game companies, if you think about like Nintendo, based in Japan, Japan doesn't yet have a mandatory,

reporting standards. Nintendo actually does disclose quite a bit, but there are lots of other Japanese games companies, South Korean games companies, North American games companies as well that it's just not, hasn't been on their radar. No one, guess, has really asked them to do this reporting yet.

Maria Wagner (28:32)

Maybe one more thing is, so the problem is there are so many different components within the value chain. I think this is something which is really special that the greenhouse gas protocol does not provide the boundaries between the different service providers. So we have, for example, ads, right? Like if you have a mobile game and it's free to play and you have all the ads.

which are played during the gameplay. There is no clear definition of who is responsible for the emissions of this ad which are played during your game. And this is just like one example of how many different companies are involved within the value chain. And because the boundaries are so unclear, you have completely incomparable numbers

Ben (29:25)

And the same goes too for game engine makers. most modern games are made on a software platform. They're made in Unity or they're made in Unreal. And so there you go. You're like, OK, well, I don't have control over Unity. I don't have control over Unreal. Is it really my responsibility to do something about the efficiency of my software? Or what are the levers that I even have? It's not visible within any of them yet.

you know, what you're actually asking of your end user and their energy consumption, you know, and this could be millions of people that you're potentially selling and playing your game.

Gaël Duez (30:02)

That's a beautiful example, Ben, because I've done a bit of research and actually there is a third solution named Godot. And that's a bit insane without any piece of data, I think it's something 60 gigabytes of data just to install Unreal.

And then you've got this other game engine called Godot, and it's 160 megabytes. So it's just insane the difference.

So it seems that for a developer working in the game industry or a small studio, there are some leeway

Or am I completely misunderstanding the issue here, Ben?

Ben (30:45)

No, I think that's right.

It's hard to know exactly because it's just never been part of the culture to really think about the performance. I mean, it has been for specific platforms. Like you need to hit your target. You know, maybe the new call of duty will have a frames per second target of 60 frames per second on, you know, this specific kind of hardware thing. And so they will always like push the limit right up to their, you know, squeezing as many pixels and stuff as you can.

But yeah, there are absolutely alternatives that use less space, less power, less like resource intensive, less taxing on the player's device. And, you know, if you just take a different artistic approach, you take a game development methodology, basically, you you develop something smaller, you're not making a big blockbuster here. If you're an indie developer and you're working in a small team,

You don't need all the features of Unreal. You're not going to need them all.

Maria Wagner (31:44)

I I think this is also like the exciting part of our work that because it's so new to the industry, there are so many low hanging fruits and potential because like people just have not looked into this topic much. And yeah, that's the exciting part about it.

Gaël Duez (32:02)

How easy do you believe the change in mindset will be?

Ben (32:05)

I mean, it's partly mindset, but it's also partly the business model that the games industry has used and relied on to sell games. that approach to marketing the game as being the newest, biggest, brashest, most advanced game and

you know, selling a new game every couple of years, right? And you're, moving on to the next project, you know, as soon as your game is out, at least until fairly recently when with the advent of games as a service, a lot of the games, you know, they would just get shipped and then you start the next project immediately. So there's nothing really to optimize or there's no chance even to, to optimize in the development cycle for saving money in the servers, unless you are running a game like Fortnite or something with big servers. And then, yeah, that's, think where it's probably starting to happen.

Gaël Duez (32:59)

And where things are starting to move, because you mentioned several times the business models, but we talk more and more about streaming game. We can also see that some, maybe a fraction, I don't know how big it is, but of the gaming industry is focusing or refocusing on the narrative, the beauty of the story and the beauty of the gameplay rather than the beauty of the game itself. So.

Are these trends potent or are they still marginal? And what is changing in the industry that could positively impact the reduction of its environmental footprint?

Maria Wagner (33:36)

I think actually that the industry is getting more mature at the moment because of the problems it has been through or is still in. I think before the eyes were also not on the industry that much. So there has been this discussion within the industry, are games political?

or not, you know, do we have a responsibility as game developers to be political? And I think it also goes into do we have a responsibility to decarbonize or is this up for our service providers and the politicians to deal with that topic? And I think at the moment there is a change that the industry is getting more more mature and is ready to take on more responsibility.

Just because we have on the one hand the regulation and also politics are getting more and more interested in games and what is going on on the platforms. yeah, I think also the society is now a little bit more aware that that the games industry is a huge industry. And before...

they were able to just be something on the side and be not heard of.

Gaël Duez (34:55)

It's the number one media today, maybe with video streaming, but I'm not even sure. think video gaming is bigger than video streaming. And just to bounce back on what you've said, I've never heard about a single cultural product which is not political per se. By not willing to be political, it is political, it means that it's just conservative. And I guess if you look at the story of Call of Duty,

Gaël Duez (35:22)

It's just a living recruitment ad for the US Army and it has been copycat by almost all the armies around the world for recruiting purpose. So it is very political what you put in the game.

So let's play a game, pun intended. Let's say that we are a team of a small indie studio, because big, big cooperation, it's a different story. And we are, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 people in the room. And we are brainstorming And we're saying, OK, what are the top three things

that we should consider changing or we should consider start doing to truly make our games sustainable.

According to you, would be the three things that a small indie studio should consider?

Ben (36:16)

certainly I think the top one is to support older hardware because that's the big challenge, right? A lot of the games industry, we have the solutions, we just need to kind of implement them so we can buy renewable electricity and we can run our servers on renewable electricity.

do digital downloads renewably as well, but when it comes to hardware, that's just always going to have a huge emissions and huge other environmental footprint attached. doing things to opt out of the hardware upgrade cycle to make devices last longer, I think is the number one thing for a small team to do.

Maria Wagner (36:57)

I actually would agree when it comes to that and my number two would be get in touch with other studios who are already working on the topic because like I still think that at the moment the industry is barely connected when it comes to sustainability and games and there are a lot of great examples out there.

And of course, yeah, like talk to us because we can provide you with the tools to measure your impact.

Gaël Duez (37:32)

you mentioned several times the framework or actually the tools that the SDA can provide to anyone in the gaming industry to help get better measurement or calculation. you want to say something about it.

Ben (37:49)

Thanks Gael. at the SGA our main mission is to produce a methodological standard for how we measure, how we collect the data and how we calculate the end greenhouse gas burden of making games, of playing games, of selling, distributing games, the whole value chain.

we're working on this standard and it's going to be an open source standard. It's going to be open to anyone to use and apply. And we want as much input as possible. Like we're already consulting with lots of games companies. The goal of it really is to just save everyone a whole bunch of time, right?

Gaël Duez (38:28)

And is it more a tool or a or a framework? Is it like plug and play? That's my first question. You know, you've just dropped numbers from, I don't know, your accounting system or wherever you need those numbers from. Or is it more something that you get your own people trained to understand how to apply this methodology into your company?

Gaël Duez (38:53)

That will be my question number one and my question number two, because it might be a bit related, is how connected is this work that you're doing with the GHG protocol or other, I would say, meta protocol or meta way of measuring the footprint?

Ben (39:09)

So it is a little hard to describe because it is a work in progress. We obviously have massive big vision for it. We want it to be like the kind of plug and play thing. You can just like connect it up to all your existing systems. But at the moment, it's just a set of methodologies and some spreadsheets that I've made to kind of test the methodologies and.

and work as a tool for people who maybe don't have anything to use at the moment.

Maria Wagner (39:36)

I mean, basically, our goal is to help the games companies to comply with CSRD. So the methodology sits on the baseline of the greenhouse gas protocol and the ESRS. So it is basically helping the games companies to understand all this blurry lines.

which the greenhouse gas protocol leaves open at the moment. So what we are doing with this at the moment spreadsheets and supportive numbers is that we reduce the time and efforts of the companies to doing the research themselves and also to be alone making this decision, decisions which are going into the reporting.

For example, what is material for my studio? This is something which you cannot put into a spreadsheet or a calculation. This is something which you need to decide case by case. And what we are doing is we helping the industry to have this conversations and decide basically what is material and what is not. So they're not alone.

At the moment, this legislation is still a moving target. So it would be stupid to now develop like a tool, right? Because it would be outdated in two months. So it's kind of a moving target. And we are offering a community with experts discussing all these topics. like this poor...

reporting sustainability managers are not alone having to make these decisions, but that they can basically connect with each other, exchange knowledge, and in that sense, save themselves time and share best practices.

Gaël Duez (41:30)

So I've got a better understanding of what is currently offered by the sustainable gaming aliens and the big vision I would say. So thanks a lot both of you. I think we have some sort of an action plan now with the brainstorming exercise plus the explanations you provided with the SGA methodology.

Maria Wagner (41:53)

And when it comes to the story, I...wanted to add on that a little bit. Of course, it always depends on what kind of game you're developing. But sometimes the stories within games are very focused on extraction of goods. I think game developers should just like, but I think most of the game developers do, just be more aware of what kind of story

do you convey to your players? Does it always have to be gather everything and throw it away afterwards? Does it need to be this extraction? Because there are already more and more games which are keeping that in mind, that there is always a cost to extraction. But this is something which is quite new, I would say.

Gaël Duez (42:47)

Yeah, we should create an extension to Age of Empire, where actually when you ran out of mine, you know, and especially gold or whatever, it's not like stable because it happens, you know, I was always very shocked when I used to play with this game that, okay, it's over. You know, we collected everything on the map and it's over and you stay at the same level of civilization and it should be like an immediate drop back to...

prehistorical age, like you don't have the gold to pay whatever the resources are. Boom, end of game, end of civilization. But I got your point that the philosophy of being a bit more aware of how our biosphere works and that it's not just extract, extract and strike and then the game is over because actually in the real world, we don't want the game to be over.

Gaël Duez (43:39)

Ben, you want to add another action?

Ben (43:42)

It's probably a little bit less relevant for small indie studios, but it's still something they can do. it's actually something that the Microsoft Xbox sustainability team pioneered. So what they realized is that there is a lot of waste in games, a lot of wasted energy. When players are sitting on a menu screen because they're in between rounds or they've gone off to make a

cup of tea or get some food or whatever. You don't need to be pushing all those pixels on a idle state, right? So, and they worked with a couple of different studios, big studios, small studios. And they realized that, yeah, if you just shave a few frames per second off the menu screen and you lower the resolution,

you can save a substantial amount of power from that device while it's in that state. And I think the result for Epic Games who make Fortnite was in the order of megawatt hours of power a day, just from this one change. So if you've got a really big audience, you can make a big impact.

And that's pretty amazing because it's user aware electricity consumption. Like if no one is actually using the game, no need to consume crazy amount of energy if I follow you right here. But could we envision a word when we move a step forward with carbon aware? Like if I know that my electricity grid is highly carbonized at the moment because of the time of the day or because where I am, I will...

offer my user to maybe play with a lower quality or resolution being a bit degraded Or is it something that at least at the R &D stage, like not being rolled out already, is something considered on it's a bit of a taboo, like all the time best services ever should be delivered to our user?

Ben (45:38)

I think it's possible. It's definitely achievable. I think the barriers there are actually just cultural. is like, we've always got to have the most powerful, most beautiful image. And we are starting to see attitudes in gamers change. A bit of research done in 2021, think, asked gamers, a thousand gamers in the US, like

Ben (46:04)

a whole bunch of climate and sustainability related questions. And even then, a majority of them said, yeah, the games industry has a responsibility to reduce its emissions. So I think players are starting to be aware of this. it's up, it's at the point where we just need to connect those desires with the solutions that developers already have.

Maria Wagner (46:26)

I'm just thinking, it wasn't the eco mode version, like the Fortnite event, what they did. I mean, it was playing with reduced frame rate, as far as I know, but there was no study done how the players received it, right?

Yeah, I'm not aware of, I can't remember what was in the white paper. They have a published white paper that you can go look at and see. But I think the goal mainly there was to be as unobtrusive as possible. It's really not a thing yet in the games industry to connect with those gamers that do have those green impulses and make use of them.

Maria Wagner (47:12)

Also, sorry to add on that, I definitely think that there is the potential and for like an indie game studio, in that sense, I would say the number one thing would be to get together with others and put pressure on the big service providers, the platforms, or not pressure, but like working with them together to decarbonize the whole industry.

Because I think if we see the big picture and we have comparable numbers, it will be way easier to decarbonize as a whole industry than one studio doing little tweaks.

Gaël Duez (47:51)

Before closing the podcast, know that you've already shared some resources, but is there any other resources on top of the SGA and your book, Ben, that you'd like to share that could be very, very useful for a tech worker in the gaming industry?

Maria Wagner (48:07)

I think at the moment we are also shooting a bunch of different interviews with industry experts. And I think it's actually interesting to hear what is happening there. So this is definitely something I encourage people to look into because we are interviewing the different sustainability managers with their challenges and solutions within the industry.

we are really coming from the industry and the solutions we design are for the game developers, like really for people working at the games and which will be applicable. like Yirik Kupyainen, who is one of the founders and had won the ideas, is an engineer himself. He had a bunch of like

Maria Wagner (48:55)

companies within the industry. also, Petri Jerviletto is one of the co-founders of Remedy, who is backing us. And of course, also David Helgeson, the founder of Unity. So we are backed by industry experts.

Gaël Duez (49:15)

So thanks a lot for these extra resources and extra explanations on what you're trying to achieve with the SGA. Now, traditionally, and this time I will make no exception, I love to close the podcast with a positive note. So I would like to ask both of you, what is the positive piece of news that you would like to share regarding sustainability and maybe even sustainability in the gaming industry?

Ben (49:41)

well, yeah, so I was really encouraged by the recent publication in, think it was a nature journal, looking at the effect of what, I guess what we might consider the more extreme climate protesters was on public sentiment. I think they ran a study on the public public opinion after like before and after the just up oil intervention that I think threw some soup on the, on one of those artistic works.

And the result was actually that rather than like harming the cause or anything actually it the support for more moderate climate sustainability action rose after those sort of extreme interventions. So I thought that was really encouraging. It just made me want to like go out and do the Andreas Malm thing and blow up a pipeline.

Maria Wagner (50:31)

Yeah, I think it's very encouraging to see that more more companies are reporting on their scope three emissions because of course on the one hand they have to anyway because of the European regulations but it's encouraging to see that also a lot of companies doing that like out of free will.

and that we get more and more data within the market. And because of that, it is also more and more clear that we need to have more refined methodologies and that we are basically all connected because I think many times we think we can sweep over the responsibility to someone else. But when it comes to solving climate change or decarbonizing the industry,

It's really about working together. yeah, think, yeah, seeing more and more companies disclosing their scope three emissions is something which will help to recognize that.

Gaël Duez (51:34)

So transparency in working together. I think that could be the tagline of this episode.

Maria Wagner (51:39)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, actually, yeah.

Gaël Duez (51:42)

So thanks a lot both of you for joining the show. I think I will very carefully consider which kind of device I will buy to put under the Christmas tree.

As I said in the introduction, that's a sector I absolutely have no clue on how it works. So I learnt a lot thanks to both of you. once again, it was great to have you on the show and I hope that we will keep on having a very interesting discussion.

Ben (52:07)

Thanks, Gael. It's great.

Maria Wagner (52:08)

Thank you, thank you,

Gaël Duez (52:11)

Thank you for listening to this Green.io episode. If you enjoyed it, share it and give us five stars on Apple Podcast or Spotify. We are an independent media relying solely on you to get more listeners. Sharing this episode on social media or directly with a colleague or a relative working in the tech industry is also highly efficient to switch more responsible technologists in action mode. In our next episode,

We will welcome Annie Freeman, who's based in New Zealand. Full disclosure, I'm completely biased with this country. And we will deep dive into a concrete use case, the building of an internal product in our company to calculate carbon emissions of each software component of each team using data from Climatic. Stay tuned. By the way, Greenire is a podcast in much more.

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one byte at a time.

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They both went to this job interview to hone their skills, and got a dream job at Microsoft! In its fast-growing and AI-pioneered Azure division. With a romance on top of it…

Yet several years later, they decided to both resign. Why? On sustainability ground, and more specifically for the lack of support on “enabled emissions” issues. 

Holly and Will Alpine are now the Bonnie & Clyde of Azure and give us insider perspectives, in a nuanced and well-documented way, on this “elephant in the room” about sustainability claims in all big tech companies.

In the final part of this 2-part episode, great insights were shared on :

   🤯 What is enabled carbon and why it offsets by far all Microsoft achievements 

   😈 Devil is in the details from tailored solutions to “carbon-neutral” oil company not following standard definitions of “net-zero”

   ✨ Can responsible AI principles really not mention anything about the environment? 

   ⚖️ Why regulation will ultimately be needed

   ♀️✊ And … the Pussy Riot!

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Gaël Duez (00:00)
Got it. So if I understand, if I can wrap up the first part of this podcast episode, you joined Microsoft because you believed in the brands. Both of you, you were part of a super strong grassroots movement who achieved significant results when it comes to sustainability across all countries

where Microsoft is operating. You listed some significant achievement, whether it's your local community program, Holly, deploying SCI, not necessarily at scale, but at least testing it in a very serious production environment for you will. So it was pretty good time. Am I correct to say so?

Holly Alpine (00:40)
Yeah.

Will (00:40)
I'd say it's been one of the best times of my career thus far, and especially seeing the impact that we've both made at such a scale has been truly rewarding. I'm grateful for the experience.

Gaël Duez (00:50)
Okay, so thanks a lot for sharing it.
But now I think it's time to ask the $1 million question, At some point, both of you, you decided to leave and you didn't do it that quietly. So could you tell us a bit the story here? And I recall the basis for your decision of Microsoft on cloud and AI. Could you explain us a bit well what you wanted to say with this very strong word.

Will (01:24)
Let's start with the science. The world needs to reduce emissions by 50 % by 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement targets. And the IEA, a industry friendly group, has stated in its net zero by 2050 report that no new oil and gas natural fields are required beyond those that are already approved for development. So when the science is telling us that we don't need more oil and gas,

We at the same time have technology companies providing advanced technology such as AI, IoT and high-performance computing to oil and gas companies to help them dramatically increase and expand their fossil fuel production. It raises the question, is AI truly a climate tool or is a weapon? Now AI is often hailed as an essential tool to address climate change, but the reality is that it's actually being weaponized by the fossil fuel industry.

And this advanced digital technology is seen as a quote, game changer in optimizing oil and gas exploration, drilling and production, which drives untold emissions and hinders an equitable energy transition. so Microsoft really exemplifies the cognitive dissonance that we're facing here. is promoting AI's potential to expedite decarbonization while simultaneously aggressively marketing its AI solutions and custom technology.

to these fossil fuel giants. And in essence, it's fueling the single biggest industry to the climate crisis. And so the issue that we're actually talking about here is we define as enabled emissions. These enabled emissions are defined as emissions that would have not been possible without the use of advanced technology. And specifically, these enabled emissions are facilitating new oil and gas production and enabling continued fossil fuel expansion.

despite the fact that the science is saying that we don't need to do so.

Gaël Duez (03:20)
enabled emissions is a core concept here to understand what push you away from Microsoft. this enabled emission concept was something framed internally at Microsoft or was it something more brought by the scientific community?

Will (03:38)
I don't think we are the first to have coined the term enabled emissions. I believe it's actually an industry term, but it's something that we within Microsoft formalized. Sometimes it's called serviced emissions and there's actually a broad movement around that. And that's specifically in the professional services provider industry. But enabled emissions could better be called technology enabled emissions, which is the specific flavor that we are most familiar with and we're advocating for change around.

Gaël Duez (04:07)
enabled emissions. Holly, how was it tackled from this huge sustainability community that has been gathered as you described previously as a grassroots movement? Was it something that was discussed?

Holly Alpine (04:22)
This topic was discussed within the employee community at Microsoft. I would say most employees though were unaware of the extent that Microsoft was supporting increased fossil fuel production. A lot of employees like us work and love Microsoft because of its sustainability commitments and it was really quite

disappointing and devastating to a lot of employees to see so just how deeply Microsoft was embedded with these fossil fuel companies and reading the explicit goals around expanding production with Exxon or generating new exploration opportunities with Chevron or accelerating extracted and refined hydrocarbons with BP. We use the word hypocrisy because

those statements and those very explicit goals are so starkly at odds with Microsoft's extremely outspoken stance on the ethics of technology and sustainability and other quotes from senior leadership around Microsoft's role in climate change and committing to helping the societal conditions to cultivate a net zero economy.

enabling a just transition, mean, extremely strong quotes and stance around pursuing Microsoft's mission and the enormous responsibility to ensure the technology that they build benefits everyone on the planet, including the planet itself. So we did speak internally about this topic and employees were

pretty distraught and I mean a lot of what we heard from employees it was around how the work is hypocritical that Microsoft needs their relationship with customers to focus on renewables and tech innovation and delivering safe and reliable and clean energy. And they hated the idea that as hard as they work as a company to drive sustainability goals, one big Azure contract with an oil and gas company could put

any progress in jeopardy by actually increasing global emissions. And I'm paraphrasing here from the quotes from a survey that we sent out to the employee community to ask about their opinions on enabled emissions.

Gaël Duez (07:00)
And that's a very important point that you've raised and thanks for the clarification. And I really want to make sure I understood it right. Because when I read the stories first reported in newspapers about you quitting and being some sort of whistleblowers on it, my question was, is it an ethical dilemma or a scientific dilemma? by that, mean, was it a question of Microsoft supporting companies

that it shouldn't support and claiming kind of the opposite like we're here to bring technology to save the world, blah, blah. So it's bad from an ethical perspective. Or is it also a scientific issue, meaning that the numbers are really worrisome? And by that, mean that by helping fossil fuels expand their production,

Holly Alpine (07:36)
Mm-hmm.

Gaël Duez (07:52)
It is actually offsetting in the wrong sense any other progress that Microsoft are doing. So how much thousands of millions of tons are we talking from one side and from the other?

Holly Alpine (08:01)
Yeah, yeah, so it's both. But we can tell you that back in 2019, Microsoft published a press release around a deal with Exxon to expand production by 50,000 barrels per day by 2025. And we did the carbon math and had it checked by carbon experts.

and the annual metric tons of CO2 increase from this one deal was about six and a half million metric tons per year. That is 640 % of Microsoft's annual carbon removal pledge of 2020 from one deal. There was another contract that we've seen with Chevron and that works stream increased production. So this is what we're saying enabled emissions.

emissions that would otherwise not occur if not for Microsoft technology was increasing their production

barrels per day. That gives you about 51 million metric tons of CO2 per year. That is 2000 % of Microsoft's 2021 carbon removal, about 300%.

of Microsoft's entire carbon footprint for FY23.

Gaël Duez (09:26)
Okay, got it. it's a serious ethical

massive climate science issue that has been raised. We're talking about numbers completely offsetting any pledges, any offsetting programs, any progress made by Microsoft worldwide.

Am I getting this right? Because that's a very important piece of your case against Microsoft, if I got it right.

Holly Alpine (09:52)
That's correct. And one of the things that we would like to do going forward is come up with some estimates for what that total is worldwide. We would like to put the numbers into context on a global scale. And that's one of the things that we need to do, because we know that it's a lot from just these two deals. And so we want to show what it could be.

globally with all of the deals and have some sort of estimates for that.

Will (10:23)
specifically the impacts that it could have on net zero pathways. I do want to add that from what we've seen today based on case studies, oil and gas companies are using advanced digital technologies to increase their yield by up to 15%. And so imagine increasing the world's fossil fuel production by 15 % using this advanced technology provided by big tech.

Imagine what impact that really has on the net zero projections. From what we've seen, it has not been factored into any of the discussion, let alone the modeling. And that is terrifying. I think this will break our chances of a habitable.

Gaël Duez (11:04)
So that's truly terrifying. And yet I'd like, if you indulge me to do so, to play a bit the devil's advocate here, because I've met countless of people still working at Microsoft, working at Amazon, working at Google, and they're facing all the time this kind of dilemma. my first question would be, yes, but what about the use of technology and especially machine learning AI, if you indulge me there?

broad word, to reduce the emissions from the fossil fuel industry. And I'm especially thinking about methane. Was it included this potential savings or even complete disappearance of methane emissions, thanks to AI in the estimate, the mass, you say, the Holy, that were done by a scientist when you estimated

carbon emissions, mean the greenhouse gases emissions to be a bit more precise from this increase in production from Chevron and BP.

Will (12:03)
To be clear, we'd never completed the math. That's something that we were advocating is done. And one that includes the net impacts of both. I will say that the Atlantic published an article which compared the emissions reductions from using advanced technology on, I think it was Shell's operations and compared it to Shell's overall carbon footprint. And it was, I think I quote, paltry in comparison. It's a fraction of a percent.

Gaël Duez (12:29)
Okay.

got it. My second question is, okay, but what should Microsoft do regarding the current economic environment, way of doing business, et cetera?

should be according to your past experience, the right attitude from Microsoft toward the fossil fuel industry. Because I guess many C-level might say, hey, if we don't get these deals, others will do it, maybe even less cleaner than we are. And we cannot really afford losing these clients. I could list a lot of pushback stances, I would say. According to you,

what is true, what is false, what is debatable here.

Will (13:13)
You know, you actually you raise a great point and I want to mention to start. This is not just Microsoft. This is an industry wide issue. The initial reasoning was we you know Microsoft needs a seat at the table to have these discussions, but change doesn't happen at scale. If you just go by one technology provider at the time, this has to be regulated mandated. The campaign only focuses on Microsoft because Microsoft has up to 65 % share of the market, but.

corporations like Google have publicly committed to not provide custom technology to the upstream oil and gas industry. That is a gold standard and it's something that Microsoft seems to be unwilling to do. But there are things that Microsoft could do. For example, align its responsible AI principles to include environmental harms. It's not a big leap to make the jump between harms to the planet and harms to people.

things like impact assessments could be done. This could really readily be operationalized in a way that is good for business and good for the planet.

Holly Alpine (14:15)
I can add on to that too. So just to elaborate on that a bit. So Microsoft has responsibly AI standards that evaluate their impacts of their technology and avoid human harms. They just currently do not include environment. And so just rolling that up into that just to add a little bit to what Will was saying. But another thing that Microsoft can do is Microsoft has published

energy principles for how they'll work with the oil and gas industry. One of the main principles that they have to make change is that they'll only work with oil and gas companies that have a net zero target. At first, that sounds great. Net zero, that's where the world needs to go. But when you really drill down, pun intended, into that principle, you find that

Will (15:05)
you

Holly Alpine (15:08)
this net zero target that those companies, the oil and gas companies need to set only includes their operational emissions. Basically how they power their office buildings. It's only scope one and two. It does not include the fuels themselves. And so that is, we believe, just a glaring omission. And we have asked Microsoft when we were there,

to follow standards for net zero. There are some fantastic standards that exist like the IIGCC's net zero standard for oil and gas or the UN high level expert groups net zero standard. And if they could follow those standards then that would actually have a credible net zero rather than right now we believe is extremely misleading.

Will (15:59)
And so what you're saying is really great. In essence, what we're advocating for is to align business activities with climate science. So you can't have a net zero commitment without basing it in science.

Holly Alpine (16:11)
and aligning to the climate science that Microsoft very strongly supports. mean, have published, mean, their Accelerating Sustainability with AI playbook that Will was a part of crafting talks about how society needs to push harder on the AI accelerator while establishing guardrails.

to steer the world safely, securely and equitably towards net zero emissions and a nature positive future. And we just see that as starkly at odds with their actual business practices. And yes, if Microsoft stopped, maybe these companies would move to So yes, it needs to be a tech-wide issue, but we can't just capitulate to the system because of those reasons.

This is the future of the planet we're talking about. And some of the most profitable company in the world with extremely intelligent people that can absolutely come up with solutions going forward.

Gaël Duez (17:13)
So here, yeah.

Will (17:13)
the most profitable company in the planet cannot do this, then what I is that...

Gaël Duez (17:19)
Yeah, that's my point is how much are we talking about? guess even if it's big, the revenues coming from contracts with the oil and gas industry doesn't make more than 1 % or 2 % of the overall revenue streams from Microsoft. Am I right or am I completely missing the point here?

Will (17:40)
not so sure. I'd love to see transparency, but I think that's unlikely that that information will be shared. But according to the recent Atlantic report, the digital technology oil and gas market is somewhere between 30 and $70 billion for that total addressable market. And that is a sizable share of Microsoft's cloud and AI revenue.

Gaël Duez (18:00)
So it will make a significantly more important effort from a business perspective, which is completely insane regarding the basic survival of a specie, but that's another point. So that will be a significant effort. Like Microsoft could issue a profit warning saying, okay, we decided to stop our work with the oil and gas industry,

Holly Alpine (18:22)
but I will have to interject there because we have never and we will never ask for Microsoft to completely cut ties with the oil and gas industry. That is, we know, not something that is possible and we think unrealistic. But we don't think that what Microsoft should and the industry at large should be doing with these companies is increasing production that is completely at odds.

with the climate science and with what the top climate researchers say needs to happen. when we know that new oil and gas reserves

necessary, as Will mentioned at the beginning of this episode,

Gaël Duez (19:06)
Do you really have this kind of overview on how Microsoft products are used by their customers? Because let's say that, okay, we don't want to cut ties with the entire oil and gas industry. So we keep the contract with Chevron going on. We provide services here and there, et cetera. How can you make a difference?

whether they use this for increasing the effectiveness and the cleanliness of their day-to-day operation or exploring new fields and increasing their production. can you say how using your products and...

differentiate and say, okay, we allow you to use that kind of algorithm because I know we use it for purposeful, positively impactful way, or we don't want you to use this machine learning algorithm because it will be to explore some new rig fields.

Will (19:59)
So I want to circle back to the point I made about Google earlier. Google has publicly committed to not providing customized technology to the upstream oil and gas industry. And I want to emphasize customized technology here because that's a lot of what's happening. It's not just, hey, here's a generic model. Let it lose on the world. This is custom technology with millions of dollars in revenue associated or staff.

Gaël Duez (20:03)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Will (20:26)
several staff behind it that are customizing this advanced technology for specifically upstream oil and gas scenarios. So finding and extracting more

Gaël Duez (20:35)
Yeah, I think that that

Will (20:35)
So if Microsoft followed something like Google's guidance, then it could possibly reach parity with its competitors.

Gaël Duez (20:42)
Okay, got it. This is the point I wanted to reach to make sure that we are on the same page and we're really talking about customized services. So people will use all the regular Azure solutions off the shelf, but they will not have access potentially to data scientists, experts, product manager, helping them to fine tune models, et cetera, to increase oil production. I'm at right here.

Will (21:09)
That is part of it, but I do also really want to emphasize regulation is necessary here. It's an unregulated industry, but having transparency, mandated transparency as to what use cases are being supported with what technology. Full accounting, that would be required by law to put guardrails on what this technology is used for or not used for.

Gaël Duez (21:15)
Hmm.

And actually, I would love to follow a bit on you here, Will, because I was struck when you say that Microsoft AI responsible policy doesn't include any environmental aspects, which seems a bit insane for me. So how would you see a more responsible use of AI, including but not only the environmental impact, being enforced? In the European Union, we...

have the AI Act, which has been enforced, with massive pushback from the industry, massive lobbying of big American and European tech companies saying that it will kill innovations, that Europe is already a lagga behind China and the US, and that will get even worse, et cetera, et cetera. So how do you see the possibility of a regulation that doesn't kill innovation in the AI industry?

And once again, sorry for using the buzzword AI, but I think we all understand that it covers mostly algorithm, machine learning stuff, and not necessarily chat GPT here.

Will (22:36)
not convinced that regulation kills innovation. I believe that you could still be mandated to provide an inventory of the use cases of the technology to inform future decision making. I think you could mandate that certain environmentally sensitive applications such as upstream oil and gas go through what could be called a sensitive uses review process and establish governance there and then report that out to stakeholders.

That would not kill innovation in my eyes. That would possibly only help the planet, help the employees, and help people.

Holly Alpine (23:12)
Yeah, I agree with Will and we had an environmentally responsible AI memo that kind of wrote up what Will was just saying and provided it to Microsoft leadership who agreed with our stance. It just was not implemented.

Gaël Duez (23:30)
So I'd like to move on now that I think we've got a very clear understanding, at least from my point of view, what is at stake here and why this word has been used and all this climate science issue that you raised that goes even beyond the ethical issue and how devils is in the details, whether it's

regarding working with oil companies that are committed to go net zero, but net zero on scope one and two, which is complete nonsense regarding what is at stake with the scope

Holly Alpine (24:07)
Mm-hmm.

Gaël Duez (24:09)
of the oil industry and also the customized aspect. think you covered quite a lot and explained quite a lot in details. And eventually, both of you decided to leave. And I'd like to talk a bit more now from a personal

I've spotted at least two, if not three articles where you explained why and you used some very strong words against a company, not the people, the people were never attacked, but the company and its strategy.

My first question would be, what was the news What was the momentum around this debate?

Holly Alpine (24:49)
Those have been the three main articles so far. We've also recorded a few podcasts so far and will not be the last. The uptake has been really fantastic from these stories and it's been slightly uncomfortable to have the story be about our journey and.

what we did and how we decided to leave because what we really want is coverage of the content. We want the public and employees and shareholders to be more aware of how this technology is being used. That is the main purpose of everything that we're doing right now. But we do know that having a narrative helps folks follow along the story, it gets more readership.

That's been part of our journey. yeah, we've had a lot of really great feedback so far, a lot of people being very surprised by this information, but really seeing the importance of it. So we hope to continue that momentum. Of course, we've seen also some folks who disagree with our position, which of course is gonna happen, but I think...

Overall, we've seen a lot more support than we have detractors.

Gaël Duez (26:10)
Okay, so people working in the tech industry at large, I would say, have sent you more positive feedback than negative feedback regarding your current stance.

Holly Alpine (26:21)
Yes.

Gaël Duez (26:22)
Okay, and what about Microsoft?

Holly Alpine (26:24)
We haven't heard anything from Microsoft directly. When we were at Microsoft, we worked for years internally to try to make change in this space. It was very collaborative with some of the top senior leadership of the company. We co-wrote a memo back in 2019, I believe that really framed the issue and met with senior leadership and they...

really completely agreed with us on almost every single one of our recommendations. We came up with a very detailed and comprehensive list of recommendations for going forward, what they could actually implement. We didn't just say, you know, this is bad, stop everything. It was very well thought out recommendations. We got a lot of promises that ultimately went unfulfilled.

And including one of the reactions from the senior leadership from the president of Microsoft was being surprised that environment was not part of the responsible AI principles, which was surprising to us given that he was executive sponsor of those principles. But ultimately over the couple years that we saw these promises go unfulfilled, we really realized that internal pressure alone,

was not going to make the change required. We are not saying that internal pressure does not work and that we should give up. We did not quit because we were giving up. We were quitting because we realized we needed both, the internal to continue as well as now pressure from external position.

Will (28:05)
And I'd actually like to add on to what Holly was saying. From an external position, we're still really actively working on this. And there are three parts that we're doing. One is around raising awareness and educating the public as to the scope of the issue that we're facing here. The next is around mobilizing a coalition and engaging different stakeholders, be it regulators, be it shareholders,

building a support network here to really amplify. And the third is that we're advocating for and advancing research and policy reform. So those are three aspects of what we're doing about it and things that need to happen.

Gaël Duez (28:45)
But it's a bit strange not to have an official answer from Microsoft because that looks like a public relation nightmare that they're dealing at the moment. So they decided to go for the silent treatment.

Holly Alpine (28:59)
Well, they were interviewed for the Atlantic article. Daryl Willis, the CVP of Energy and Industry, who was our main contact, we worked with closely at Microsoft, was interviewed for Atlantic. It was pretty generic and he said that it's complicated many, many times. I think it was what, Will, like 11 or 14 times in their interview, which we just don't think is a sufficient response.

Will (29:19)
11 times, yeah.

Holly Alpine (29:27)
We will point out that he came from a background of BP. He was an executive at BP for many, years and was a spokesperson during Deepwater Horizon. So he knows a thing or two about public relations.

Gaël Duez (29:41)
Okay. And what about other hyperscalers or massive solution vendors? Did they leverage the opportunity to have this debate or to witness this debate focusing a bit on Microsoft also to clarify their own positions? Will you mention Google or was it complete silence from all top executives regarding this enabled

emissions question.

Will (30:06)
I'm not aware of any reactions from the rest of Big Tech.

Holly Alpine (30:10)
Yeah, not yet.

Gaël Duez (30:11)
Okay.

Will (30:12)
But again, it's important to mobilize stakeholders and employees across the entire tech sector. This is not just a Microsoft issue, this is a global issue.

Holly Alpine (30:21)
Right, yeah, and sorry, that's kind of what I mean by not yet, that we're just not there yet because we just left not that long ago, but as we continue to push, do expect, I mean, that is a big part of our campaign is having that cross-industry collaboration. I would not be surprised, I I hope that we get a response before long.

Gaël Duez (30:44)
That will be excellent. OK, I've questioned you because I don't think I grilled you. I questioned you for almost an hour and a half. It's getting super late for you, Well, you've got dolphins and whales and and fishes to take care of. So maybe it's time to not necessarily wrap up, but actually open to a bit more personal angle. This is really a question I wanted to ask you.

Holly Alpine (30:58)
Hehehehe

Will (31:01)
Yeah.

Gaël Duez (31:12)
knowing that I would say thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people working in big corporations, working in big tech companies and having strong environmental values are facing like should I stay or should I go? You decided to go, it went with some media exposure. So from a personal angle,

How do you deal with all the pressure?

Holly Alpine (31:38)
guess it's been really important to get support from folks who have also left their companies or are struggling within their own companies that they're still working at, but having this, just feeling this dissonance and just kind of feeling like there's a community out there who all feels this way and we're...

very, very far from alone. And we've gotten such nice messages from people who say that they're inspired, you know, that's such an amazing thing to hear that people will now speak up more inside their companies or at least speak more with their colleagues and think about what more they could do internally. So that's a way to kind of...

deal with the pressure and also luckily we have each other. I I'm so grateful to have Will as my partner in all of this. It's a challenge to do this kind of really high pressure work with your significant other, but it also has massive benefits.

Will (32:52)
And I'd actually like to add on to what Holly was saying, actually with the quote from the founder of Pussy Riot, the punk band that was persecuted by Putin because they were seen as a threat for their activism. Courage is contagious. Any act of speaking the truth can cause incalculable transformations in social consciousness. We all have this power. It's a moral act to use this power. You may or may not achieve the results you wanted, but there's eternal beauty.

Gaël Duez (32:52)
Is it?

Will (33:19)
and trying to find truth, risking what you have, you've got for what's right.

I think that summarizes my personal stance.

Gaël Duez (33:26)
Well, we'll usually ask people to close on a positive piece of news. But I think this is the perfect quote to end the podcast. I just wanted to add on a more personal note, congratulations for your wedding. Because I know that we were actually preparing the episode while you were getting engaged and then married. So all my best to both of you.

Holly Alpine (33:45)
He

Thank you, yeah, it's been good.

Will (33:51)
Our first wedding anniversary came up not too long ago.

Gaël Duez (33:55)
Excellent. And I really wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart to take the time to join the podcast, to take so much time to elaborate the context, what drive your decisions, go a bit into the details of what is at stake here. I think you brought a lot of valuable content to the audience of this podcast and beyond. Thanks a lot, both of you. And I wish you the very, very best for the rest of your fight.

Holly Alpine (34:22)
Thank you, yeah, it's past 1 a.m. for me, so time to sleep. Thank you so much.

Will (34:23)
Thank you so much for having us. Pleasure chatting.

Gaël Duez (34:29)
I can't imagine. Thanks a lot both of you and talk to you soon.

Okay.

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They both went to this job interview to hone their skills, and got a dream job at Microsoft! In its fast-growing and AI-pioneered Azure division and with a romance on top of it… 💕
Yet several years later, Holly and Will Alpine decided to both resign. Why? On sustainability ground, and more specifically for the lack of support on the “enabled emissions” issues. 🕵️
Holly and Will are now the Bonnie & Clyde of Azure and they provide us with an insider perspective, in a nuanced and well-documented way, on this “elephant in the room” in all big tech companies: are their sustainability claims offset by the so-called enabled emissions? 🐘

In this first part of this 2-part episode, Holly and Will shared great insights with Gaël Duez on: 
   🌱 Microsoft’s employee grassroot sustainability initiative which gathers now more than ten thousands people 
   ⚖️ The opportunity cost for most middle management to support sustainability initiatives
   🛠️ The difference between attributional and consequential methodologies and why it impacts the adoption of SCI enabled tools
   💰 Can investing millions in local community support justify the increasing data center expansion?

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Gaël Duez (01:53.354)

Today, I'm joined by the Bonnie and Clyde of Microsoft Azure, two experts in their respective fields who had a dream job in a company which they were proud of working for with significant achievements in their missions as well as their internal volunteering activities in the sustainability field and a romance on top of it. Yet, they decided to quit because of what they called Microsoft hypocrisy on AI. 

And here we are talking about millions of tons of greenhouse gases that should not be emitted and are enabled by tech solutions based on machine learning. The exchange I had with Holly Alpine and Will Alpine was so rich that I decided to split it into two episodes. They brought very complimentary perspectives. Holly being the former head of Microsoft Data Center Community Environmental Sustainability and Employee Engagement. And being now on the board of directors of both American Forest and Zero Waste Washington, and by the way, being listed in the green biz 30 under 30, la valeur n'attend pas le nombre des années, as we say in French. 

And Will, being a seasoned AI product manager, also in charge of driving sustainability within Azure across the operational machine learning lifecycle. So bringing a more technical aspect to our discussion. Shall I also add, he's a serious contributor to the software carbon intensity specification as I discovered in the episode. 

One last word before we start. I know I used a catchy statement to introduce the episode and the word hypocrisy is a very strong one. But I was impressed in our discussion how nuanced and balanced were their positions and their claims. Everyone in the tech industry should take a time to pose and reflect on the dilemma they raised because it's not at all a Microsoft only debate. 

Hello Will, Hello Holly, very nice to have you on the show. 

Great to finally have a recording on three different time zones. So we made it. Thanks to you and welcome to the show. 

Will (07:49.437)

Thanks for having us. 

Holly Alpine (07:51.366)

Thank you, glad to be here. 

Gaël Duez (07:54.07)

Yeah, I'm especially happy regarding Will because Will at the moment, if I'm not wrong, you're at sea. Am I right? 

Will (08:04.495)

I am currently on a Sea Shepherd ship in Tasmania. We're doing a refit to prepare the ship for an Arctic voyage. So we're not on the open ocean, but I am on a boat that is floating on the water. 

Gaël Duez (08:17.344)

Okay, pretty cool. What are you doing there? 

Will (08:21.459)

This is part of a campaign to refit a boat from an old fishing vessel into one that's used to fight illegal fishing. So I'm fighting poetic justice in the work that we're doing. 

Gaël Duez (08:31.842)

Well, that's pretty cool. how an engineer, a software engineer or data scientist, I don't know which hat do you want to wear these days, how can you contribute to this kind of campaign? 

Will (08:46.459)

So my past life, I was actually a blacksmith and I picked up skills of welding and fabrication. And then I worked as a mechanical engineer. So I'm actually getting to contribute those to the mission here. It's really nice to reconnect with old selves. 

Gaël Duez (09:02.294)

I can imagine how cool is this. Okay, but let's go back to your old days. I've got thousands of questions to unpack with you. We will try to make it in one, maybe two episodes exceptionally, we'll see. Maybe just before to deep dive in all the different issues you've raised regarding Azure solutions at Microsoft, maybe could you explain us both of you a bit? 

What is to work at Microsoft and especially in the data center division? It's huge, maybe Oli, can you share some numbers to grasp the magnitude of its operations? 

Holly Alpine (09:45.382)

Sure, Microsoft employees, last time I checked about 150,000 people and that's all over the world. We have countless different divisions and different programs and it's particularly with sustainability. They have a corporate sustainability team, but what we were really trying to do is embed sustainability into everything that we did all across the company. a couple years ago, Microsoft was the most profitable company on the planet Earth. 

Gaël Duez (10:20.0)

That's pretty huge. And regarding the size, maybe, Will you can comment on this, the size of the data center operation and the flagship solution, which is Azure. How big is it? I think it's a solid number two behind AWS. Correct me if I'm wrong. 

Will (10:37.075)

believe you're correct. Azure has about 20 % of the global cloud market. so Azure's revenue was about 32 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, and it covers the entire globe. So the operations and the scale is quite staggering. 

Gaël Duez (11:03.667)

Will you meant 32 billions for the entire Microsoft revenue with Azure accounting? For roughly 40 % of it. Am I correct? 

Will (11:24.722)

That's my understanding, yes. 

Gaël Duez (11:38.807)

Well, that's pretty impressive. And regarding the tech stack, I how many data centers, how many, I mean, don't share any confidential information. It could be by order of magnitude, but are we talking about 550, 500, 5,000 hyperscaler facilities worldwide? 

Will (11:56.594)

You know, that's a great question. Actually, according to an article by the Washington Post, it's more than 2,700 data centers nationwide. And a lot of them are from shops that are actually renting out their compute to the hyperscalers. So I can't give you any specifics of the scale of Microsoft specific operations, but the number is in the thousands for data centers. 

Gaël Duez (12:15.829)

in the thousands just for the US. Wow, that's pretty impressive. 

Holly Alpine (12:21.497)

And a number that I saw the other day was that Microsoft is opening a new data center every three days. 

Gaël Duez (12:29.651)

every three days. it's not necessarily building it up from scratch, but it's like opening by using data center providers solutions, but opening a new location. Is it right? Or is it also stuff that they are building up from the ground? 

Holly Alpine (12:48.783)

I think that includes both, it is a combination of different classes, call it class A, B, or C, where it's either Microsoft completely owning the land, they purchase the land, build the data center from scratch, they're buying a building that already exists, but they're putting their servers inside of it, or they're leasing space in co-owned facilities, or some combination. 

Gaël Duez (13:17.483)

Well, that's pretty huge. And just before to jump on this question of the energy consumption, which is very related to all these data centers, popping up like Mushroom, I was just visiting two weeks ago for a client that I will not disclose the name, a very significant, like one of the main data centers north of Paris. 

And it reminds me how huge these facilities are. It's a huge client. mean, they've got a lot of their own servers. They're doing like millions of compute per seconds. So it's pretty impressive. And that was just a tiny part of a, not even the smaller part of the big data centers. And just thinking that we're talking about thousands of them, it's pretty impressive. And fun 

One of the ideas they got after a workshop that we did two weeks ago is we should have every employee visiting the data center again, just to remind people what is at stake here and how big it is, is almost invisible to most employees. I was pretty 

Will (14:29.244)

You know, that's my one regret from my time at Microsoft. I never managed to make a data center visit. 

Gaël Duez (14:35.063)

Really? 

Holly Alpine (14:36.827)

they're pretty hard to go to. now it's pretty impossible to go visit. I used to, based on the work that I was doing, I got to see them in various stages of construction and yeah, they are massive. mean, they're football fields long. You have to drive a car around just the campus. They're so big. 

And you know, they're in communities my main role at Microsoft was looking at the impact to the communities where Microsoft data centers were located and how we could give back and try to be a good neighbor. 

Gaël Duez (15:21.271)

I think we will go on this field, a soccer field or a football field, no jealous. need to pay attention to whoever is listening. So my dear American based friend, let's talk about football, but for the rest of the world, let's talk about soccer. Anyway, I've got maybe two last questions to understand the context 

Do you have any figures regarding the energy consumption? And I know it's just tip of the iceberg, the energy, but the energy consumption of all these data centers providing the Azure solution worldwide. 

Will (16:09.832)

You know, it's a great question and one that's really important and is getting quite a lot of media coverage as of now. I actually spent four years at Microsoft really advocating strongly to reduce the carbon and energy footprint of technology at Microsoft. And so I did want to define the terminology. I will call this the operational emissions. That's from the building and the hosting of the data center. And so by 2030 data centers are expected to use around three to 13 % of global electricity. As compared to 1 % in 2010. And I do want to emphasize the wide range there is because analysts are quietly revising their projections here because simply put, no one knows what the impact really is. 

Gaël Duez (16:54.807)

which is an issue in itself. deep dive maybe on your time at Microsoft and what you did. And let's start maybe with a simple question, Why did you join Microsoft, which seemed to be a dream job? I recall Holly, you were featured in a Fortune article quote recently and the quote was, “I love my job at Microsoft, but I had to resign on principles. Here's why.” You loved your job. Why did you join this job, please? 

Holly Alpine (17:54.137)

Microsoft is a fantastic place to work in so many ways. I really joined Microsoft because of its great reputation. Back then, it wasn't really a sustainability focus. I actually, when I first joined Microsoft, didn't really think of Microsoft in a sustainability capacity at all. I was passionate about sustainability, but just thought that I would need to volunteer outside of my day job. But as I continued at Microsoft over the next 10 years, I met some truly incredible people who were working on sustainability day in, day out, and I was able to create my own roles in sustainability at Microsoft. I started on Microsoft's energy team and our cloud operations and innovation team, basically the data center team. And then I was able to found a new program called Community Environmental Sustainability that was in that same organization. I developed it back in 2017 and was able to invest in nature-based solutions in the global communities where those data centers were operating. And it was fantastic. And I met hundreds, if of people across the company who were very passionate, intelligent, and were really embedding sustainability into everything we did as a company. 

I can speak more to the employee engagement program that I was leading as well, but in my time there, there's so much good to say about Microsoft. I think Will had a pretty good experience there too, yeah Will? 

Will (19:40.196)

I actually joined by way of a happy accident. I was attending and graduating from the University of Washington's Global Exchange program and I was at that moment simply practicing for interviews and I decided to sign up for Microsoft interview and then when I went in it was actually a great experience and I was when I received the offer I became really excited because it was an offer to join the Azure AI platform group which was a really really exciting and innovative place to be and I saw this as a huge lever to make positive change and really impact society at scale and really work with novel technology. So really chasing the promise of impact and innovation. 

Holly Alpine (20:27.695)

You know, that's funny. I don't think I actually knew that well, because I don't know if you know this either, but my interview with Microsoft, I was seeing it as just practice as well. I was in college and even though I had great grades, I just thought, you know, it's Microsoft. There's no way I'm going to be able to get a job there. And so I just went into it thinking it was just practice, but lo and behold, I got the job. And I'm so glad that I didn't skip that interview. 

Will (20:54.706)

Same here. 

Gaël Duez (20:56.225)

That's pretty cool. I think that's a first tip for students and job seekers. Go for your dream interview. Maybe it's practice, but you might eventually land on your dream job. That's a very cool story. And that's quite funny that it happened to both of so these years at Microsoft were very fruitful in terms of sustainability achievements. 

You mentioned the employee engagement. It seems to be a pretty big success. I think the numbers were in 10 of thousands. Could you explain us what it was about and why it was so important, how you managed to achieve such a huge number of people gathered in a community, a sustainability community? 

Holly Alpine (21:50.747)

Yeah, so it was kind of born out of a sense of almost loneliness and wanting to find community. I knew that there were other people at Microsoft who cared about sustainability. There had to be. We just hadn't been able to find each other. And it turned out there were. We just needed a platform to connect. And so a colleague and I, back in about 2017, founded Microsoft's employee engagement group for sustainability. It was a platform for employees to come together and really be able to engage in the ways that made sense for them. I think what made it so successful was that it was so grassroots grassroots. It was really born out of the programs that we wanted to see as employees and how we wanted to connect and how we wanted to contribute. And so we had many different programs that helped employees to learn more about sustainability. You know, it's a really big topic and there's a lot to learn. So we had various speaker series and different meetings to bring in various experts in their fields. We also had various platforms for employees to really contribute, to start their own projects and to find others who wanted to join their projects. And this could be employees from all across the world and all across the company who otherwise wouldn't have ever maybe been able to meet. it really caught on. And we, as you said, grew the program to over 10,000 employees and across 37 global chapters. And it was really enabling positive environmental change at every level of the company. 

Gaël Duez (23:37.492)

Could you share some some success stories because I understand the idea of gathering a lot of people like minded people in training them or raising their awareness raising their skills in sustainability topics but how did it concretely contributes to changing things at Microsoft? 

Holly Alpine (23:59.865)

Yeah, I guess two main things that I'll bring up are we had every year hackathons where we would bring organizations from outside of Microsoft or just form teams within Microsoft and really pick a topic and actually take a week and really make change and have an impact. And actually, I'll pass this on to Will. Will, do you wanna talk about the hackathon that you did that you won? Last year, right? Can you, you want to talk about that? 

Will (24:32.754)

Sure, actually my last day at Microsoft was presenting the winning hackathon to the chief sustainability officer along with the team. And this was a really special moment for me because it was the culmination of everything I had been working on for the past four years. And so I'll step back a second. When I first joined, I also plugged into the sustainability connected community and I was seeking like-minded folks. And so we ended up doing a hackathon. And actually on that hackathon were several people who were profoundly influential to my career, including Asim Hussain, who's the chair of the Green Software Foundation. And so as you might imagine, that lit a fire within me and built the community that was so instrumental to our successes later. And so to make a long story short, several of the things that we did, we more or less graduated this set of hackathons into what is now the Carbonware SDK at the Green Software Foundation. 

And I see this as a massive win, specifically on behalf of the employees that have contributed to this, and because it has reached megaton scale carbon avoidance potential and is seeing production applications with several Fortune 500 companies, including Vestas and UBS. So check out the Green Software Foundation's Carbonware SDK if you're curious. 

Gaël Duez (25:52.257)

I didn't know you were involved that much in the GSF. Fun fact is that I was with Assim last week in Green IO London. I should have told him that, hey, I'm going to have Will Alpine on the show pretty soon. 

Will (25:59.653)

Awesome 

Holly Alpine (26:19.481)

I would say another major success that we had as a sustainability community was that in no small part, Microsoft's employee community played a role in Microsoft's sustainability commitments. The carbon, water, waste, and ecosystems commitments that Microsoft is so famous for in sustainability what really propelled them to be seen as a leader across the globe. 

And sustainability was in no small part because of employee pressure and employees asking their employer and largely through this community, how can we be better? How can we really show up, put our money where our mouth is and really show up as a company that is leading in sustainability? 

Gaël Duez (27:14.517)

Hmm. And that was you. 

Will (27:15.59)

And I'll just add something really quickly unto what Holly was saying. I think so much of the fantastic sustainability work that's happening at Microsoft is on behalf of volunteers who are really doing this work out of dedication and passion. And there are thousands at the company and all of this really accrues to the brand reputation of Microsoft and is featured prominently in the annual sustainability report, which is seen as the gold standard for sustainability reports. 

Gaël Duez (27:42.555)

So many roads I'd love to follow from that point, but I would like to ask two questions. 

So first question is, you mentioned that the community groups had a significant influence on how the sustainability goals from Microsoft were designed and published. My question would be, how does this Sustainability community or these different Sustainability groups interact with the official, I would say, Sustainability team or teams maybe at Microsoft, like the Chief Sustainability Officer. Does she or he has regular contact with the different groups? Are the volunteers included in work group? And how is the workflow going? And is it based more on tension, collaboration, sometimes a bit of both? How does it work? 

Holly Alpine (29:40.559)

Yeah, so the chief sustainability officer of Microsoft, so was formerly Lucas Joppa and now it's Melanie Nakagawa. We met with them quarterly, at least with Lucas, we met quarterly and really discussed employees' top priorities. We would send out surveys to employees to try to understand what their main priorities were, what they wanted to see, how they thought Microsoft could be better, and then we would meet with directly with the CSO and discuss and decide what was possible and they would take some stuff forward and at the next meeting we would talk about where the progress was and what they thought was not possible. It really felt collaborative. I do think at times it maybe felt more collaborative than it actually was. I think we can get into that when we really get into the beans of this podcast today around our Enabled Admissions Initiative is that a lot of the promises that were made did ultimately go unfulfilled. But when we were meeting with them, it did feel very collaborative and open. Would you agree with that, Will? 

Will (31:03.208)

I would say that's fair to say. 

Gaël Duez (31:08.808)

Okay, so I got it now. It's very important because I see a lot of this grassroots movement in many companies. And at the beginning, they're kind of welcomed by top management. But when you have to start interacting in a bit more structured way, this is where the momentum get lost most of the time and people are moving from an advocate position to an opponent position. And I know that is something that we will talk about a bit later in this episode. My second question and sorry to put it that blankly because being US based and I guess Microsoft is such a, it's a household name all over the world, but especially in the US. But from a bit of an external perspective, what did you make so sure that Microsoft was a leading force in the sustainability area? 

Holly Alpine (33:04.123)

Well, I joined before Microsoft was really a leader in sustainability and really before sustainability was even part of really their top considerations as a company. And so I saw the evolution over time. And I do think that Microsoft has made some really laudable commitments around carbon, water, waste and ecosystems. I mean, they were potentially the first major company anyway to commit to going carbon negative, meaning that they'll sequester more carbon than they produce, that including Scope 1, 2, and 3. I I do think that that is a very impressive commitment. We think that they need to go farther, but that is very impressive goal. 

Same with water, trying to be water positive, being zero waste and protecting more land than they use by 2030. Those are all goals that, of course, they could always do more, but if every company on the planet did at least those, we would be in a lot better position than we are now. 

Will (34:24.284)

And I'd like to add a bit of context from someone who's really driving the grassroots sustainability initiatives at Microsoft. When I joined, was really, it wasn't in my formal job description in any sense, but it was definitely part of the decision is the image that Microsoft had been projecting in some of the bold commitments that had made. And so I was really, really eager to join. I will caveat this with saying, when you join a company with very, very ambitious top-down commitments, it's really important to ensure that company also connects it down to the boots on the ground, so to speak. So one of the challenges that I faced and many currently face today is that there are no sustainability OKRs. That's objectives and key results for certain business groups. So let's say if you join Azure AI, unless an employee can trace the work that they're doing to a specific objective of that business group, then it's going to be really nearly impossible to get traction. 

So there's a top down that needs to meet a bottoms up approach. 

Gaël Duez (35:27.079)

That's a very important point, not having OKR, if I understood you right, you had on one side very strong overall goals like we want to be carbon negative, want to be water negative, etc. Obviously, what you described as super strong grassroots movements of good willing people dedicating quite a lot of time to move the sustainability efforts in the right directions. 

And in the middle, the operational, like meeting this overall strategy aspiration and with this bottom-up energy gathering, in the middle, you have to have some operational setup, whether it's OKR, whether it's dashboards, whether it's some bandwidth allocated to sustainable topics in roadmaps or backlog or whatever. And this is maybe where that was not that easy, that convenient to set up. Am I right to rephrase this like this? 

Will (36:29.832)

That's exactly right. The middle layer is the operational layer and that's so crucial to actually get sustainability right. And I don't think many companies frankly are doing it today. I believe Alcoa might be one of the only examples I know of sustainability OKRs for certain groups. 

Holly Alpine (36:45.202)

I will say as a volunteer myself, and then leading a massive team of volunteers, of program leads and chapter leads around the world, if that's not part of their actual job description or their leadership doesn't value it, it's going to be the first thing to go when there's time pressure on these employees. So we had super passionate volunteers who really wanted to help 

But when things got busy, we just wouldn't hear from them anymore for a time because they just couldn't. their leadership would, it's an opportunity cost for them. Their leadership, they would pass them up for review if they spent their time on sustainability and because they saw it as detracting from their time that could be spent on the objectives for their business group. 

Gaël Duez (37:43.093)

Now that's super valuable. 

Will (37:43.206)

I second that opportunity cost. If you could really bypass that and make it so that employees making these contributions did not accrue an opportunity cost, I think we'd see real transformation in sustainability. And also I just fact checked myself. I mentioned Alcoa. Actually, that's a different type of accountability. That is actually executive compensation as an incentive. So 20 % of executive compensation is based on progress towards specific sustainability goals. So that is actually simply a tops down method. So I'm not aware of any company that has rolled out sustainability OKRs across their entire line of operations. 

Gaël Duez (38:54.799)

Okay, just before we start talking about the elephant in the room and all the papers and the news coverage you got recently, I've got two final questions regarding you in the Azure division before you left. And my first one might be for Will. 

You were running, you were driving the sustainability effort within Azure Machine Learning across all the operational machine learning life cycle. And could you maybe give us a bit more details and concrete examples on what is it to do such a job or such volunteering missions, because maybe that was not part of your job description. 

Will (39:47.624)

Correct, my official job title was product manager in the Azure AI group and it had nothing to do with sustainability until the very end in which a mentor was very kind and brought me in to his team on the Responsible AI team with a 50 % sustainability focus. But what I was really doing was trying to apply the basic principles of green software engineering. We call it green AI into the Azure AI, Azure machine learning operational life cycle. 

The tenets here are you can reduce energy, the energy consumption of your software, you can shift your software to consume cleaner energy. And the third is you can consume fewer physical resources with that software. for me, the baseline effort and it was significant challenge that we faced was how do you provide transparency on even a single piece of the equation there? So one of the wins we actually did as we released energy consumption for Azure Machine Learning. That's in the product today and that shows developers what is the cost of training or inference. You can see that in the studio. That took quite a lot of work just to get out the We actually use that to apply the software carbon intensity specification from the Green Software Foundation to apply it to machine learning models. 

And so we published that paper in partnership with Allen Institute for AI and Carnegie Mellon and Hebrew University of New Jerusalem. And just one finding there is that training a large language model has the carbon equivalent of a rail car of coal being burned. I'll share the link for that paper if anyone's curious. 

Gaël Duez (41:32.343)

Yeah, that will be awesome because as I often mentioned, all the papers, links, references that are mentioned in the episode will be put in the show notes Just to clarify, these SCI specifications, were they made available to every data scientist at Microsoft or is it also every users of Azure solution can have access to a module where they're based on the SCI. They can get the carbon emission of training their model. 

Will (42:11.378)

Good point. Thanks for letting me clarify. So the only thing that is in the product today that any user of Azure Machine Learning could use is the transparency on the energy consumption. The application of the software carbon intensity spec, that was manual. And so we did that and then we published our findings in a paper called On Measuring the Carbon of Machine Learning in Cloud Instances. 

Gaël Duez (42:36.469)

Were there any clients asking to get this information? 

Will (42:49.724)

There were several clients that were asking, but it was always a ruthless prioritization exercise. 

Gaël Duez (42:56.404)

Okay. 

Will (42:57.318)

But from a technical perspective, it's very possible. There's no reason you could not apply the SEI and roll it out across the entire stack or show it in your operational or business reporting for a given product line in Azure. 

Gaël Duez (43:13.527)

Okay, that's a very strong statement because it means that technically it's feasible. It's really a question, as you said, of a prioritization and why you allocate your time and effort, whether it's to bring more visibility and awareness on the carbon issues or is it on other features that are asked by the clients? 

Will (43:35.831)

Of prioritization, but I also want to add it's a point of methodology. And there's a difference between attributional and consequential methodologies that I won't go into on this episode, but methodology has become a political act. 

Gaël Duez (43:52.447)

Actually, I would love you to go down that rabbit hole because we hear more and more this debate between attributional and consequential allocation. And when you state that is becoming political, that's definitely something that I want you to elaborate a bit more on. 

Will (44:35.368)

Okay, so the software carbon intensity specification is a consequential methodology. So it measures the change as a result of an action or an intervention that say a user could take. But most carbon reporting today is actually attributional. You come up with a top-down figure of perhaps your carbon footprint using your energy consumption of your data center, and then you divide that and you attribute that to a specific line of business. And so it becomes very challenging to come up with the right attributional proxy. I've heard sometimes of cost being used as a proxy to allocate carbon and that has several drawbacks. Sometimes you could use energy, but fundamentally you need to make the investments in the data collection and the telemetry to be able to even get there. And so without a massive investment, which is a prioritization exercise into the sufficient telemetry, then you don't prioritize the methodology development and the tools needed to really provide the transparency to unlock, say, the SCI. 

Gaël Duez (45:51.607)

just making sure that I understood it correctly, what you're telling us is that it requires significant investments from the methodology perspective to get the SCI right, because we try to make it consequential, not attributional. Am I right, or is it the other way around? 

Will (46:17.605)

Correct. So at a very simplistic level, if you were to look at, let's say, Microsoft Submissions Impact Dashboard, you really couldn't see anything below the surface level there of what the top line emissions are. You could not drill down anymore. And that's because you would need the granular enough data to really understand it, as well as the specific types of consequential accounting and the methodology behind it to back it up. So you need the data, you need the methodology, and you need the funding. 

Gaël Duez (46:48.87)

Okay, got it. Thanks lot for the clarification. What did you state it was becoming political? It's just a question of resource allocation or there are other topics there. 

Will (47:01.669)

I see funding as an inherently political act. 

Gaël Duez (47:07.49)

Okay, got it. 

Will (47:07.726)

You have a certain amount of resources that you have to distribute and that becomes more or less a question of politics at corporate or bureaucratic level. 

Gaël Duez (47:18.462)

Got it. Thanks a lot. I've got one last question for you, Holly. And I know it's me jumping from one topic to another, but it's such a rich material that you're both bringing on the table that I want to cover all angles. You mentioned several times, and I couldn't help telling me we need to discuss this a bit. The community, the impact on communities from locating data centers here and there. And we've seen several papers highlighting across the globe. I think they've been one in the UK, one in the Netherlands, quite a lot in South America as well, local pushback against data centers. And also that Jerry McGovern made a rally battle cry, I would say, fact that economic benefits that are often stated by hyperscalers when they set up a new facility somewhere are vastly overestimated. So I think it's kind of a boiling at the moment, the topic of what do we get when we are in local community and we've got such big buildings consuming so much energy and so much water in our neighborhood with the noises, et cetera. 

But hey, lot of mayors and politicians, will say jobs, jobs, jobs. 

Holly Alpine (48:56.438)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, lots to say here. Yeah, not too many jobs, not that many jobs in a data center. And there is definitely environmental impacts from building a new data center in a community. And what I was trying to do, I was on the data center community development team. So when I was on the energy team at Microsoft, this data center community development team had these economic and social programs where it would try to give back to those local communities in various ways having to do with social and economic benefits. The program that I started was around environmental sustainability. So this was not related to the sustainability impact of the data center itself. 

There is a team at Microsoft that is trying to reduce the environmental impact of those data centers, whether that's reducing water usage or increasing energy efficiency of the servers that are being used. There's a whole team actually on biomimicry. Well, it's a small team, but they're looking at how they can actually look at ecosystems nearby the data center and try to have the data center have an actually positive impact on the environment. This is in the nascent stages and could use a lot more investment to actually become really relevant to their global portfolio. But there is that team doing some great things to decrease the footprint. What my role was, was understanding the priorities of those data center communities and how we could give back in a positive way to the environments of where those communities were located. I directed investments of over $8 million in the time that I was there across 45 different global mostly investing in urban forestry and ecological restoration projects to provide human well-being and social equity and positive environmental benefits. I’m proud of what I did and my team did. think it's absolutely something that companies should do. If they have a physical presence in a community, they should absolutely have programs to give back. What I wrestle with and what I worry about is the net impact of the work that I was doing. If the work that I did to be a good neighbor was then used to justify increasing data center expansion, there was no net impact analysis on the positive from the work that I was doing and the harms from those data center expansions. So, you know, the jury's out there on the net impact of the work, but that's the work that I was doing for about seven years. 

Gaël Duez (53:19.358)

I would say it's interesting that the direct benefits are not that high that actually Microsoft or other companies needed to empower a team with a significant budget. We can discuss 8 millions regarding to the billions made in revenue from Microsoft. Sure, it sounds like very big numbers but proportionally to what we've said earlier in the discussion doesn't seem that high. But hey, I guess with 8 millions, you can achieve a lot of things. 

But what is interesting is you needed these kinds of programs to offset the environmental cost. And if I rephrase you properly, eventually you didn't have a clear cut understanding on whether you had net positive impact or not when you were implementing a data center in any community. Am I correct stating that? 

Holly Alpine (54:13.016)

Yeah, that's right. I mean, absolutely, that team should have way more funding. We are trying to advocate for the funding to be tied to, say, electricity usage and have some percentage of the electricity bill or the construction budget have the amount that goes back to the communities be tied to that and not just be an arbitrary number that we got allocated each year. And that's correct. We did not do an analysis of the cost benefit for the environment through these programs. 

Gaël Duez (54:51.86)

Okay, thanks a lot. Still a huge achievement. 

I could feel it when you say that. We were proud of what we were doing. 

Holly Alpine (55:07.865)

absolutely. it wasn't just about the environmental impact too. I a lot of the programs we did, we tried to incorporate really strong principles into these projects that ensured that we had those social equity components and human wellbeing. mean, we were trying to employ local folks who were underemployed. We were trying to ensure that we had different equity components incorporated into where we were doing these projects and ensure that we were putting them in the areas that needed them most. mean, we had really solid principles in the program overall. 

Gaël Duez (55:47.06)

Got it. So if I understand, if I can wrap up the first part of this podcast episode, you joined Microsoft because you believed in the brands. Both of you, you were part of a super strong grassroots movement who achieved significant results when it comes to sustainability across all countries where Microsoft is operating. You listed some significant achievements, whether it's your local community program, Holi, deploying SCI, not necessarily at scale, but at least testing it in a very serious production environment for you will. So it was pretty good time. Am I correct to say so? 

Will (56:44.653)

I'd say it's been one of the best times of my career thus far, and especially seeing the impact that we've both made at such a scale has been truly rewarding. I'm grateful for the experience. 

Gaël Duez (56:56.54)

Okay, so thanks a lot for sharing it. 

But now I think it's time to ask the $1 million question, At some point, both of you, you decided to leave and you didn't do it that quietly. So could you tell us a bit the story here? …

Gaël Duez (58:31.486)

This is the end of the first part of this episode with Holly and Will. The second part where we will discuss why the left and the crisis around enabled emissions will be live next Tuesday, that is October the 19th. Make sure to follow the podcast or subscribe to the email notification not to miss it. 

Gaël Duez (59:09.32)

Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. If you enjoyed it, give us five stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Sharing it on social media or directly with a colleague or a relative working in the tech industry seems also good idea regarding what is at stake here. As I always say, we are an independent media relying solely on you to get more listeners. 

By the way, Green IO is a podcast and much more, so visit greenio.tech, subscribe to our free monthly newsletter, read the latest articles on our blog and check the conferences we organize across the globe. London was a blast last month and the next one is in Paris on December the 4th and the 5th. You can get a free ticket using the voucher GREENIOVIP Just make sure to have one before the 100 free tickets are all  I'm looking forward to meeting you there to help you, fellow responsible technologists, build a greener digital world, 

Roxane (01:00:48.242)

One byte at a time. 

❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.

 📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

Today, we don’t have 1 or 2 guests but 12! In partnership with the YouTube channel Architect Tomorrow, we are glad to share with you snippets and interviews of the speakers who made the latest Green IO Conference in London a huge success last month. 
I have no idea if you have some appetite for this kind of content so feel free to come back to me at [email protected] or just comment on our posts on social media. 
One last thing, the audio quality is ok but not great because of the noise at the venue. If this episode gets some success, we will try to find a quieter place and better gear for the next editions of Green IO starting with Green IO Paris on December 4th and 5th. 
Still, I hope you’ll enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed crafting Green IO London 2024 for its attendees. 

❤️ Never miss an episode! Hit the subscribe button on the player above and follow us the way you like.

 📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

🔎 Green SEO? Not the most widespread concept in the sustainability field. Still, seasoned web designers and developers know it well: folks in charge of SEO often have the final say when it comes to content, design and even sometimes technical choices. And on top of this influence, SEO practices also carry their own environmental footprint being very data hungry. 

🎙️ In this episode, Gaël DUEZ invites two seasoned SEO practitioners and pillars of BrightonSEO - one of the world’s top conferences on the topic - Stuart Davies, founder of the Ethical Agency Creative Bloom, and Natalie Arney, an SEO Consultant with a knack for sustainability to explore Green SEO.

Some Takeaways:

↔️ the transversality of SEO functions,

💻 the alignment of the core web vitals with sustainability goals,

🌐 The importance of choosing sustainable hosting providers,

♻️ Practical sustainable SEO practices, 

and much more.

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Gael Duez 00:00
Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO! I’m Gael Duez and in this podcast we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools, and alternative approaches, enabling people within the Tech sector and beyond, to boost Digital Sustainability.
And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript, will be in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform, and, of course, on our website greenio.tech. 
Green SEO, I had never heard the word before last year when I started discussing the topic with Jean-Christophe Chouinard who happened to be one of the thought leaders on this concept. He reminded me something that I actually experienced many many times in my past years as a CTO: folks in charge of S E O often have the final say when it comes to content, design and even sometimes technical choices. 
And on top of this influence, SEO practices also carry their own environmental footprint being very data hungry. 
Hence to investigate more this angle, I invited 2 pillars of BrightonSEO, one of the top conferences worldwide on the topic, who are also actively launching a fringe event called the GreenSEO Meet-Up on October 2nd Stuart Davies and Natalie Arney. Both are seasoned practitioners in the SEO industry with a more technical angle for Stuart, who Stu founded the Ethical Agency Creative Bloom in 2014 and is also a passionate surfer. And with a focus more on content for Natalie who has been freelancing for 5 years and is also a singer in the Brighton-based community choir. And I must admit this hit a soft spot for me having spent a wonderful year in Brighton when studying at the University of Sussex in … well shall I say this … in 1998. That's quite a long time ago. Hello, Natalie. Hello Stuart. It's great to have you on the show today.

Stuart Davies 02:26
Good morning.

Natalie Arney 02:27
Thanks for having us. Morning.

Gael Duez 02:30
So, as I said, I think I've never realized the pivotal role that SEO could have in enhancing green IT practices. I just wanted maybe to kickstart our discussion with a very simple question, why should we care about Green SEO at all? And maybe, Stuart, if you could share some ideas on it.

Stuart Davies 02:54
Okay, thanks. Thanks, Gael. It's great to be here. So, Green SEO, it's two funny words to put together. In 2012, I commissioned some of my team to do some research on to the impact of websites and digital content on the Internet, and I had an itch back then, the vocabulary sustainable net digital sustainability started to permeate a little bit towards me, but it hadn't quite resonated. Obviously, I run an ethical agency. I've always worked with the green and the good and the good local businesses. So it felt that by helping them with their mission, we were helping to do something positive, but we didn't really have a good handle on the impact that we were making. And I think that research to me was a real eye opener. It was a game changer, it was a significant impact. I think there was one stats which really blew my mind. I think at the time there was a study done by a gentleman and he calculated the carbon impact of the Internet to work out that currently he thinks it's a 7th. If it was a country, the Internet was a country, it would be the 7th largest emitter of carbon emissions on the planet and it's on track to be the second of the United States. So it's quite significant what we're doing. So it felt important that SEOs, because we often, I think, as you said, SEOs sit across the divide of digital often. So we sit against digital strategy, we sit against content, we sit against technical, there are many other facets and rings that we actually kind of sit against and we can help influence a much, many factors as well as SEO itself. So it felt like there was a space for a conversation and a space for learnings to be given and a space for open resource tool sets, and here's how to do your jobs. And that's the place that Green SEO is doing. So we're at the beginning of the discovery curve in terms of SEOs and digital sustainability. But that was the point of Green SEO. It started with three of us, initially in Brighton, and those three have grown to 30, of which Natalie Arney is one of our brilliant speakers in our April BrightonSEO meetup. And we're planning to make that 100 next time. That's our plan.

Gael Duez 05:24
That's a good, healthy, sustainable growth, the one we want. And what about you, Natalie? What brought you to this concept of Green SEO?

Natalie Arney 05:35
I think I've always been into making the world at a better place in lots of different ways. And obviously, as I've kind of changed my lifestyle to better suit the way that I do things in every part of my life, obviously, work is one of those things that I haven't always been able to control. But now, as a freelancer, I'm able to do that a lot more, from client choices to things like helping them improve the impact of their websites and their marketing activity on the rest of the web, so that we're able to be good examples for other people.

Gael Duez 06:23
Your clients, Natalie, are they aware of these topics? How do you bring the topic of, hey, I'm an SEO expert and I'd also like to discuss the sustainability angle. How do you kickstart the conversation with them?

Natalie Arney 06:39
So some of them have already got it on their KPI's and things. So a lot of the brands that I do work with will have targets. So, for example, at the moment, one of my clients actually is being audited to see by a graduate. They're being audited to check every element of their business because what they don't want to do is obviously promote and preach themselves as being a sustainable business and driving all of their activity without doing it in the best way that they can. Some of them, it's part of their brand, as in, we are an e-commerce site that sells things like sells products… It's an interesting one. For example, one of my clients is an e-commerce site, and they dissuade people from buying things.

Gael Duez 07:40
Wow.

Natalie Arney 07:43
So, yeah, so obviously it's being able to be a kind of, if you need something, if you really need something, buy it from them and buy the best option. But if you don't, just don't buy it. And it's funny, you know, having worked for agencies in the past where everything's like, “We've got to sell as much as possible and we've got to hit all of these targets.” And it's actually like, well, and I've had a couple of clients that have got this Simmons, like, the same attitude now. It's like, well, actually, we only really want people who really need the product. And rather than driving this kind of high consumption, we all know of Shein and Temu and those kinds of sites, but it's not just them heavy consumers that's obviously then driving waste, driving, overconsumption, driving unsustainable working practices, child labor, so many different things that the impact is beyond the world or beyond the environment is the world rather than just the environment. And, yeah, being able to kind of work with businesses like that is great, but we don't always have the choice to do so. So it's working with people like that when I can, and then when I'm not, it's looking to see, “Okay, what can I do with my brands to help them become better in terms of, you know, accessibility, security, site speed, anything.” And then a lot of the SEO best practices do then feed into, you know, best practices on the sustainability side. But, yeah, it's kind of slowly and surely with some brands and then with others, it's from day one, as soon as you have your kind of call with them, you know exactly what you're going to be doing with them. So it is quite varied. And not everyone has the benefit of being able to say yes or no, whether they're, you know, agency leaders like Stu or freelancers like myself, we both have a lot more control over who we can work with. Whereas if you're an exec and you're just starting out in your career or you're a couple of years in, you don't always have that ability to do that. So obviously taking, getting involved in maybe company projects and things like that, or seeing what you can do internally and attending meetups like GreenSEO can really help as well because you're skilling the team up on understanding and being able to communicate it. Because if you're working with B-Corps, if you're working with businesses that's got all these big goals, you're going to have to be able to work with them anyway and understand and feed it in and it can help get things signed off as well. It's always nice to get an extra thing, an extra ticket signed off just because it's got a green impact, as well as improving keyword rankings, for example.

Gael Duez 10:41
If we go a little more concrete now, I'd like both of you to explain what are, according to you, the techniques, the SEO techniques that help reduce the environmental footprint of a website, digital services, etcetera. And maybe a bit later we will talk about what is specifically related to SEO. But I mean, we've heard about the size of a website, image management, etcetera, but I'd like you to cover the different angles, not necessarily all of them, but with this extra question, is this aligned or not aligned with what Google expects from us… because eventually they are the big moneymaker here with their ranking.

Stuart Davies 11:34
As Natalie has touched on, I think that some of the core principles or the big ticket items that you could do for sustainability to make your site cleaner do align with the principles of, say, core web vitals and site speed and performance and up to date relevant content rather than content for content's sake. And these kind of big factors which can impact the website. How much of it is Google? I mean, it's quite interesting. During the last GreenSEO, we did post a post, a tweet, no, an x, as it is now, to all of the search engines asking would they consider applying sustainable digital factors in their ranking algorithms? We're yet to have a response, but we will be reminding them of that question again in October. 
So if, you know, one of probably the biggest things you could do is find an accredited renewable energy data host. Okay, so somewhere where your, your website is going to be, it's because that's the problem. It's energy use. And if you can, at least the minimum requirement I think, is if you can find, and you can find accredited green energy hosts on the greenfoundation.org website, there's some really good resources on there. You can find yourself a green energy host and you're moving, you know, from potentially a fossil fuel held data center to a potentially green energy accredited data center. I think that's one of the biggest things like the number one impact. Number one things that a lot of organizations can do. Whether or not that doesn't impact, that's not going to impact the front end of the website, the design or kind of the strategy. And this is just where the website is held. Obviously you need to be able to have the same requirements you need for your hosting and the developers will need to get around that. But that feels for me like a good win. If one thing that people would maybe take away from this, that they're not sure where to hit first, that's one of the big ticket items for me.

Gael Duez 13:45
First things first, make sure you are sustainably hosted. Now once we've got this basic layout, you mentioned that most of the best practices are aligned with the core web vitals. And by core web vitals I guess you refer to the set of best practices that has been pushed by Google as the best way to get good ranking because the information will be easily accessible and as transparent as possible.

Stuart Davies 14:16
It's also how the website loads, how the website renders, how it responds to people who are coming back, how the images are served, how the layout of the pages moves around with the user or doesn't, how certain features react on desktop and mobile. So all of this is starting to go into the world of design and user experience. The core web vitals does hit into that as well. How fast your website loads, obviously, and what's behind it and how that content actually loads to the users as well. So that's some of the core principles of core web vitals and SEO 101.

Gael Duez 14:56
And SEO experts will be fully aligned with sustainably or green IT experts on most of these vitals. Could you maybe name the top three top five that are the no-brainer that as an SEO expert, as someone taking care of the SEO ranking of the website because you don't necessarily hire experts all the time in every company. What will be the top three top five things to keep in mind to make sure that you've got both a good ranking and the lowest possible environmental footprint.

Stuart Davies 15:35
So with core web vitals again, I didn't come up with this word. We use a lot of jargon in our industry and I'm not a techie jargon. Some of the people who work for me and work with me, I call this “make the website quick”. So there, as I know there are three major, three major areas. One is called LCP, Largest Contentful Paint, and that's how quickly the most important content on the page loads. Okay, so you know the banner of the image, however, so you know developers can do things to make that quick. That should occur within 2.5 seconds. That's Google's recommendation for SEO ranking factors. And then that also creates a quickly loaded, presentable website. You then have something called First Input Delay, and that measures how long it takes for a site to respond to a user's first click. Again, these should be very quick metrics and these are some of the things that designers and developers can, can focus on. And then you've got something called CLS, Cumulative Layout Shift. So that measures the page's visual stability as well. So it's about reserving space for images, videos, iframes and optimizing fonts. LCP, Largest Contentful Paint, is all about how to look, how, how you prioritize loading resources, making files smaller, the host resources on the same server and feed. First Input Delay is about reducing the amount of JavaScript and where you can use web workers.

Gael Duez 17:21
And Natalie maybe more on the content side and the philosophy of searching data, are there any things that you'd like to add on these three biggest topics that Stu just covered?

Natalie Arney 17:37
So on the content side, I think a lot of it's to do with graphics when we talk about core web vitals, but also JavaScript. So a lot of people will use JavaScript to load menus and add little fun things to navigate content. And alongside that, some people might even just use JavaScript across their whole site. Now that can be really great in some ways. However, the web is still built on HTML and CSS and that's what search engines usually crawl. They have got better at crawling and rendering JavaScript. However, it's not always as efficient as it should be. So usually they go to the HTML first. So making sure that there's fallbacks is really, really important, not just from, from a search engine point of view and a search perspective and having an impact on the core web vitals, but again, like adding in additional layers to that is good for accessibility as well. So it allows people to navigate content, whether they're, no matter what device they're using, wherever they are, they're able to access that content. So rather than having JavaScript disabled on certain browsers, or just not wanting to have things load as fast, and some people will use stripped out browsers, for example, being able to actually access that content is so, so important. And yet not using as much JavaScript or at least having a fallback is super important because yeah, as Stu's mentioned before, not only is that load time having an impact on things like core web vitals, but it frustrates the user as well and then it increases bounce rate and decreases the value of the content and then there's, there's lots of other impact from there onwards.

Gael Duez 19:33
And so if I kind of gather your point of view, there is one aspect which is basically the size, size, size, size, which is very much aligned with the sustainability angle because the bigger, the more resources, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a complex story. It's not linear, obviously. Absolutely not linear. But eventually, when we multiply by dozens more times the size of websites since a decade, as brilliantly proven in the Web Almanac Sustainably Chapter, I really encourage anyone to read this chapter because it's kind of mind blowing to see the average size of a web page just exponentially growing over just a decade. So it's really about reducing the size. But Natalie, what you'll see advocating, it's also a technical choice, like not using that much JavaScript. It's not just the question of size, but also some choices that could make this website more difficult to load or reduce user experience. And before I ask the elephant in the room question, I've got a final one which is regarding when everything is well aligned. Did you already see some website size decreasing? Like did you manage to reduce the size of web pages and websites? Or is it still very, very hard to reverse the trend that we are seeing in our industry at the moment?

Natalie Arney 21:07
Oh, from my point of view. So it's an interesting one because obviously from the content side of things, my talk when I spoke at BrightonSEO in April was all to do with how content audits can really play a massive part, not just on the SEO side, but environmentally as well because obviously there are so many sites and so many brands that are continuing to believe that the more content you have on your site, the better you're going to rank. And we see on a daily basis in the SEO world, people saying how they're going to scale the content on their website. And oh, we've seen these great exponential growth in all of these places and we've driven traffic so, so high now. Like, you know, we've ten x'ed it, we've hundred x'ed it, we've done all of this. And then it's like, well, is that, has that content got any use to the user? What is the environmental impact of that content? How much time and effort has that content made? If you've not got a team creating that content, how are you creating it? Are you using an LLM? And obviously then there's the impact of the use of LLMs from the environmental footprint side of things, but also from the ethical standpoint as well. And then we've also got the fact that you can have loads and loads of pieces of content that are just not getting any traffic or not getting any decent traffic. So although you might be driving a lot of traffic to your website, the pages might have high bounce rates, they might have, you know, really irrelevant keyword rankings, but obviously being able to use and target more detailed keywords, driving prospective customers rather than general browsers, that really is key for a lot of SEOs now. I guess it's a growing trend that people are like, well, we can make charts go up, we know how to do that, but it's going from driving traffic to driving valuable traffic from the commercial side, but also from the environmental side. And there was, I remember reading a case study a while back of a food waste company, and they basically created a new website. And by creating their new website design and kind of narrowing down the user journey and stripping back their content and ignoring those vanity metrics of increasing traffic, they were then able to save over 500 kilos of carbon emissions a year. So I think it was over two and a half thousand miles of air travel a year. Just by just giving their website a little bit of a sort out, running a content audit, really trimming down their design and making sure that it was just really fast, really simple, really impactful. And yeah, the content actually helped people rather than just driving lots of irrelevant traffic.

Gael Duez 24:07
I'd like to pause here and to share a personal anecdote. When I started my position as a CTO at Solojet, obviously I kind of self audited briefly the website just to understand what was on it. And I ended up discussing with the teams roughly, we've got between five and twelve main pages. Like the pages, like the homepage, the one describing an ad, et cetera, et cetera. But eventually I asked them the question, but how many pages do we have on the website for real? And the answer was more than 1 million and a half. Because for SEO purpose only that amount of pages was and maybe still is created because you basically have one page for every single address in France. Because it is a website based in France. But the same happened in Germany, Israel, Belgium, UK, wherever I worked with a property portal, the same drill and I was shocked like, wow, we are maintaining more than 1 million and a half page. What is the traffic on it? What is the use? I mean, we could get rid of it. Are you really sure? And the answer was always yes. But think about the long tail. It doesn't cost that much. And whenever someone will hit, you know, mostly what is the price for a property in this specific street, in this specific town, etcetera. We want our websites to be ranked super high if possible, number one. So we need to think about the long tail and we need to maintain then 1 million and a half in a highly automated way. And we were not even using LLM back in those days. So this is my personal feedback from a very wasteful behavior. But still, business wise, it makes sense. What would be both of you, your point of view on this? Do you really believe, or is it really the case that the long tail works that well and requires that amount of resources? Or is it a misconception or is it a way between, I would say.

Stuart Davies 26:16
I mean, with long tail content, I have an agreement with most of my clients, but my clients are the green and the good. These are people who are early adopters. The challenge is bringing some of these principles to the mass market. But we've got an agreement where we've got a one in, one out on the website. So it's okay, we'll put in, we'll put in a piece of content, but we're going to take some of it off. And that's how we manage our long tail content strategies. So yes, there is a place for it, because often you are answering useful information, a question that someone wants to ask about your product or service, that it is useful to have or to provide that on your website, but it can go so crazy. And what we found was it kept the size of the website lean and lo and behold, it also kept their content strategy lean and really did their rankings quite well. So that's how we've approached that particular thorny subject.

Natalie Arney 27:13
So I keep going back to it, but my bright and SEO talk, so basically the name of my talk was “Reduce, reuse, recycle your way to content success.” And basically what that involves is obviously content audits. And I really believe in having really impactful, useful content audits on a regular basis, I would say at least every year. And from that side of things, you always need to keep a grasp on which pieces of content are driving traffic and which are getting good engagements. Like I said, with a case study, having that impactful content that drives conversions, that drives kind of meaningful traffic, rather than just making the graph go up, is so, so important. I think looking at what you can consolidate and what you can improve in terms of content is so important. You might have some really useful content from years ago that just needs a refresh. That could drive a lot more traffic through better keyword rankings. It could be that you have got some outdated information, for example, on an article, and you can just go in and tweak it rather than creating a whole new article. Or it might be that you go back and you've been working on a client for a couple of years and you find some content from about five to ten years ago that could be relevant to you now. And instead of creating a whole brand new article in your content calendar, you could consolidate all of that content together and get rid of additional pages and put everything in one new piece of content. And it's making sure that your content strategy isn't just creating more content and targeting the long tail, it's being able to do it in an effective way. And that's not just from an environmental point of view, but also from an SEO point of view. Years ago, people would create pages upon pages to answer every single query. And obviously, because Google's semantic, it groups content together. Well, in theory, it groups content together by theme and by topic anyway, so you might have pieces of content that might not mention a keyword or a theme, but are related to that keyword or a theme, then ranking for those related terms. And it's like, well, they might be ranking low, but Google and Bing can see that you're trying to kind of target that. It's almost giving you hints when you look at it and go, oh, well, actually, I could work that into that article. And it's looking at that content and saying, well, actually, what have we got now? What do we need? And can we fulfill what we need with what we've already got? And then moving on to creating that new content. So you might have articles, you might have landing pages, and see what you can consolidate, what you can improve before then going on and making brand new content. If it's more kind of on an evergreen side, if it's more trend led, then obviously it's creating that content there and then being able to do that. But where you specifically got really kind of evergreen content, it is so, so important to have your regular content audits, content refreshes and it can work. I had a client last year and it's one piece of content. It was getting less than 300 visits a month and we basically went through, gave some recommendations. It was a couple of paragraphs worth of text that needed to be added and a few headings that needed to be moved around. Within six months, that content was getting over 3000 visits a month. Just for that one piece of content. It was the top piece of content on the site. So it's really, really important to refresh that content because you never know what you might be missing out on and obviously who you're missing out on as well, without then having to create lots and lots of new content, which then has the impact on the hosting, this page, speed and everything else.

Gael Duez 31:06
And if I'm following you there, what I hear is two main messages, which are first of all, chase the right metrics, get rid of vanity metrics. After all, even if you're an e-commerce website, you don't want people to spend 1 hour on your website, you want them to spend 10 seconds and then, you know, live their life after having buy your items, obviously. And the second one is the issue is more about stewardship, about caring about your content, recycling your content than just adding new one.

Stuart Davies 31:40
There's another issue here as well, Gael, and this might segue us nicely into SEO specific green SEO strategies and tactics. This applies certainly for bigger websites, those with thousands, tens of thousands, some have hundreds of thousands, some have millions of pages and it's managing the bots or managing the crawlers. So out there you've got lots of web crawlers, you've got Google, you've got Bing, you've got so many different kinds of SEO tools. You've got ChatGPT coming into websites now and all of the various permutations of AI tools coming in, there's a lot of malicious stuff coming in the spam. There's a huge amount of now that creates resources as well, that creates resource drain and energy use as well every time a crawler comes into your website. And what SEOs can do specifically is they can use the robots txt file. So it's a file where we can instruct website crawlers what to do and what part of the website to look at. So, you know, if we think at scale, we've got a huge, huge, massive website with lots of archive material. I know Will Barnes from Reed Pop. He works for a gaming company. So they have lots and lots and lots and lots of archive website material which they want to keep but not rank. So they will use their robots txt file to say, this is just our archive. We might pull out some of them. But I don't want you to come in and crawl this anymore because you're, you know, I want you to focus on the bit of the site I want you to do. Or you could have lots of FAQs sections on your site which are just for readers. It's not useful for search because you might just have one FAQ page. You can also block the search engine from using that. So on a one page basis it might not feel like much. But when you start adding this stuff at scale, it does become important and it creates less load on the servers. We can also block AI, ChatGPT. It's yet to be quantified. What the impact of that is on website loads, but I imagine it is quite significant. But what we're doing at GreenSEO is we are going to produce a file SEOs and digital marketers can use to put on their robots txt files. That's the file that controls the search engine which blocks all of the bad bots. So it's saying these are definitely ones which will come into your website that you do not want anywhere near it. And then again, sir, that's going to be open source on the greenseo.org website. And that's really going to help with the server load and the resource use on websites as well.

Gael Duez 34:30
Yeah, because obviously it drains resources. It creates data which has to be stored and analyzed sometimes, et cetera, et cetera. But it also drains resources from the owner of the website because they need to enter these bots. Okay, got it.

Stuart Davies 34:45
So it's like we're all littering and someone's coming up to your property and leaving their litter and you didn't ask them to.

Gael Duez 34:53
I think it's a great example and I love the idea of creating some sort of open source community where everyone will share. Okay, bad bots file, like the Dark Web Foundation repository, like you've got the Green Web Foundation, like not dark web, maybe gray Web, whatever. Yeah, that's definitely a great idea. And something that I didn't consider because I was more considering the robot text.

Stuart Davies 35:22
The robots that text.

Gael Duez 35:23
Yeah. As you know, something that you don't want data to be produced when it's not needed. But actually, yes, obviously it can drain a lot of resources from your own hosting solutions.

Stuart Davies 35:37
It's a good place to start, especially for big websites, websites at scale, e-commerce websites, anyone with a huge footprint, again, that can really help.

Gael Duez 35:46
And as an SEO expert, or not expert necessarily, but an SEO practitioner, do I have things to change specifically in the way I work or new tools to embrace to help me with having a more sustainable way of working?

Stuart Davies 36:02
So the GreenSEO website, greenseo.org, is a repository and a toolset and it has the playbooks of here are the things that can help you do your job, here are the tools that you can use to address speed, page weight design, here are the other people who are talking about it, such as sustainable design resources, such as pointing to whole grain, digital, Green Web Foundation and a sustainable web, all of those resources as well. And we've also put on there from our learnings some of the playbooks in terms of how you can go about introducing a sustainable web into a large organization that doesn't necessarily have it at the core of its values. And we expect that to grow. It's going to be open source and it's for anyone who's got a story, anyone who's done something to contribute to this. The whole thing about it is just getting it out and saying, “Here you go, here are tools to do your job and here are some of the learnings and here's what we've done and here's what's worked.” So that's a good place to start.

Natalie Arney 37:05
So one of the things that most SEOs have got in our toolkits is a crawler. And the two main crawlers that I use are Screaming Frog and Sitebulb. And one of the things that Stu's managed to and the GreenSEO team have managed to arrange with Screaming Frog is that in the Screaming Frog crawlers now you can get the carbon impact of certain pages and elements in the auditing tool, which is fantastic. So when you are auditing a site and if you want to add in as part of your website auditing process or a separate process altogether, it might be, say, feeding into a consultant like one of my clients has got at the moment where they're auditing everything on the site and not everything to do with the business is, yeah, you can use that and that's fantastic. And thank you to Screaming Frog for doing that because it's going to help a lot of us do our job a little bit more effectively. And then obviously when you're using your crawlers, you can switch them into dark mode as well, which is always handy too. So yeah, always switch your crawlers into dark mode.

Gael Duez 38:13
I reckoned integrated the CO2 GS library to calculate the website carbon. Am I right or is it something to check?

Stuart Davies 38:23
Yes, I believe that is correct. Yes.

Gael Duez 38:27
And actually, Natalie, you touched upon something interesting as well, which is the amount of data that is produced by each SEO practitioner. That sounds to be quite significant. When you crawl and crawl and crawl over, is there anything also that you, or Stu, you want to tell us in terms of best practices and how to reduce our own environmental footprint?

Natalie Arney 38:54
Go on, Stu, I think you're fair.

Stuart Davies 38:57
Okay. Right. So I'll go first. So yes, SEOs and digital marketers use a lot of analytics tools and we use a lot of software for SEO for conversion rate optimization, for UX, for example. Heat mapping is a very good example. So they'll get used on 1% of the website, on a project that might run over one month and they'll put scripts and recordings onto the website. And then generally tools like that are then left to run. Also all of the various kinds of plugins that are active on browsers. And so things like this, again, it's our own kind of personal imprint as well. So what digital marketers and SEOs can do is make sure that if they're using any analytics tools and crawlers as well, like setting regular crawls and all of those things is take the scripts off of the website once they've been used or make sure that you're not littering. Make sure you're only using things and switching things on when you need to use them. I think there's like so many software tools that go into people's websites and crawling because someone set off a project on a website crawler at some point and it's just sitting there doing it, it's not being used and it's just taking data and things like that. So we personally can do that. So I'd say that someone would want to check what's running on their website and also personally, what have you got running in the background on your own machine that's on all the time or not on all the time, and think very carefully about, you know, what tools you use and also maybe check out the credentials of the tools that you're using. You know, you could run their website through a carbon metric and see how that stacks up. Or you could even better write to them and ask them and introduce the conversation to them. So there's definitely things that we can do individually.

Gael Duez 40:51
Yeah, I think Holly Cummins that coined the word cloud zombie, you know, in the DevOps words that you kick start an instance or a server, et cetera, and you don't pay attention because it costs not that much money because the load is so low, et cetera. So maybe in the SEO world there is something like crawl zombies or optimizing tool zombies that we should pay attention to. But that's so true. I mean, I've audited websites and some pages where I had countless ads on that were not used anymore. And a bit of JavaScript here and a bit of JavaScript there and oh, it used to be for this media campaign that we ran like one year ago. I was like, what the hell? We don't need that anymore. But we tend to forget. Yeah, that's absolutely true. So we covered a lot of techniques and how to make SEO practices greener. Maybe one of you could share a practical example. I mean, do you have a client, even if you cannot name it, who actively embraced a GreenSEO approach and where you could share what worked well, what didn't work that well, what are the main pain points? Like if someone wants to kickstart a conversation in his or her company or clients, what should be the best first steps based on these use cases that one of you could share?

Stuart Davies 42:28
I'm happy to share one. I can't name the company. What I can do is say that one of the Co-Founders of GreenSEO is involved with this company and it is an extremely large international global tech firm with an extremely large footprint and extremely complex change management IT barriers, getting things done. So this was very example, so this is an example of a super huge company, super huge corporation, and then somebody trying to introduce some of the principles of GreenSEO digital web and what we call this is planting seeds, I think, and this is the right lot, people can take this away is this is a big subject, but what you can do is plant a seed and watch it grow. And so what the person did is he decided to go after dark mode. Okay, so wanted to do something. Dark mode reduces the energy use of the person, browsing the screen on the load, et cetera, et cetera. And so you wanted to introduce dark mode on the sustainability section of the website. Okay, got there. So what he had to do initially was get buy-in. So he went and tapped on the shoulder of the sustainability person and he also got user polls. He did user polls internal and external to get some stats behind the change as well. So he was starting to push out. But what is really important is you've got to contextualize the argument. So what this person did was measure the carbon weight of the pages and then say, measure it what it would be like in dark mode and say, well, this could be the impact. And wouldn't this be great as part of our CSR reporting that we've actually done something to actually clean our own pages? Okay. So the sustainability team got really interested. Okay. He then actually, then spoke to some of the developers, got buy-in from his management. He had to do a presentation, internal presentation. He had to get find some friends and they all went for it. And so he had the development team in there, he had the change team, the branding team. Everybody loved it. That was kind of the key learning here. Everybody loved it and nobody put in a barrier of obstacles. The only thing they asked for is that the dark mode would be a toggle that users could switch on and off just to satisfy any kind of jittery stuff. And then the DevOps team just put it through. They just went, oh yeah, we've just put it, we've just done it. So they didn't have to go through the big change stack as well. So this was like immediately there was one page and then suddenly a week or so later, the sustainability team from one of the other countries got in touch saying, what have you done there? Can we get that as well? And then suddenly other sections from the website, because it's quite siloed, start getting in touch saying, what have you done there? Can we do this? And then as a result of that, one of the sub-sites of this massive technology firm, which has a footprint of say, 100,000 pages, it's going to do the entire subdomain on dark mode toggle. So that's, that's how and that's extremely impactful. So that's going to save a huge amount of carbon. I haven't quantified it, but that just shows you how you plant one seed and you can start small, can suddenly grow off and take mode and, you know, it's what we call marginal gains. You know, there is a marginal gains strategy to SEO and there is a lot of… can't talk about it, but also marginal gains to sustainability because it is such a big subject and it can be quite scary for large organizations to do something which is going to impact their strategies. But these kinds of small seeds that can be planted seem to sprout. So I think that was a really good, really good case.

Gael Duez 46:12
At least on my island, you can see quite often that a plant will break a rock after just a few years. So at the pore of seed, definitely. Maybe, Natalie, from your perspective, going the absolute opposite direction with a very small company, if you had to advertise like a small or medium sized company running a basic website, maybe a small e-commerce activity, or, I don't know, a small media activity like greenio.tech, which is not optimized for SEO as well. I know I need to pay attention to it, but I didn't have time. So anyway, what will be the main steps? Knowing that it's less a question of seeds that I guess budget and having the time to start something?

Natalie Arney 47:04
Yeah, I think as you mentioned earlier, I think it's really important to think about your hosting, first of all, because it has so much of an impact. Obviously, my talk at GreenSEO is about greenwashing and there are hosts that do greenwash. So it's really, really important not just for the environment, but also for your brand reputation, is to work with partners that don't greenwash and that actually, you know, that work really well. And there are some really great companies out there that do some great, great things on top of having a greener hosting and legitimately greener hosting. So I would say start there. Always think about from an SEO point of view, but also from a sustainability point of view, think about the value and the use of the content that you're creating. Really, really important. And do you always need that extra bit of JavaScript or is it just to make the user or the client and not even impress the user? Is it there to impress your boss or the client, or is it there to be actually helpful for the user? Because obviously at the end of the day, everything that we're doing is for the user, whether that's to make their web experience better or to make sure that their children and grandchildren have got a nice place to live in a few years time. So it's kind of encompassing all of that together, I would say, yeah, if you've got a small website, think about the hosting, double check kind of sense check what you're doing to the site. And yeah, see if you can get, if you're say, on WordPress, it's pretty easy to get your core web vitals scores as close to 100% as possible. Obviously using different technologies is a little more difficult, especially out of the box. And obviously a lot of SMEs use things out of the box like Wix and Squarespace and things like that. But yeah, and then I think, yeah, I think about hosting, think about platform, think about content, think about load speed, and they're there. The fundamentals, not just from the environmental point of view, but it's SEO best practices as well.

Gael Duez 49:20
And maybe before we close the session, is there a situation where what Google expects from us is not aligned with a more sustainable approach?

Natalie Arney 49:36
I guess it depends on what your position is about SEO tactics, because there's a lot of different types of people in the SEO world. There are people who will flood the Internet with garbage and obviously that floods the environment with garbage and they don't care about that. And then there are people who care about good quality content that actually serves the user's needs. And without going into too much detail and discussion about Google and the changes that have happened in the last few years in particular, at the end of the day, Google wants to be able to serve the best results for the user and to keep people on their platform as much as possible. So it's thinking about what is going to be useful for you and your users, because depending on what happens with all kinds of monopoly, breakups and business related corporation things to do with the search engines and to do with potential competition on the horizon from other companies that may or may not be just doing it to inflate their stock prices and investments, it's really, really important to think that obviously we don't just get traffic from search or we don't just get traffic from Google. People are moving away slightly, maybe using alternatives for lots of different reasons. But yeah, I think it depends on what… I hate being as SEO and saying it depends, but it does depend on what kind of SEO you are, whether you're one that kind of cares and does kind of as best practice as possible, whether that's against Google's conditions or not. It's what impacts you and your site and your users, or whether you just don't care and you're just going to continue to flood the Internet. We've got absolute, and I mean garbage. There are other terms that I did use in my brain, SEO talk about that. And you know, Ed Zitron and Co will talk about that a lot more in their kind of publications and podcasts about the changes that have been made, particularly at Google. But I think, yes, it's important to kind of consider what kind of SEOs people are first and then go from there.

Gael Duez 52:07
Got it about the garbage. I think we've all experienced this kind of website or content.

Stuart Davies 52:13
I mean, I thoroughly believe that the principles of GreenSEO are aligned to good SEO. So there's nothing in there at all that I would see that is going to impact your rankings. It might upset some brand designers when it's kind of, you're starting to sort of move into the design things when you talk about fonts and images and videos and sort of things like this. But there's nothing I have seen so far in terms of tactics for GreenSEO or green web that I think would significantly impact rankings. In fact, I think it really complements it in most cases.

Gael Duez 52:53
Okay, so not such a hard sell to do with clients or executives.

Stuart Davies 53:00
The hard sell is around behavior. It's ingrained behavior. It's ingrained behavior that this is how our website needs to look. It's ingrained behavior that this is how the marketing team creates content and churns it out. It's those ingrained behaviors like, oh, this is how we know this weird digital environment works. You know, we have our big glossy websites with lots of resources on and we know that works. And we know if we produce lots of content, we know that worked. And what we're saying is we're starting to see case studies where that's not the case, but it's those behaviors and that's the cell and because the data is still coming out, which is why it's very important to contextualize the debate and maybe to start small. So we go actually, well, we're going to tackle one section of the website. Let me try this one section of the website and we'll see what happens with it. So that's how I think people can start to make inroads into that ingrained behavior.

Gael Duez 53:58
Okay, thanks a lot, both of you. Before we close the podcast, you mentioned it several times, but do you want to pitch one last time the GreenSEO Meetup in Brighton? Why should people attend and what kind of people should attend?

Stuart Davies 54:20
Well, you should attend because it's hosted by us and we're really lovely people. And it's a community starting to come together of digital marketers and SEOs who care about the environment and have either a story to tell or have done something or have found some way to help clean up the environment or help them do their job. And it's part of BrightonSEO, which is one of the world's biggest search marketing conferences, I think. And they're really, really great and they've given us the platform as part of their conference to be able to have this fringe side event really focused on sustainability. We've got Screaming Frog as our sponsor. They are demonstrable impact in helping SEOs do their job to be able to do carbon audits. And we've got three great speakers lined up as well, which Nat was one of ours in the last time. It's free. There's going to be drinks, soft and other types of drinks as well. Just 2 hours. So if anyone is in Brighton and you're there as part of the BrightonSEO conference, just pop in the GreenSEO BrightonSEO event and you can just sign up for a ticket and come straight along. It's just a couple of hours and we will most probably go to a pub afterwards. There we go. Sold it.

Stuart Davies 55:46
We like a good pub called Gael.

Stuart Davies 55:57
Now we're going to the pub.

Stuart Davies 56:03
I know, I know, I know.

Gael Duez 56:14
Okay, great. It was really great to have both of you on the podcast. Best wishes for GreenSEO Brighton and hope to see you maybe in Green IO London as well. Thanks again for joining. Have a nice day.

Natalie Arney 56:27
Thank you.

Stuart Davies 56:28
Thank you very much.

Gael Duez 56:30
Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode! If you enjoyed it, share it, and give us 5 stars on Apple or Spotify. It will make a lot of difference to help us find new responsible technologists.
In our next episode, we will welcome the Bonnie and Clyde of Azure to talk about Microsoft Cloud Solution, its carbon footprint and the dilemma cloud providers face when it comes to sustainability choices. Holy and William Alpine will tell us more about their past experiences as Azure employees and the quite harsh articles they recently wrote about it. 
Stay tuned.  
Green IO is a podcast and much more, so visit greenio.tech to subscribe to our free monthly newsletter, read the latest articles on our blog, and check the conferences we organize across the globe. The next one is in Paris on December 4th and 5th. And you can get a free ticket using the voucher GREENIOVIP, just make sure to have one before they’re all gone. I’m looking forward to meeting you there, to help you - fellow responsible technologists - build a greener digital world. 

Roxane 
One byte at a time 

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In the early 2020s, companies started facing a big question: how could they be more responsible in the digital world? Could something similar to CSR exist for this virtual and yet highly materialized world? Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR) was coined to offer some much-needed guidance.

🎙️ To explore its ramification, Gaël DUEZ chats with two renowned experts in CDR: Aiste Rugeviciute, co-author of “B.A.-BA du Numérique Responsable” and now pursuing a PhD in the socio-ecological impacts of CDR strategies, and Rob Price, a key player in developing an international CDR framework. Rob also hosts the “A New Responsibility” podcast, diving deep into CDR's role in business.

Some Takeaways: 

   🔑 the CDR framework in a nutshell,

   🌿 the importance of embracing a balanced approach to CDR in most companies, and

   🛠️ a sneak peek to the newly-released CDR maturity model.

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Intro 00:00
To change, we have to think about how organizations or governments incentivize change in an economy and how that helps businesses to do the things that need to be done better.

Gael Duez 00:25
Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO with Gael Duez - that’s me! In this podcast we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools, and alternative approaches, enabling people within the Tech sector and beyond, to boost Digital Sustainability.

One of my more esteemed peers in Digital Sustainability, and a good friend, who’s now CSO of a large digital tech company used to work before in the garment industry. Sometimes, well quite often, she goes ballistic about the infant level of the digital industry in sustainability compared to other industries. The very idea that digital technology produces products as does the garment industry with clothes and that these products have a footprint both environmental and societal is not that widespread. And when Tech executives become aware of it they often lack the frameworks, the best practices and the metrics to steer the sustainability angle of their company. And answer this pivotal question in an industry, which has just a touch of ego and hubris: how good am I compared with others? And eventually, how good am I with keeping our planet habitable for the human race. Am I being too sarcastic here? Well let’s go back to a more action-drive mindset then. 

Since the beginning of the 20’s, a concept has started to emerge embracing these questions and providing some framework for companies with a significant use of digital technology: the idea of their CDR. Full disclosure, I am using this approach with clients when I do consulting gigs so I might be a bit biased. As usual, question and double check everything that is said in this episode. All the references will be put in the show notes on greenio.tech and on your favorite podcast platform. Transparency and Accessibility remain in the DNA of the Green IO podcast. To deep dive in CDR, I have the pleasure to welcome 2 of the best experts we can find on the topic. 

Aiste Rugeviciute who graduated in both computer sciences and Sustainable Development and Social Business and has worked for several years on the intersection of Tech and sustainability, she co-wrote the hands-on book "B.A.-BA du Numérique Responsable" in French and she is now doing a PhD on Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR) strategies and their socio-ecological impacts. 

Rob Price is one of the core members of the international group of academics, corporate practitioners and published authors who collaborated in 2021 to aggregate their existing body of work into a single, international definition of the set of principles supporting Corporate Digital Responsibility. He’s also a fellow podcaster with the “A new responsibility” podcast which covered during 5 seasons the use of CDR in companies. He gave a much listened talk to Green IO London last year. And btw this year Aiste will be the one giving a talk on her CDR Maturity Matrix. So make sure to get your tickets for this great gathering of responsible technologists on September 19th. 
And without further notice, Welcome Aiste and Rob. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.

Rob Price 03:55
Thank you.

Aiste Rugeviciute 03:56
Hi, thanks for having us.

Gael Duez 03:59
You're more than welcome, both of you. I have a terribly complicated question to start. Could you define CDR in two sentences maximum?

Aiste Rugeviciute 04:12
Well, it is a complicated question because there is actually no one definition, at least between the academics. Everybody comes up with their own definitions. But in a nutshell, I would say there are two main ideas. So the first idea is, of course, about responsibility. So what are companies' responsibilities with respect to digitalization, or the way they use digitalization? And the second one is trying to maximize the positive effects of digitalization while reducing the negative ones. So that's kind of the two main ideas combined. Rob, what do you think?

Rob Price 04:57
Well, I mean, it goes back to the introduction, really, doesn't it? So in 2021, that was the question we asked ourselves, and we wanted one sentence that described CDR in the context of all the definitions that the variety of us had created at the time. So, I mean, reading that corporate digital responsibility is a set of practices and behaviors that help an organization use data and digital technologies in ways that are perceived as socially, economically, and environmentally responsible. I think the key thing for us was, at the time, trying to think of something that provided a framework and guidance to help organizations be aware of the consequential impact of the things that they were doing. And no doubt, through the conversation, we'll talk more about finding the right balance in terms of framework versus measurement criteria versus a method, if you like, in terms of organizations doing those things.

Aiste Rugeviciute 05:57
I think also one of the key things, what Rob just said, it's about the perceived value. What's in line with the so-called reference points in the society. That's kind of a key thing when corporations, organizations think in general about their responsibilities, and when it comes to digitalization, aligning with societal social expectations and all the idea, you know, if it's contributing to reducing climate change or any other negative impact, it's all about in line with what right? In line with what expectations and whose expectations. That's where the question of responsibility comes in place.

Rob Price 06:48
And can I build on that very briefly, which is, I'm very conscious of talking about CDR in multiple countries around the world. I think it's very difficult to be really tightly defined, because you have to be conscious that different countries, different political systems, different cultures, there would be pushback if you kind of introduced CDR as a mechanism that you had to follow. Literally. It's important to be conscious of the environment in which you're asking organizations and governments to think about the way in which they operate. Even if they take some of those aspects, that's better than all of those or none of those.

Gael Duez 07:31
So it's really a question of contextualizing the approach, and still we reach some kind of agreement around the world and I guess some principles, some guidelines, as both of you mentioned. Could you maybe elaborate what are the main guidelines, the main items that have reached some sort of consensus that, yes, we should pay attention to this aspect and this aspect and this aspect.

Rob Price 08:02
So, in a sense, the blank sheet of paper that we did start with in the past was probably between about 2016 and 2020. A number of definitions of CDR did appear. Some of those were written from business points of view, or government points of view, or academic points of view. But when we did an analysis of them, I would say that 80% of them were pretty similar. Maybe some were focused more around sustainability, some were more focused around trust and inclusion, but 80% was common. And the purpose of the work that we did at that time, with all of those parties bringing together those definitions, was to try and find a common framework that actually was inclusive of everything. So we defined a framework of three intersecting circles, which gave us seven principles. If you think of each of those sections, at the heart of everything was trust and purpose was beginning to be talked about more commonly. So, purpose and trust, fair and equitable access for all. So that's around equity, diversity, inclusion, and more societal well being. Thinking about the impact on people, one of the things that I almost enjoy is when I'm talking to organizations asking if their products and services are predicated on addiction to drive advertising rates, it's always an uncomfortable question. But nonetheless, thinking about the impact on people, considering some of the economic impact, I think is interesting. The fourth principle, economic and societal impact, and probably one of the hard ones. But it's beginning to think about some of the things around algorithms, fair share of outcomes, of benefits, the way in which you value things that you're delivering through digital technologies. Talk about the impact economy in principle five. So, thinking around, or beginning to think about that intersection with the economic and the sustainable side of things, and goes into more detail about supply chain and green tech, and some of the ways in which you can use digital services to directly impact, innovate around sustainability. And the final two, very much focused around sustainability. I'll start with seven. Seven, reducing the tech impact on the climate. You're thinking about what is happening with my data centers. Am I using renewable energy? Is it really renewable energy? Etcetera? And then six, we talked very briefly at the start around innovation, thinking about how I can use these technologies to innovate and solve the world's biggest problems, especially around sustainability. So I think this is a really important one. I want to explore it later. We talk a lot around impact of AI, for example, which clearly has massive energy use, massive water use, in terms of data centers. That's something to measure principle seven. But it's really important to think about principle six in terms of how I can use that technology to create positive impact and benefit on those very things that I'm worried about negatively impacting. And it's a balanced scale. So those are the seven principles. They go into far more detail through the manifesto. There have been other definitions that have emerged since, but I can track them all back to those seven principles. I haven't yet seen something appear that's new, a new concept that doesn't fit into that framework. And of course, we do continue to look at those definitions to determine how we continue to evolve, because I don't think any of us said when we created this back in 21, right. That's it. We've cracked it. Nobody could ever improve on that. It's always evolving, always a living thing, and then it's how people bring that to life, which is probably a perfect position to hand over to Aiste, in terms of the work that you've been doing.

Aiste Rugeviciute 12:05
Yeah. If I might just add or more generalize. So those seven principles, they are a little bit in more detail, but if we take a step back, basically, we can summarize that it's about the environmental and social side. So we have both sides, and that's what Rob was talking about. Right. So there are social, societal questions and there are environmental questions at the same place. Why I'm underlying it, because sometimes especially, I don't know why, especially in Germany, when they used to speak about corporate digital responsibilities, they completely ignored, or they tend to ignore the environmental side. So they tend to look only on the social, societal side and especially concentrate on the data questions. Now, it's shifting a little bit, but at the beginning, I remember when I was reading it, I was surprised to find it because it was completely the other way around. In France, everybody, whenever they were talking, they were talking only about environmental questions. And the social societal questions were put aside and that was being dealt with by more, way more engaged people or very niche, niche people in certain NGOs. Currently, I can see that the discourse is becoming more balanced, which is nice. So it takes into account two sides. So as I said, the environmental and social, societal side. But it's also the question of technologies perceived as a solution or as a problem. So that's we have both technology or digitalization. So we have to generalize two dimensions. So there is one environmental, social, societal side, and then is it good or bad, or again, it should be balanced discourse, but that's the attitude as well.

Gael Duez 14:09
And I have one small question just to clarify. The principle number seven, which is the impact on. Rob, you mentioned impact on climate. Is it only climate or is it all kind of environmental footprint?

Rob Price 14:25
Yeah, no, it's reduced tech. Impact on climate and the environment is the actual words that it says. So it is that consequential impact on everything that you have directly or in the supply chain, on the climate and the environment, planet, etcetera. And I think I wanted to just add something to the thing, the description ack, because it is absolutely about people, communities, society, planet in its entirety. I don't want to forget what I think is probably the hardest part of it to think about sometimes, which is the economic kind of angle, if it changes. We have to think about how organizations or governments incentivize change in an economy, in their geography, in their region of responsibility, if you like, and how that helps businesses to do the things that need to be done better, whether through incentive or whether through regulation. So it's that intersection of all aspects of that. I think it's complex. It's not easy. I mean, we've seen that over the past few years. Many organizations that I speak to, they're not trying to solve everything. At the same time, that's not realistic. It's about understanding the consequence of the things they're doing and honing in on some things that would make a difference, that are important because it positively impacts what they're doing or the way in which they're seen in the market, the respect they're given, if you like, the ability to better place product or service because of those things that they're doing. So it is a finely tuned thing engine that you need to kind of understand how we can nudge it in the right direction to be better in terms of the impact it has on the environment and everything around that. If we were talking seven for example.

Gael Duez 16:26
And now that we kind of lay the ground with the main concepts and the subtle equilibrium between them in the intersection and the kind of systemic interaction that we can see between the seven of them. If I'm listening to this episode, and I'm convinced that, ooh, this framework sounds very interesting, how do I go from the academic and conceptual approach that helps me to better understand what I should pay attention to, to something a bit more concrete for me or actionable for me? And my main question actually will be, Aiste, do you believe that the CDF principles can become actionable?

Aiste Rugeviciute 17:12
I would very much hope so.

Aiste Rugeviciute 17:17
There are different steps before they become concretely actionable. Right. So the first question is, I think to ask, why do you want to do that? And then to ask, what do you want to do? So why? I think it's an important question, which, especially in the organization corporation environment, sometimes it's forgotten by the practitioners and then they are being asked by their managers, you know, and they're like, yeah, but why? What's the purpose? Right. So the question why is very important because most of the time the response is money, is to make profit, to respond to the stakeholders. Right, sorry, shareholders actually. But beyond that, we have other requirements. And that's where I come back to the same notion of responsibility. So the why could be because there are legal requirements, there are risks associated, there are opportunities, there are myriad of stakeholders who suddenly have shifted expectations. So your direct clients, it might be your B2B clients, right? It might be the societal legitimacy for you to stay active in a region, in a state, in a country. It might be simple because you want to benchmark yourself with others, so there are reputational damages, et cetera, et cetera. So the first question is, actually why do you want to do that? Is it because you want to go back to reduce risks, take some opportunity, go beyond your legal requirements and so on. Once you kind of clarify the idea why you want to engage in the CDR, it's going to be way easier going forward to structure your actions and approach towards these guidelines. So let's imagine that you are B Corp, for example, and your idea that you want to do CDR because you want actually to contribute to creating a better society. And you consider that yourself as an organization corporation. That's one of your responsibilities.

Gael Duez 19:55
By B Corp, you mean the label that some companies get.

Aiste Rugeviciute 20:00
Yeah, sorry, I put the label because I know that in the US, when you get a B Corp label, it's much easier to act in line with societal expectations, and not only with your shareholders, because in the US there's a lot of shareholder pressure to get profits, monetary profits. But once you have a B Corp label, they change status in their corporation, legal, something with legal things that in that case, corporations are expected or are allowed way more freedom in order to act in accordance with societal expectations.

Gael Duez 20:48
Thanks for the clarification. And let's go back to what you were saying previously.

Aiste Rugeviciute 20:55
Yes. So once the company decides why they want to do that, the next stage is to understand where they are now, right? So maybe you are already doing very well and your corporate digital responsibilities. So once you clarify your responsibilities, the question is, okay, what is our current state? And once we evaluate the current state, once we reflect on what we are doing now, then we can look at how we can improve ourselves, where we can go in order to go to our objectives as well. A question is, objectives, is it a continuous objective? Is it very concrete that you want to, I don't know, reduce your CO2 consumption by your information systems, or you want to reduce the digital divide in the society? So digital divide in the society, you know, you can have very concrete milestones, but it's a continuous action, right? It's not going to be at some point completely achieved over. So that's basically the three steps. So the first question is why you want to do it. Second one is analysis, understanding where you are now. And the third one is putting the milestones, objectives, priorities. Because as Rob mentioned, you can't do everything at the same time, especially as an organization, you have so many things on your plate. So, you know, you have those seven principles which Rob mentioned, but between the seven principles, maybe some of them have higher priority because of where you work, because of your industry, because of your stakeholders, because of the whole context.

Rob Price 22:42
Completely agree with that. And just, it's a really important point, I don't think, when everyone who fed into that work was never saying there was an equal balance, or needed to be equal investment to address and mitigate each of those separate principles. It's a framework, and the framework is then applied to the organization. I think very few times has an organization ever come to me and said, we've decided we want to implement CDR, how do we do that? Most times it will be they're worried about reputational damage, or they know that they need to improve something around their impact on the environment, or how do they get trust, because they're worried about reputational damage. So it's more around applying it as a framework to help that organization resolve the concern. Or maybe there's been an incident that's highlighted a problem that is perceived across that organization, and it's how they begin to find a pathway to make an improvement that improves the thing that they're concerned about.

Aiste Rugeviciute 23:52
Always some kind of entry point towards that CDR, as Rob said. So it might be reputational, it might be very often a regulation, currently at least what we observe in France. So you have regulations which ask you to reduce your electricity consumption, energy consumption, and reduce your CO2. So that's an entry point. So companies say, oh, I need to reduce my CO2 somehow. So let's try to find all possible leverages. And then when they start looking and they say, okay, well, I might reduce my CO2, for example, or environmental footprint by reducing the number of screens we have per collaborator. So my overall footprint, environmental footprint is going to go reduced, but then that's going to affect productivity levels of my collaborators. So wait a second, that's kind of related to something else, right? And then it might still mean, oh, it's very complicated, the digitalization as a problem itself, it's a systematic problem, and there are different impacts which are very much linked with each other and they're not necessarily going in the same direction. If you reduce one, it can be at the cost of the other. And I think that's where the structured approach of CDR, reflecting on it, allows organizations to take into consideration more things which are more important to them and their stakeholders and the challenges they are trying to respond to.

Gael Duez 25:29
Rob Aiste just shared a very concrete example on this kind of trade off and multidimensional approach. Could you share an example of a client? You can name it or not. You might be under an NDA that started with you. A journey, I would say, toward CDR, and to see the few steps that were taken and how a bit more concretely than some actions were taken.

Rob Price 25:58
I'll use a couple of examples that are not my clients, but they're well discussed, well documented, and in the public domain, if that works, which is probably, and they're both, well, both international organizations. So the first one is Merck and the work of Dr. Jean Enno Charton, who's head of bioethics and digital ethics at Merck. And I think, why do I start with that? A large organization, I think 60,000 people, something of that order around the world, but working in a space that's clearly got strong insight around regulation and controls because of the nature of what they do already. So there's almost a lot they would be, I think, one of the first types of organizations to start thinking about broader CDR and digital ethics in the wider round. And therefore they've focused in and put people and built a small team to build out a framework that takes the best in terms of some of the guidance that's around and early thinking around digital ethics boards and mechanisms and frameworks, and created something that they believe is right in their organization. And I've seen that build and progress. I've presented with Jean Enno in the past, and it is a very thorough process that they've gone through. The last conversation I had with him was interesting because having got that framework in place, that's right for them, it's then how do you communicate it across multiple countries, thousands of people, and effectively get that complete change on boarded and maybe enabling people to say, hey, this, this thing that I've spotted over here, the other side of the world, is something that's different. And maybe that's my introduction to the leader and the work that they did, which again, is one of the early pieces of work, as far as I was concerned, around CDR and led by Jakob Versner. And again, he put in place an explicit CDR. They had CDR principles that they defined for them. I think there were 14 separate areas that they identified. It was driven around digital transformation. So their starting point was every project that has a business case to progress anywhere across the business, we're going to interject, and this is the framework by which we'll analyze the consequential impact and look across the supply chain, very focused around sustainability and local community impact in terms of the societies, the farms, kind of in whichever countries, in whichever parts of the supply chain. And one of the things that I loved about that was that whistleblowing aspect. It was saying, look, there is no problem with being able to say, hey, I've spotted something we need to look at this. And I think that's such an important part of culture and maybe going back to the early conversation of transparency, giving people the confidence in an organization to feel that they have a voice. And I know we've put in this kind of marketing kind of brochure that we're net zero and compliant, but actually kind of, actually the proof points that we think we're quoting aren't quite right. I think it's important for people to be able to say that. So, I mean, there are many other organizations and much work that's been done, but I think both of those two examples are the ones that I'd give as well established on their journey using CDR and digital principles and continuing to evolve and build out over the last several years, rather than somebody just starting today.

Aiste Rugeviciute 30:05
If you are a smaller company, if you do not have 40,000 people and a lot of experts who can contribute with their knowledge and plan how CDR is relevant for you, that's a different challenge, right? For the smaller companies when they want to do something, but they don't know how to get going there. And currently, unfortunately, we are lacking tools or there's not that many frameworks which can provide. I emphasize a structured approach because let's be honest, people like to be structured. You know, they like to think in terms of some kind of systems and being clear about the steps which they need to do in order to get to the next stage.

Gael Duez 30:54
As you said, in a big company, you can indulge yourself to have a dedicated team working on this topic and elaborating fine tuned principles, thinking about how to deploy it, and bringing the leaders. But if you're a medium sized company, mostly it's a one person show most of the time and it's not even a full time job. So having a structured approach will definitely help. And this is exactly why I was very much interested in your maturity model. So the floor is entirely yours now to talk about it.

Aiste Rugeviciute 31:32
Yes. So CDR maturity models. So it's a proposition. It's not a normative thing, but it's a proposition which is a result of academic collaboration and work with different people, different organizations. And thank you, Gael and Rob, you were part of that for all the disclosure, as much as there were others around. In total, I would say 30 people who were involved in contributing with their knowledge, ideas, giving feedback at the different stages. So the maturity model, what I'm talking about, it's fully available online. There's an academic paper I still need to write, actually a more down to earth paper, practical explaining, because I understand that academic papers are not very easily readable by most people, especially those who want to go just quickly and apply it. But the idea of this CDR maturity model is actually very simple. It's a model which allows at the current stage, to look into the scope or help to define the scope at which an organization should look in order to analyze their CDR strategy or analyze their actions, currently, actions being taken inside of the organization. The model, as I said, currently is descriptive, so it's not very normative. It does have six maturity levels. So the idea is that you go from nothing at all. There are no actions being taken up to the six, which if you're exceeding, you are the innovator. You are at the front of this whole CDR movement. There are five dimensions, and within five dimensions we have 18 sub dimensions or 18 focus areas. So we have CDR governance that kind of stands itself clear and underlying there are three sub dimensions. And to be honest, CDR governance, it was one of the most easier dimensions to get consensus on. Almost everybody, all the participants, you know, they were, we do need that. We need actions, rules against the CDR, governments and strategy and all the planning. So that's the first dimension. The second dimension is the ecosystems, which means that as an organization, you should be doing something to contribute to the wider discussions of CDR or in general, digital sustainability. It could be through your relationships with your suppliers, it could be through participation in different external think tanks, groups, open source projects, etcetera. Then we have a workplace and culture. So that digitalization is implying, well, very rarely we will have an organization currently without technology in place, without having their collaborators being exposed to technology, and collaborators can be empowered with the technology. So one of the examples, you know, generative AI, it has a lot of potential to empower people, but it also comes with risks. So that's the whole coming back to the principles that technology can bring positive and negative impact. So I have a workplace and culture, you know, at what point people recognize the risks and opportunities and do they know how to act upon them? Then the fourth one is digital services or solutions. So it's all about dev teams. So internally, what kind of applications we're using, how we're developing, what are the processes in place, if it's relevant for a given organization. And then the fifth one, which is the most difficult, I would say, and this one still needs to be, I think, further developed, is infrastructure or IT assets. So everybody agrees that we do need to think about how we are dealing with data centers. What about our equipment? So IT assets are very much thinking about concrete hardware. But, and that's where the more complicated discussions. Cloud, for example, where does that fit in? Is it fitting in your infrastructure? Is it a more digital solution? Or is it an ecosystem? Because it's actually your provider? Right? So currently it's put in the model. It's under infrastructure, but the model is supposed to be a living model. So the model is there helping, hopefully helping practitioners, helping academics to structure the conversations about CDR. What's the scope? How do we evaluate the current state of our actions, in what areas? So they can be called capability areas. But we don't really give in to that model. We don't really give advice on how to reach the next level. So that would be a more normative model. So I hope that somebody will take it, you know, and as I said, it's a living model. It's supposed to be criticized, it's supposed to be, you know, people should hopefully engage with that model, propose next steps, evolutions, how we can apply it in order to plan the strategies more effectively.

Gael Duez 37:45
Okay, thanks a lot. And I must admit that I'm happy that the cloud was kept in infrastructure because I was a strong advocate of it and I had the opportunity to use it with a client. And actually I was kind of exactly what you've described. It's not necessarily super normative, but it was at the very early stage of consulting on green IT strategy. That was how it was labeled. And I remember I needed something to provide them structured feedback on the, I think it was 20 or 30 interviews I ran with their key actors. And it was pretty useful just to drop the visual representation and say, you know, as far as I understood with those discussions, here is where the main impacts are today. So it makes total sense because you're building digital services to pay attention here and here and that, etcetera. And it was a very loose assessment. It was not super structured with the metrics, etcetera. But still, it went straight to the point with my clients and the executives, like, okay, we got the big picture and then let's investigate a bit more on it. Which actually leads me to another aspect that both of you, you've been advocating quite a lot, is talking versus acting. I think it's very easy to get lost with a high level of conceptualization. And the CDR approach can help actually to get lost somehow if you deep dive into the details and you say, okay, and we should structure like this, and then create a substructure and then another substructure, and for each substructure we should get metrics and goals, etc, etcetera. And like ten years later, you've got a beautiful paper, maybe a white paper or an academic paper, but not that much action being done. And I know that both of you have got strong opinions about it. Maybe, Rob, you wanted to start, like, how do you use the CDR principles and the CDR approach to literally drive actions rather than discussion?

Rob Price 39:48
I think it's fascinating to actually kind of look at what is different, what is happening around the world and to understand relatively kind of the way in which change happens. I mean, the thing that I would say is organizations love to measure things. I mean, can they love to measure things from a financial point of view. But actually just over the last 20 years, I think many organizations, unless you can measure it, you can't possibly then do anything to change it. So I think it's really important to have some sort of model that enables organizations to assess where they might be. I just don't think that the answer is that everything needs to be 100. It comes back to choosing where to make the impact, because you've seen an assessment and a chart that suggests that there's weaknesses in certain areas and then for what you do about them, if I can talk briefly about the approach that I see in Switzerland. So Ethos, who were kind of involved in one of the early definitions back in 2020, I mean, they started measuring the top hundred or whatever number it is of Swiss businesses on a CDR index that they've defined. And of course, the first time they did it, everyone scored appallingly because it was a new concept. It wasn't the way that they'd been managing their business, if you like, but when somebody with a voice, and in the Ethos case, because of their involvement in pension funds and they've got a financial voice, if you like, in Switzerland, then organizations then think, well, we don't want to be scoring so badly next time, so how can we do some things to ensure that the score is better? 

So the first point is, measurement's key because that's what organizations get. Understanding the influence for change, whether it's government regulation, whether it's consumer behavior, whether it's somebody who's got an involvement in the investment decisions, in your long term sustainability as an organization, Ethos, as an example, there are different patterns as to why people choose to change, but then the question is, what do you do? And the answer in terms of what you do is in many cases do the things that are in the discrete area. I mean, if we're talking about the technology in a data center or in cloud CDR isn't inventing some different path that changes what you do? I mean, that's straightforward digital transformation. It's just trying to shine a light on is it being done in the right way? And I'm sure if, I mean, Gael, I remember Mark's session at the conference last year where he was talking about what is your true energy source? So it's about shining a light on you might have thought you were doing things in a way, but had you considered X, Y and Z? Because they're negative, consequential impacts that you just weren't thinking about, because you were just looking at it through the lens of head of IT, or head of compliance or GDPR, legal perspective, whichever one it is. But in each of those areas, there are things that can be done. So I almost see CDR as a pane of glass that you put across your organization that enables you to think about all that in connectivity between the things that are being done. Because what I see in organizations is people don't do that. People focus on the thing that they are responsible for, they know about, their passion is about, rather than that holistic view.

Aiste Rugeviciute 43:35
And I think that holistic view is also coming to the obsession with the measurement or the lack of holistic view is obsession with a measurement. Well, you gave a lot of different cultural examples, Rob. I come from France, or my current experience is very much in France, and here the measurement is very much obsessed, being a thing of people involved in IT. And I think it's almost a characteristic trait, you know, oh, we can measure how much cpu usage is this, we can measure how much this code is more effective than the other code. And all that measurement ends up being some kind of performance indicator, right? We can express the measurement in terms of money, we can express measurement in terms of energy consumption, in terms of maybe how many people we trained on CDR issues. But what actual value do those performances generate? That's the question which is often missing from the discussion. And I think that's exactly when you talk about the holistic view, we often forget that measurement or performance is not equal to the value. And what exactly we're talking to whom, you know, the value. So the value to the collaborators, the value to the future generations, value to your clients or your shareholders is not necessarily the same either.

Rob Price 45:11
I had a conversation a couple of years ago with an initiative that had put a framework and measurement in place. It wasn't a CDR, but it was very close to it. And I asked the question of how it is actually measured then? And the answer was a four month audit. And an organization is not going to do that as in what we're trying to do here. We're trying to impact the planet. We want every business, every organization, every government to be conscious about the way in which they use digital technologies. It can't be complex for every organization if we want everybody to do it, to do it. So how can we use it? I mean, I'm going to go back, maybe I am wearing my technologist hat here at this point, but finding ways to automate the measurement of those things that we're looking to assess. So that something can be done almost immediately with confidence as opposed to kind of misreporting, I think is critical to any of these succeeding.

Gael Duez 46:20
And is it also a question of accepting proxy metrics instead of final metrics?

Aiste Rugeviciute 46:27
This is the key, you know, to what granularity you need to measure things, right? Because you can get so obsessed and so you know what you're going to do with 400 KPI's. At the end of the day, you can measure very precisely how, how much of the resources your code uses. But if you do know that your code is creating, I don't know, negative impacts or creating addiction on a larger scale, well, all those metrics, they're not going to help you to actually make an impact or achieve something different, right? So I think sometimes we forget that experts or people working in the company can very quickly and for a pretty low price, I would say evaluate or estimate the impacts themselves. You know, they can. You just, you do need to provide some certain framework, you do need some certain performance indicators because otherwise people love it, you know, and that's how they measure the success of their company. So it could be a proxy used as money is often used as a proxy for any kind of indicators. But in order to act, well, you need to know priorities, you need to know the magnitude of the problem, but you don't need to know the exact numbers. If you know that you're using thousands of computers, but you don't develop or, you know, your website is just very rarely used, but clearly that the impact is more of your hardware, of the usage of the computers, instead of concentrating on eco design of your website. If it's not used by anybody or if it doesn't bring a lot of value, neither to your collaborators nor to your clients. And you don't need a very precise indicator for these to take action in this respect.

Gael Duez 48:30
That's why I love using the OKR framework because I think it sets two different levels and I use it almost all the time in sustainability consulting. Remember, what are the goals? Like the kind of medium term aspirational goals and this is really what you want to do. And then, yeah, well, you've got key results, but you can try to track them over a longer period to see if you're aiming in the right direction. But first have several of them, because unambitious goals usually should be measured in several different ways. And not, please do not use a north star, that is the worst possible thing to do, like having just one metric to understand the world, how stupid this is. And then and then also acknowledge, exactly as you did Aiste that, yeah, at some point we might drop a metric to keep another one and not end up with 20 or 30 different key results or KPI, to try to understand actually the real true goal that we have. We could be reducing carbons, we could be reducing water consumption, we could be having a positive impact on some kind of very significant social issues, etcetera, etcetera. But yeah, the question of measuring, and I know that it's especially true in France, but to be honest, it's quite also a very strong cultural trait in the US as well. And they love measurement. Just watch a basketball game and you will have statistics on everything. I'd like to drift a bit away from the implementation itself of CDR and to put on the table the topic of innovation. Because if we go back to the definitions that both of you gave at the very beginning, it was really the definition of CDR, I mean, it was really this idea of trade off that we need to know how much we impact the world, to know how much good net we bring to the world, and not just saying we're saving the world. So let us build ten data centers per week. But that's connected also with the fact that most of the time, with digitalization comes some sort of innovation. So what would be your stance on innovation and sustainability? Are they opposite most of the time opposite or are they complementary or is it a bit more complex?

Rob Price 51:03
I think something that a number of us were involved in, which was the Codes Initiative and the 22 report global action plan for a sustainable planet in the digital age. And the very simple part of that was it talked about three shifts that were important. I think the thing that was so important to me in the code conversations was that there was such synergy between everything that people were talking about there and CDR. It wasn't called CDR. I mean, CDR is in the report, but actually the conversations were the same and the three shifts put the enablers in place. So collect the data, collect the information, understand the impacts that we're going to be having. Protecting. Second, protect from harms, mitigate negative effects. Third one was to innovate to solve the world's biggest problems. In essence, those were the three things. Now, why have I said that, organizations, in my experience, don't like being told not to do something, and when they are told not to do something, then they don't want to spend any money on not doing that thing or to do something in a way that they're supposed to, as opposed to the way that they do do. And it comes back to if your model is based on addiction to maximize advertising revenue, because that's your entire kind of way in which you operate and live, then you're not going to suddenly stop that, are you? I mean, it's just not going to be there. So I think one of the things I hear a lot at the moment, and I'm firmly at the heart of the generative AI world and using those technologies is people focused around obsessing about quite recently harms, native facts. It is just doing things not very helpful or impacting people's jobs, etcetera, but forgetting about, because they obsess about that, forgetting about the potential power of those technologies, generative AI, AI machine learning, data science, etc, to solve the world's biggest problem. And we need that. The world has lots of problems at the moment. I mean, it's not just climate change, but finding a way to, I mean, just aging demographics is going to be a problem in terms of long term sustainability of organizations. I mean, sustainability in the largest sense. People can't get access to the people they need, etcetera. So we have to innovate. We need to innovate with a very conscious focus around minimizing negative effects and being aware of harms and all those things. But let's try and focus on positive impact. And I know from experience, impact measuring impact on people and communities is notoriously difficult to do. But let's be conscious of those things and absolutely focus on innovating because we have to. But with that consciousness about doing it in the right way, consistent with regulations, consistent in terms of, or thinking about the impact on people. But I am very firmly, I mean, you mentioned, I think at one point, Gael, that you've seen maybe an evolution in my thinking over the last two years, and I have, I am firmly in the, we have to use these technologies to innovate to solve some of the biggest problems that we've got, but with a very conscious awareness of some of the harms that could be caused. And yes, to think about how we kind of mitigate those.

Aiste Rugeviciute 54:40
I think this is the biggest challenge, how to innovate thinking about the system, about the global system, about the whole other potential impacts. Because if you look at the current strategist policy strategies or even within companies, right. All the strategies about sustainability, sustainable development, right. They are made in one line and then digitalization strategies are made in the other line and they're not really talking with each other. If you look, honestly, if even, I think the newest UNEP report on digitalization, they all talk how digital technology is going to empower and allow to achieve the digital development, sustainable development goals for sustainable development, you know, reduce some problems and so on, but they do not really talk about the potential negative effects that come with a digitalization. So currently in a lot of discourse, and that's what was really underlined in a digital reset paper report, which was published, I think, at last, in 2022. The policies do not talk with each other, and we need them to talk with each other. We need to ensure that digital transformations are aligned with sustainable development goals of sustainable development trajectories. And one of the things they are talking about in their report is exactly that. System innovations. That's what Rob was mentioning. So, innovations, first of all, I don't think that innovation should replace the word progress, which currently often is used instead of the progress we are using innovation. We used to talk a lot about advancing some progress and so on within the companies, and now it somehow got replaced by innovation, which is not exactly the same thing. Right? Whereas innovation, if we're using it as a definition, in order to come up with something new, in order to respond to the global challenges and global crisis, and we have a lot of those crisis currently. And I do believe as well, that technology has a lot of power, but it does have a lot of risks, associated risks. And we need to develop that capacity on different levels, on politics, on corporations, on individual levels, recognizing that technology is not neutral. We've been told, you know, oh, the technology is not neutral. No, it's not. Technology comes by itself with a negative environmental impact. I think one of the good examples is that because of the big data, because of the development in the algorithms, we have way more accelerated our knowledge of climate change. We actually can model things. We can understand it better because of the advances in it. So that's a positive thing. But now we know the problem is there. Now we understand very clearly where we are going. So it's time to shift and to use it differently and not to continue running huge calculations on something which we're not able or we don't have capacities to act upon. So I think that it's a very difficult change in mindset, because we don't like to think on a global scale. Right. It's difficult, I think, for us to think about positive and negative impacts at the same time.

Rob Price 58:39
20 25 years, nearly ago, I did some research around disruptive innovation, and I seem to remember a definition from that time that innovation was invention through commercialization. So innovation was nothing unless you found a way to make money from the thing that was being invented. And maybe we need to add with purpose or with an eye on doing it the right way to that definition. So it's not just invention through commercialization, but it's invention through commercialization with purpose.

Gael Duez 59:13
That's a beautiful definition. Well, thanks a lot, both of you. That was a very, very interesting discussion, especially at the end around innovation. I think we could have done another episode entirely on this topic, but I need to let you go to your regular life. So thanks a lot for joining. Thanks a lot for highlighting this very multiple aspect of a CDR. So thanks a lot and hope to see you in London in a few weeks.

Aiste Rugeviciute 59:45
Thank you.

Rob Price 59:46
Great. Thanks.

Gael Duez 59:49
Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it and give us five stars on Apple or Spotify. We are an independent media relying solely on you to get more listeners. In our next episode we will talk about SEO, Search Engine Optimization and Sustainability. Does it sound like a long stretch? But I discovered Jean-Christophe Chouinard’s work 2 years ago and more recently the Green SEO meetup - a fringe event of the huge global convention BrightonSEO which seems to be to the SEO industry what Cannes festival is to the movie industry. It must be something related to the seashore… Anyway, I jumped on the occasion and invited 2 pillars of this Green SEO community Stuart Davies and Nathalie Arney. And I got great insights on how SEO practitioners should incorporate sustainability in their day to day job. 

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Roxanne 1:01:20
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💭Fueled by the ongoing artificial intelligence boom, data centers are popping up around the world like mushrooms after a good rain raising serious sustainability concerns. Hence a pressing question: can the data center industry become circular? 

🎙️To get some answers, Gaël Duez welcomes a veteran in Circular Economy and Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment, Prof. Deborah Andrews, from London South Bank University, the founder and academic lead for CEDaCI. 

Some Takeaways:

💡 how the CEDaCI Compass tool can help data center being equipped more sustainably,

♻️ current inadequacies in recycling infrastructure for electronic waste, and

⚡ concerns about the rapid development of AI and its energy demands

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Intro 00:00
There's a real need to shift thinking and business models and possibly, rather than selling it, equipment actually to sell services. So companies own equipment, so then they're responsible for maintenance and for what happens, either for extending life, which would be very much to their advantage, or for recycling, ending life.

Gael Duez 00:37
Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO with Gael Duez - that’s me! In this podcast we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools, and alternative approaches, enabling people within the Tech sector and beyond, to boost Digital Sustainability.

And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript, will be in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform, and, of course, on our website greenio.tech.

Can the data center industry become circular? Simple question, very complex answers.

Fueled by the ongoing artificial intelligence boom, data centers are popping up around the world like mushrooms after a good rain. For an industry which is more and more under scrutiny due to its environmental footprint, the sustainability angle cannot be overlooked anymore. Still, the main hurdle remains data, as many guests already stated in this podcast. Hence, my wish today to get insights from the program leader of an initiative which has managed to build high quality primary data on the data center industry. The CEDaCI project sounds like a Dan Brown book title, CEDaCI code to unveil all the mysterious power beneath our almighty data center industry. And to some extent, it's quite the plot. But I will let Deborah Andrews, Professor at London South Bank University and a two decades long veteran in Circular Economy and Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment reveal all of it. 
Hi, Deborah. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.

Deborah Andrews 02:32
Thank you very much for inviting me.

Gael Duez 02:35
It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. And I have a very direct question to ask you to kick start our discussion. Did you start the CEDaCI project out of frustration somehow?

Deborah Andrews 02:49
Okay, well, first of all, thank you for calling CEDaCI. That's the Italian interpretation. We normally describe it as CEDaCI, but hey ho, it's an acronym for the Circular Economy for the Data Center Industry. And yes, there was an element of frustration. I had worked with researchers and operators and so forth in the data center industry on a number of research projects from about 2010, 2012, and was acutely aware that the sector was very fragmented. There was the most phenomenal amount of expertise in the sector, but people worked in silos and didn't connect with each other. And consequently, there wasn't a sort of whole systems approach to the challenge of sustainability. And the industry experts in each of the sectors were doing the best that they could for their particular sub sector, but there was no consideration of the impact that those actions had in their sector. What the impact on other parts of the industry were? So it was absolutely apparent that there was a need for a whole systems approach. And it was very timely in, you know, having spoken to people who subsequently became partners in the project, that they were also acutely aware of this challenge. But being in academia, I was very lucky, being sort of slightly outside the industry, to be able to bring various representatives, stakeholders, etcetera, from the sub sectors together without having any bias.

Gael Duez 04:38
And Deborah just could you illustrate, maybe with a few examples, what silos are you referring to?

Deborah Andrews 04:45
So, one of the first things that we did in the project was to carry out a very critical appraisal of the state of the art. In other words, we did a scoping review of what was going on in the industry, and we identified eleven key sub sectors, key players within the industry, starting with suppliers and then going through design, manufacturing, etcetera. But what we did was linked the silos, or found evidence that these silos actually were related to all the different lifecycle stages of data center equipment. 

Now, we focused on electrical and electronic equipment, because based on prior studies with a very extensive PhD that we ran in conjunction with HP, we found that the hotspot, if you like, the environmental hotspot, and this was looking at a whole data center. So the building or the services, M&E, etcetera. The key area of environmental impact was IT equipment, partly because of the embodied materials, the energy consumption, but also the short life of products, and in particular of servers. We found that they have ordered center equipment, and this was also reflected in a big EU report that informed lot nine that servers had the highest environmental impact. So that was the focus of the CEDaCI project. But coming back to the life cycle stages and so forth, and the various silos, then we have the installation phase. And use, of course, is incredibly important. Operational energy transport, taking stuff to and from data centers, perhaps taking to secondary market operators or recycling plants. Then we have data destruction, which could be through mechanical means, shredding, etcetera, or it could be more digital with software. And then ultimately we move on to the end of life. And we could say end of first Life, which leads to secondary market and reuse. This includes refurbishment and remanufacture. Ultimately, though, whether you send your equipment to secondary market suppliers or straight on for recycling, eventually all equipment ends up with end of life processes. 

Now, ideally as much of the product should be recycled as possible. But what tends to happen is that the low hanging fruit, things like the casings and so forth, as their steel and obviously external, those recycled and the majority of the PCBs aren't, they end up in landfill. There's a real need for a shift in thinking practice to manage end of life equipment. In this CEDaCI project, one of the key things, one of our USPs, was to bring together representatives, stakeholders from these various subsectors. But one of the points that came up, because we organized co-creation workshops as part of the project, to identify what stakeholders felt they wanted, whether what they wanted was in line with what we felt would benefit them, which was a tool to aid decision making about to help with the sustainability profiling companies and so forth. But one of the USPs brought together these people, and then invariably they commented how much they had learned through the co-creation workshops, because they didn't talk to people who worked in other sub sectors. So this, again, you know, from a sort of academic or life cycle thinking perspective, you need an absolutely whole systems approach to the challenge of whatever industry you're working in to develop a circular economy. Because every action at every life cycle stage, etcetera, has caused an effect. It has an impact on all other life cycle stages.

Gael Duez 09:27
Okay, so there are so many things to unpack here from systemic thinking and your systemic approach, like the benefits of co-creation, and also what you've mentioned on e-waste. And if you, if you indulge me, I'd like to deep dive about this end of life differentiation that you just made. The first end of life, and then the second and eventually the final end of life, which is when the electronic equipment becomes e-waste. It's very important because I see today in sustainability criteria applied for RFP or bid, etcetera, or auditing the data center industry, or auditing hyperscalers, that more and more they kind of tick the box of all servers are donated to charity. All servers go to the second hand market. And so we're good, job done. I think it's a bit more complicated than that, because if the server is donated, but one year later, it ends up in a landfill somewhere in Africa, Southeast Asia, South America, or even Europe, that's not really a solution to the problem. So my question is, how important is this distinction between the first end of life and second end of life? And is it today enough taken into consideration on how to assess the sustainability of the data center industry?

Deborah Andrews 11:02
Okay, so let's think about equipment, and in particular, servers, which I've said have the highest embodied impact of data or data center equipment. And the technology, obviously, whether it's memory, processing speed, whatever, is developing incredibly rapidly. We won't even mention AI at the minute, but the sub-technical change means that an awful lot of equipment is replaced while it is still working. You know, it's functioning very, very well. Can understand, in a way, why hyperscalers and other bodies may want to have the latest, fastest, best memory, etc, equipment. But what on earth happens to the stuff that comes out of hyperscale and other centers when it's still working? Why would you want to recycle anything, take something out of service, recycle it when it still functions very well? So there's obviously a very key concern is memory and disks, be they hard drives or solid state drives. What happens to the data? We'll come back to that in a minute. But there are initiatives to encourage use of second life products, products that are still very serviceable. I mean, that's, I suppose, quite a nice analogy, in a way is, and let's assume they're all electric vehicles rather than fossil fuel driven. But, you know, maybe the hyperscalers want Ferraris, when actually many other industries would… something like Fiat Cinquecento or VW Polo will meet their transport needs. Okay, so there are drives. And certainly, I know in the UK, government and organizations like the NHS are really encouraged to use secondary market products, which one of our partners, Techbuyer, a company that is linked to them, interactive, they did a massive amount of research for their own business, but also the research fed into the CEDaCI project, they found that there were a lot of myths around the performance, particularly to do with operational energy, the performance of old, within three years old, and brand new products. If the equipment is set up correctly, then the difference in energy consumption is negligible. Obviously, it depends what compute activities you're engaged in, but like for like, energy consumption, the level is negligible. The OEMs, of course, want everybody to buy new equipment, so they're always saying, “Oh, it's better, you know, it's faster, it's more efficient, blah, blah, blah.” So coming back to the car analogy, an awful lot of public bodies in the UK, and probably in the EU as well, are being encouraged to use second life products which meet their technical needs without any problem whatsoever. But the good thing about this is the secondary market, we should have the products there, and this is a key element within the circular economy as well, of course, because it's not just about recycling at the end of life, it's about extending product life. As I said previously, why would you want to take a product out of service that is still functioning and can fulfill somebody's requirements? I think the key statement around reuse is keeping something in service for as long as technically and economically viable. That's really, really important. So the secondary market is various companies have been set up to collaborate with big hyperscale operators or smaller operators and are promoting good practice, I think, in terms of circularity and economics and resource efficiency, there are some challenges there to do with legislation and ensuring that second life products have the same warranties and so forth, and also to do with data security. Ideally, we should simply wipe drives, be they solid state or hard disk whatever, and reuse them. But there's a lot of anxiety about data security. So organizations like banks, for example, insist that drives are shredded on premise. They don't leave the bank once they're there, they come in as new products and they end up leaving as bags of tiny little bits of metal. They're shredded on site to ensure data security. But I think, and again, there are a number of really good research projects ongoing looking at data security and performance of either software wiping, whatever, so that hardware, HDDs and SDDs, SSDs can be reused.

Gael Duez 16:25
Are you optimistic about the fact that even for highly secured working environments like banks or even the military, software wiping will prevail at some point?

Deborah Andrews 16:38
I'd like to think so. I mean, I'm not an expert in this, but I would like to think so. And I think the more really robust and empirical research that can be carried out to reassure end users that software wiping or equivalent is safe as shredding, the better, really. So, yeah, fingers crossed.

Gael Duez 17:05
And Deborah, you were mentioning that there are a number of companies that have been set up to meet this new market. Could you share with us some trends? Is it still marginal, or are we witnessing a boom in the second hand market of professional IT equipment?

Deborah Andrews 17:23
It's really interesting. I think it depends very much on time, place, circumstance, etcetera. So it was interesting. During COVID for example, there was a marked increase in demand for second life products, partly because of the increase in demand for data center industry services due to homeschooling and home working, for example, but also because there were supply chain issues. And if you remember, there were all sorts of problems with chips, etcetera. So once we got over Covid and the industry really kicked off again, back to normal business as usual practices. I'll give you a little anecdote here. Okay. There was a bit of an issue around the secondary market because some manufacturers had lots of new equipment in stock before COVID but they hadn't, for various reasons sold it on.

So when there was a sort of shift in business practice generally around the world, a lot of the big manufacturers suddenly decided to flood the market with new equipment. And the price difference between that and reused equipment was negligible. So of course people wanted all purchasers, procurement teams wanted new equipment. So that had a really adverse impact on the secondary market for some companies. I'm not saying all, and it ist anecdotal, but I think it looks as though new and secondary markets are very subject to influence from external factors. You know, they're not as consistent, as stable as certainly the secondary market as we would like it to be.

Gael Duez 19:28
Did you explore with the CEDaCI project, the potential lifespan of servers if the second hand market were to be a very well functioning market? Because I've seen some colocation service providers starting to claim, and I congratulate them for this, that they keep their server for seven, sometimes eight, sometimes even nine years. But can we do better? Can we imagine a world where a server would last for 20 or 30 years? Or would it make any sense?

Deborah Andrews 20:04
First of all, if your server, and it's like, you know, your car, your Polo, your Fiat Cinquecento, whatever, even your Ferrari, if it's working well, then you should be able to keep it in service, in life or operation for a long time. The big challenge is when things, parts start to wear out or break, for whatever reason, they fail, you need to replace them. And a lot of manufacturers don't keep parts. In fact, I think legislation at the moment stipulates that manufacturers only have to supply parts for up to eight years. So if you have a ten year old server, where are you going to get the parts? It could be that you go to, say, a secondary market supplier and they have parts, but it becomes increasingly difficult over time to replace components. So that's a big challenge. The other thing is looking at changes in compute capability. We know that, for instance, there's all sorts of issues around whether you go for air cooling, to go for liquid cooling, is liquid cooling more efficient, etcetera. And AI increases the operating temperature of components. So that may well mean that we have to redesign service to manage factors like that. As compute changes, we actually need to reconfigure either layout, or if you are going for air cooling, then the number and type of fans that you have or you switch to liquid, whatever is most appropriate. So in theory, if we had modular servers that you could take out certain components of and replace with upgraded components that had common connectors and, you know, the box, the space required to house them was the same, then it seems you should be able to keep servers. You know, even if you end up with everything, all the internals, the guts of the server being replaced, the chassis, you should in theory, be able to keep reusing that for perpetuity. But whether that's feasible or not, because of changes in shift from expert liquid cooling, whatever is, we need to think about that.

Gael Duez 22:40
And before talking about the main results of the CEDaCI project, and as you mentioned, what all the stakeholders learned from each other, I've got one final clarification question. Because you were very assertive that the embodied environmental footprint within equipment is by far the biggest share of the overall environmental footprint of a data center. And if this position is not a debate at all when it comes to end user equipment or devices at home, whether it's laptop, smartphone, etcetera, etcetera, I heard some different opinions where it's more like 50-50, because professional equipment lasts longer. Some people advocate that actually the use phase, and especially the energy consumption during the use phase is far from being negligible. And for some of them, it's even the majority of the environmental footprint. So maybe could you clarify whether you were mentioning only the carbon or other environmental impacts, or even maybe the carbon. Your calculations make it clear that embodied carbon is even bigger than energy consumption, GHG emission. I was looking for a bit of a clarification here where you stand on this debate.

Deborah Andrews 23:59
Okay. So when we said that in our calculations that the largest impact in the data center was the IT equipment, when we said that the largest impact was the IT equipment, we based our model on a data center that lasted for 60 years. The actual infrastructure, the building, some of the M&E, was replaced after 20 years, etcetera. But the IT product life was based on three to five years, okay? And that's for hyperscalers, that's a long, long time. Although Google now says that they're going to keep servers in life for five years, we'll see about that. 
So coming back to... So i if you decide to pull your data center down after 20 years and build a new one, then that ratio of impact from IT to building will change. But just be clear about that, okay. The second thing to be really, really clear about is the kind of metrics you use when you are looking at impact. So carbon, obviously, and carbon equivalent, it could be methane or other hydrocarbons. Carbon is only one metric, carbon and carbon equivalents. And you exclude a whole array in fact, thousands of other impacts and outputs, inputs, etc. And impacts, when you only look at carbon and carbon equivalent. So you're not thinking about the impact of water, the impact of gold mining, for example, which is incredibly toxic, the tailings can be, may have one of the highest environmental impacts, etcetera. And the impact is not just environmental impact, it can be very detrimental to ecosystems. So toxic substances, mercury, arsenic, etcetera, used in mining processes will obviously have an impact on people living in the area if they get into the water supply and into soil and so forth. So if you're looking at carbon, you exclude all of those factors. I'm not 100% against carbon assessment. I just think we have to think about it in relation to everything else. It was really, it was the original sort of metric linked to life cycle assessment dating from the 1960s. So when LCA first began, it just considered energy, be it operational or embodied. And that's where the linked carbon assessment comes from. It's incredibly important when we're thinking about climate change. We can't underestimate its significance. However, we do need to think about all the other impacts as well. So we carried out some studies of exactly the same piece of equipment, one looking at carbon, operational and embodied carbon, and the other looking at a comprehensive life cycle assessment, which looked at and included thousands of inputs and outputs. But just on a carbon study, we found that operational energy, when you're looking at lifespan, let's say five years, operational energy accounted for 85% of impact, or the carbon in the operational energy, 85% of impact, and embodied in energy was only 15. Okay, so with the newer equipment, that ratio shifted a bit and the sort of makeup shifted to 20% for embodied impact, and 80% for operational impact over a five year life. So it's no wonder that when the data center industry is being guided by, you know, the need to reduce carbon, be it embodied, operational, it's no wonder that you focus, the industry focused on operational energy initially, and also I think it's easier to manage to make change. So now we see, you know, more use of renewables, etcetera. And also improved operating efficiency of equipment itself. 

When we look at comprehensive life cycle assessment, we've got a couple of surprises. We didn't think that the difference between carbon and full LCA would be so significant. So the same piece of equipment or two pieces of equipment. The first was, as I said, a really old server, and the ratio of operational to embodied impact was about 80:20 for carbon assessment, and again, it was lower. It was, I can't remember something like 75:25. But what, this is the really, really, really key finding. When we looked at the comparatively new piece of equipment, which was from about 2017, we found that the embodied and operational impacts were about the same. It was about a 50:50 split. So that was really, that means, that was a real surprise. And it really highlights the necessity of examining, measuring, monitoring, you know, improving the physical resource efficiency, increasing use of recycled materials, increasing recycling processes, and building a decent infrastructure to do that, changing practice with things like encouraging, if you can't reuse a whole piece of equipment, can we harvest components and reuse a individual components, etcetera. So that was a very revelationary, very revealing study.

Gael Duez 30:15
This shift from 80:20 to 50:50 was mostly due to energy savings, energy optimization of newer equipment, or was it also, as you said, because of lower cost of building equipment, thanks to the use of recycling materials, etcetera, etcetera.

Deborah Andrews 30:36
Okay, so this 50:50 split, it was a lot to do with improved operational energy. When you're looking at the full life cycle assessment, you are considering things like what happens during mining processes. It's not just the energy or the toxicity, etcetera, and also things like what percentage. Well, now we should be thinking about the percentage of recycled materials included, that, in theory, should reduce environmental impact.

Gael Duez 31:14
So now that we laid the ground for a better understanding of all this environmental footprint, etcetera, let's go back to the actual findings of the CEDaCI project, both for the stakeholders, but also for an average, I would say, data center operator. What are the findings he or she should be aware of? And what about this tool that you developed called the compass?

Deborah Andrews 31:38
The CEDaCI Compass, the circular data center compass. That was a key output from the CEDaCI project. And the majority of the research that we did underpinned the development of this digital tool. It's free to use. You can find it, access it via the project website at cedaci.org. The idea was that we wanted to help people working in the industry to make informed decisions about how to support their transition to sustainability and circularity. And one of the things that we are very keen to do well, apart from being absolutely objective, it's completely non judgmental. We don't offer any, you know, this is right, this is wrong. We just present the results. One of the things that we did as well was to separate out the three sorts of tenets or pillars of sustainability. So you put your information into the tool, or you select various criteria, and then when you see the results, comparing two different servers, you can compare the environmental impact, the social impact, the economic impact, so that, you know, it could be, as an operator, you're more concerned about social factors than environmental, so you base your decision on that. Or I would imagine most people think about economics as their priority driver. But, you know, being aware of the other criteria is really important. If you lump together, you know, these three key tenets of sustainability, you get slightly inaccurate results, you know, you don't know what I mean. It could be the social impact of one server is very high, but its environmental, adverse environmental impact is very low, or the other way around. So that's why we separated those points out. The other thing that we included was a criticality indicator. Now the EU and, well, UK to a certain extent, but certainly the EU has become increasingly conscious of resource efficiency and has identified, now, 30 materials that are what they define as critical. This is because of the amount of resource that is as yet unmined in the surface, the amount of material that is currently recycled. And I would like to include as well the possibility of substitution. But the other really, really important is the geopolitical factors, where on earth is the material located? Because that has a very significant impact on availability. So the critical raw materials are basically defined as those that are of major technical and economic significance to the EU and UK. So we included a criticality indicator to raise awareness of these materials. The use of these materials in data center equipment, all electronic equipment, uses some critical raw materials of some type. We cannot make, for example, mobile phones without tantalum, which is essential for capacitors. Tantalum is mined in Central Africa, mainly in DRC, Congo, where mining practices are eye wateringly horrific. They are environmentally and socially damaging. So we wanted to raise awareness of those sort of issues as well, to encourage better practice. So the compass was developed. As I said, it's a free to access online tool. And it was basically to inform potential end users about the impact of their choices. The other thing that was really, really important at the moment, we don't have anything like the scale of recycling infrastructure that we need to manage all the equipment that's currently in circulation, let alone all the electrical and electronic equipment that will come into the waste stream imminently. We've got a huge problem with this. There's a collection globally and it does depend where you are based globally and as does reuse. Incidentally, people with less expendable income tend to be more frugal by necessity rather than intent, I think or wish. Overall, the collection rate of e-waste is less than 20% globally. And that includes consumer as well as commercial products. But we don't have anything like the infrastructure that we need to recycle this anyway. The recycling processes at the moment, they focus on anything with iron in it. So steel, copper, aluminum, and gold. And there's not very much gold, you know, by mass, it's comparatively little gold in electronic equipment. But of course, its inherent economic value makes it attractive to recycle it. So there are masses and masses of materials, many of which are critical on the critical raw materials list, which aren't recycled. Unless we get our act together and develop a proper recycling infrastructure, there's significant potential for disruption to supply chains.

Gael Duez 38:54
But do you believe it is possible? My understanding of the chipmaking industry, or even slightly less complicated part of the IT industry, the design itself is so complicated, is so… the different metals are melted together to create alloy. You've got ceramic, etcetera, that I don't even know if it's feasible to recycle the way I would say the average John do understands it, which is we will extract to reuse it the same way. And it's more down cycling or it's even. I mean, I honestly wonder if recycling is really the way forward. So don't get me wrong, instead of being able to reuse for super long period of time, as you previously mentioned, having components that are interoperable on open standard etcetera, and saying, okay, you know, this memory card might be 20 years old, so it's ridiculous the amount of data you've got. But hey, I've still got half a billion of them. And if I've put them in some racks, it's still a decent, you know, decent enough, or whatever. But my point is, I think we are fighting an uphill battle if we really want to recycle, like extracting the tantalum you were mentioning, or the cobalt or whatever, rather than redesigning our industrial process and making also sure that the warranty period is so big that so long, that actually we shift the burden of recycling to producer, which are eventually, ultimately responsible for putting things on the market that are absolutely not recyclable. And that would end up being e-waste in a matter of years rather than decades. And when you see the environmental footprint of everything that you describe, we should talk in decades rather than in years. But that's a personal opinion. Sorry, but my point. What do you think about the feasibility of recycling? Or are we talking about a slightly different approach in the recycling industry for the IT equipment?

Deborah Andrews 41:05
I think we need to have all of those things, really. I don't think there's not one size fits all solution. I think there are some really massive challenges with electronic components, for example, because of the way that they function. You're looking at atomic levels, the way that if you're creating signals, etcetera, the way that atoms and the subatomic particles behave. So that is obviously going to limit the way in which components are designed and manufactured at the moment. Maybe in the future they will discover different approaches to data transfer or signaling, switching, whatever it may be. I don't know too much about quantum, and I don't know how this is going to change things, if at all, if we exchange one set of problems for another. I don't know, but I'd certainly like to find out an awful lot more about it. 

But coming back to your question about end of life and so forth, I absolutely agree that we need a different approach to the manufacture of many products. I think we need to really focus on the things that can be upgraded, swapped, repaired, etcetera. Again, most or many electronic components, it's nothing. You know, they're so tiny, it's impossible to repair them. So focus on the stuff that we can repair and upgrade and keep in service for as long as possible. The other stuff, we need to certainly develop better recycling capability. But there's an argument that's put forward that some of the materials, the economic value is fine if you have a kilo of stuff, but by mass per component, the mass in individual components and in servers as a whole is very low. So the economic value of any particular materials reclaimed from the server will be low. So we need critical mass to make development of recycling and reclamation technologies for particular materials economically viable. That's going to be the driver. The other big challenge we've got with recycling is sometimes the processes, and we're not. You know, there are lots of ways of doing this. One of the partners in this CEDaCI project, a company called TND or Terra Nova Developments, they developed some new recycling processes to reclaim materials that aren't commonly reclaimed. And they use a mix of thermal and chemical processes. And because you're using more than one process, of course, that increases cost. But, you know, if you have critical mass of stuff coming through the system, it does become economically viable eventually.

Deborah Andrews 44:23
One of the big challenges is very often, but if you have a printed circuit board with a huge number of materials, embodied materials, you're processing to reclaim one or two or three, those processes can damage other materials, and so you can't reclaim those. So, you know, I think at the moment, it's impossible to reclaim all of the materials in PCBs, which are the biggest challenge for recycling. So I think we need to think about when we're designing, not just designing for here now and in use to design, thinking about how can these things be easily disassembled to facilitate, if not, you know, chucking the material into a smelter to recycle it, but actually being able to reuse the materials in the… as soon as we take them off one product, we can put them on another.

Gael Duez 45:22
Do IT equipment manufacturers today start to tackle the issue? Or are they still mostly in the business as usual approach and not at all incorporating, as you said, a repairability aspect when the design sinks, even a bit of a recycling aspect?

Deborah Andrews 45:45
I think there's, and I'm not going to highlight particular companies, but I think there's quite a lot of smoke and mirrors and greenwashing. And this, again, it's anecdotal from personal experience of, you know, I worked through this CEDaCI project. They all still want to sell new equipment, and certain companies say that they have a kind of closed loop, but it's a very open closed loop, shall we say? They're not responsible. They do take equipment, but then they sell it onto secondary market agencies. They're no longer responsible for that equipment once they've sold it on. There's a real need to shift thinking and business models and possibly, rather than selling IT equipment actually to sell services. So, you know, you rent, I don't know whether you do it by compute capability or operating time or whatever. So then they're responsible for maintenance and for what happens, either for extending life, which would be very much to their advantage, or for recycling at the end of life.

Gael Duez 47:00
Which is what is slightly happening with the big three hyperscalers because they've started designing their own servers. And I could bet that they thought about the fact that even from a financial perspective, the longer you keep this equipment, which is on your own cost base, the better it is for your bottom line. And I have a final question for you, because you're privileged witness of the data center industry for almost a decade, two decades almost now, and there is a bit of an elephant in the room that you actually, you teased us several times during the interview about AI and more generally, I would say, about the trends. And I would like to share with you an anecdote while I was recording this very enlightening episode with Professor PS Lee in Singapore, who's one of the best experts in the water cooling techniques and more generally on building energy efficient data centers, especially in tropical climates. We had a really fruitful discussion, and he's a big advocate of technical optimization, and he knows a lot about these topics, etcetera. And at some point in our discussion, he posed, and he had this kind of overwhelmed moment, you know, when you've got just too much weight on your shoulders. He was like, but you know, Gael, at some point we will have to ask also the question of the level of consumption of compute that we want in our society. Because despite all the efforts that I'm doing to reduce energy consumption, the current trends, and especially the AI boom, I don't see how I can make it. And it was this kind of face, like, I simply don't know how I will be able to manage such an exponential consumption in energy, even if overnight all data centers in the world would switch to water cooling, super efficient water cooling techniques and whatnot. And it kind of struck me like even someone within the tech industry and such a strong advocate of technical optimization saying, wow, but the trend is really worrisome. Is it something that you're aligned on, or are you a bit more optimistic about the current trend in the data center industry?

Deborah Andrews 49:29
I think it's really scary. Forget about the ethics and what AI can and can't do. Forget about that. I think it's really scary because it seems that the industry is racing, racing forwards to develop either new data centers, new equipment to manage AI, etcetera. But my feeling is that some of the, what we've learned, good practice, etcetera, is forgotten in that race. So it's a business as usual approach. Build, install, run, replace, run. It's very worrying because the physical resources and energy required to manage AI operate, even the simplest operation, the demand for energy, is astronomical. So there are arguments saying, oh, well, AI is going to measure this, that and the other, and improve, you know, this, that and the other, but, or improve the operational efficiency of this, that and the other. But I don't think we've done any kind of calculations at all to see whether the benefits of running an AI software or, you know, program activity, whatever, to assess resource efficiency, whether the benefits achieved through the resource efficiency or more significant than the impact of running the AI operation. We need to really, and it's not going to happen, but it would be great to pause for a year and just to sort of examine some of these factors and to see where the benefits of AI really lie. So if we do carry on business as usual, and I know there are various regulations coming in from, you know, digital sustainability and so forth in the EU, but I don't think they're going to have a massive impact on, certainly the speed of development of AI is far faster than the implementation of these new regulations. But the other thing that's worrying, if there are constraints of operating in the EU, for example, does it simply mean that providers will go elsewhere, they'll build in locations where the regulations don't apply. And so we move our problems to another part of the world. In effect, you know, more buildings in Africa, Asia, South America.

Gael Duez 52:05
And from a cold financial perspective, do you think that the current trend of building data centers everywhere in increasing compute capacity is sustainable? Or do you foresee some bottleneck or even some forced pose because of resource exhaustion?

Deborah Andrews 52:25
There may be a quantity crunch, unless we think about extending product life, as we've already mentioned, and recycling, reclaiming more materials, changing business practice, business thinking. I think that there's potential for quantity crunch, but whether operators will start to charge for access to digital services. I mean, at the moment, you know, you buy your phone, you have a package, and you can contact anywhere in the world whenever you want. Okay, you pay for apps and so forth, but actually you're not really paying very much for the digital services that enable those apps to function. And a lot of things are free anyway. So will we have to pay for digital services? Is that one way of monitoring or constraining digital activity or not? That's one question. But the other thing is, is it ethical? You know, if we think we're in a luxurious position in Western Europe in terms of economics, although there are people in digital poverty, but, you know, generally, as a child or a university student, if you don't have computing equipment at home, you can go to your study institution and access digital technology there. But that's not the case in many populations in developing countries where digital tech is a luxury for the upper echelons of society. And yet we can see how access to a phone, not smartphone, just an ordinary old fashioned phone, has empowered women, for example, helping them to set up businesses and so forth. Is it right to charge them for data or do we make data charging… is it sort of socially stratified or according to income bracket? I don't know. I think we need to be a lot more visionary, look forwards and be proactive and anticipate problems and design them out before they happen. Now, whether that's… I think that's possible with some equipment, but whether it's possible for, you know, in terms of human behaviour and so forth, there's a whole other matter altogether.

Gael Duez 54:18
It makes total sense. Thanks a lot, Deborah, for joining. That was very enlightening and a unique perspective on the data center industry, environmental footprint and what could be done to reduce it. So thanks a lot. Once again, it was a pleasure to see you and hope to see you to Green IO London as well.

Deborah Andrews 54:36
Thank you very much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.

Outro 54:42
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Roxanne 55:40
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💭 How can a country defining itself as an high-tech spearheader can embrace IT sustainability? Japan is a fascinating example of both the contradictions and the synergies that such a journey creates.

🎙️ In this episode, Gael Duez welcomes two long-time Japan-based experts: Paul Beddie, VP and Sustainability Lead at Capgemini, and Trista Bridges, the co-author of Leading Sustainably, and a member of EcoVadis' Purpose Committee. Their exchange on IT sustainability initiatives in Japan led to many takeaways including:

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🌱 the emergence of Japanese startups focusing on sustainability, 

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Gael Duez 00:00
Hello everyone. Welcome to Green IO, the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world one byte at a time. Every two Tuesdays, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. 
I must admit that this episode is a kind of a treat for me. I had such a big shock when I was a teenager and I started to discover Japanese culture. My first exposition being with the manga Akira, like many of people of my age, and that was pretty crazy back in the old days. But anyway, regarding sustainability and technology, actually, I started to realize a few years ago that I was wondering how a country which has built its reputation about being always the cutting edge innovator when it comes to high-tech, robotic, etcetera, etcetera, would be able to manage the wave or it's not necessarily a U-turn, but at least a significant change when embracing sustainability and approach things like low-carbon technology, or even sometimes low-tech or wise-tech or you name it the way you want. I'd rather prefer wise-tech as a combination of high-tech, low-tech and no-tech. So, I wanted to explore how this country is embracing sustainability and more specifically, IT sustainability. But to be honest, this won't be a very technical episode, it's more a geographical exploration. 

And for this to happen, I'm delighted to have two experts on Japan on the show. The first one is Paul Beddie. He's actually one of the most vocal voices in Japan on sustainability at large. Not necessarily only IT sustainability, I think he publishes every day or every two days on LinkedIn. He's got crazy numbers of followers and he's well respected for this. But he also has an impressive track record holding executive positions in several IT companies such as Peoplesoft, Genpact, SAP, and now Capgemini, where he's now Vice President, Global Client Partner, and most importantly, Sustainability Lead. 
Trista Bridges is the co-author of Leading Sustainably with Donald Eubank, and she has been in Japan for over ten years now, advising SME and startup about sustainability. She's also a member of the purpose committee of the EcoVadis, a famous ESG platform. So both guests are pretty knowledgeable in sustainability and in Japan. This is why I'm so delighted to have them today. Welcome, Trista. Welcome, Paul.

Paul Beddie 02:54
Thank you.

Trista Bridges 02:55
Hi. Thank you for having us.

Gael Duez 02:58
That's a pleasure. I think my first question for both of you will be exactly as I stated in the introduction, how is Japan embracing sustainability today? Maybe, Trista, you want to start?

Trista Bridges 03:13
It's a very interesting question because I've been looking at this topic for the last probably eight years or so. I kind of started writing the book with my co-author, Donald, about, gosh, it was about eight years ago now. And at that time, it was right after the SDGs were launched. And we kind of wrote the book because we were pretty fascinated with why we kept seeing the SDGs everywhere in Japan. But not used in a kind of, I think I would say in a serious way, but used in a very frivolous way in the beginning, right. You'd see, like, little posters and cutesy things and these types of things. But people really seemed to like the SDGs, which kind of stood in contrast to my home country, the US, where nobody really paid much attention. My adopted home country, France and Europe, where people respected it, but maybe weren't kind of living by it as kind of the code of sustainability, per se. And so at that time, you know, Japan really wasn't doing that much. Although I would say that the lifestyle of Japan in some ways incorporates a lot of elements of sustainability, right? You know, it's a chain of islands who for a long time don't have any resources, so have always had to kind of look at things like recycling, for example. There's a very kind of sophisticated recycling system, for example. But, you know, if you looked at a lot of the elements of the SDGs, whether it be climate or other things, you know, Japan was definitely not kind of at the forefront of those things. But then that started to change, and you probably remember, you may or may not remember, there was a prime minister, Prime Minister Suga. He basically committed to net-zero for Japan, 2050, I think that was in 2021, perhaps. And then we had Prime Minister Kushida, who came in and he kind of continued in that same vein. And you started to see in the last, I'd say, two or three years or so, you're seeing a lot of momentum around this topic, particularly around ESG and we can talk later about different regulations and these types of things that are kind of coming into play. But I'd say at the moment, Japan, there's a lot of momentum around this topic. But does Japan have a long way to go? Absolutely. And there's a lot of different structural and historical reasons for that that we can dig into during the discussion.

Gael Duez 05:31
Oh, and we will. Paul, you might want to bounce back on this.

Paul Beddie 05:37
Sure. I'll add a little bit more color as to what Trista just said, by the way. It's great to be on with you, Trista. I know when I came back to Japan for the third time in 2020 from China, your book, and you and Donald were some of the first people I met when I came back to Japan to plug into the sustainability community here. So, it's great to be on the call with you. Some of the things that I know, I mean, in Japan, we have the SGD train. Some of the subways are totally plastered. SDGs. SDGs. Everybody in Japan is wearing the beautiful multicolored pen. They're saying, look, we're all for the SGDs. You go to every construction site around Tokyo, they've all got a huge billboard out in front of the building that they're building, the 40-storey steel ginormous building with tons of concrete, that they're very concerned about SGDs, and they knocked down perfectly good buildings to build those. So it's a really interesting place. They give a lot of lip service but I have to say, I'm not sure that Japan really understands what it needs to do to really become sustainable. The odds of it actually hitting the goals that the government's put out by 2030, in my opinion, are very low. But it's interesting. I actually came to Japan initially in 1991, and worked for a very large Japanese engineering company. Very unusual experience. I was the only foreigner in their global sales development group, in their inaugural environmental business development company, selling scrubbers to coal fired power plants. And when it comes to hardware, and this is really typical for Japan, their hardware excels. This is a country of mechanical civil engineers. And they love products. They love making things that they can really engineer the heck out of. And so it was really interesting early on in my career to experience from a power generation. How do they actually look at technology to reduce emissions while burning coal? Here we are nearly 35 years later, and the companies here are still burning coal. A lot of it. They're the world's largest consumer and user and buyer and trader of LNG, Liquefied Natural Gas, which is a marketing coup to call methane natural gas. And in fact, one of the major utilities here, power generators, a company called JERA, just this week started the first ever ammonia co-firing of a coal-fired power plant anywhere in the world. And they've also recently just, this is obviously public information, they're in discussions with ExxonMobil to get 5,000 tons of ammonia a year out of the US, ship it to Japan so they can try to get 20% to 30% of volume for their thermal power plants from ammonia versus coal. So, from a technology perspective, and this is probably a lot more than just IT, Japan is definitely advanced in trying to go hydrogen, trying to go ammonia, and trying to do things that not necessarily the rest of the world has bought into yet. I don't think at the G7 meeting, anyone besides MHI was excited, Mitsubishi Heavy that is, was excited by the current prime minister's announcement that they were going to be going ammonia co-firing for power.

Gael Duez 09:00
Yeah, maybe we'll jump to the IT part later, because I'd like to unpack a bit what both of you say. It seems that on one hand, the Japanese way of living is pretty sustainable and it comes with cultural roots that I would actually love Trista to elaborate a bit on. But on the other hand, it also seems that they've got not a fully systemic understanding of what is going on and the need to shift, and they're more like adjusting with engineering prowess to fine tune what is going on, but not necessarily embracing the systemic vision that, hey, something has basically to stop. And so maybe, Trista, on the first part of what I understood of what you described with Japan, what are, according to you, the cultural roots and maybe historical roots that explain that Japan is so open to the sustainability idea?

Trista Bridges 09:54
Yeah. So I think that there's a few things that are really important part of this story. So, first of all, I'll come back to the recycling point in a moment and kind of use of resources and limited natural resources. But there's a general understanding in Japan of the concept of a stakeholder. Right. And, you know, that kind of comes from Japan's history. You probably know a lot about, you know, the Japanese desire to have collaboration for different parties to kind of come at the table. And there's a concept called “Sanpo Yoshi”, which is kind of what's good for the company is good for all. So they've always had this stakeholder oriented approach. And the fact is, with sustainability, if you want to be a sustainable society, if you care about that, then you have to care about stakeholders as opposed to just shareholders. Right. So I think that's actually a really important part of Japanese society that helps. Right. People are very concerned in Japan about how their actions affect another person in a way that they are not, you know, in kind of other countries. Right. The countries that we come from, maybe we used to be a little bit that way, but we've gotten a bit less that way over time. Okay. So I think that's an important point. 
The second point is, you know, absolutely, with natural resources, when you don't actually produce certain things you have to figure out how to repurpose and reuse those things or perhaps use less of them in some way. Right. And there are also, as you know, the history of Japan. I am not a Japanese historian. I don't know Japan's history kind of an extensive way. But one thing that many of us know is that for periods of time, Japan was completely closed. Right. Nobody came in, nobody came out. Right. And that's why probably during the COVID period, it was so easy for the country in some ways to shut itself down because it had done this before. Right. So when you shut yourself down like that, you have to figure out how do we make use of what we have. And I would say that Japan has gotten pretty good at that. That being said, however, since the war, since World War II, which kind of really transformed Japanese society in many ways. It became a very much a consumerist place. So with that comes consumption, with that comes waste and plastic usage and buying stuff and throwing it away. So Japan is, and I don't have the figures, I apologize. But Japan is probably within Asia, probably one of the biggest producers of trash that has been shipped elsewhere. Right. Not all of it is perfectly recycled.

Paul Beddie 12:27
We also have a lot of municipal power generation here that's a lot of meticulously separated trash into different components. All goes into the same furnace.

Trista Bridges 12:41
Very good point. And I think in all of our societies, we have elements of them that make sustainability possible, right? But it's like a puzzle. They don't have all the pieces, clearly. Right. And Paul and I, we'll talk about this a little bit, but we talk about. We'll come back to the IT pieces. I know we come back to it, but one of the other parts of this is really important is this kind of hardware versus software dynamic in Japan. And Japan is not great at software. Right. And part of sustainability management is data, is having good analytics is all that type of thing. And we can talk about that later. But that's something, for example, that Japan never really kind of got on the train with. It caused a lot of issues. 

Paul Beddie 13:24
Very challenging for Japan on the analytic side and on any type of business software to identify the data and get to the data. It's definitely, Japan, is definitely a laggard from that perspective, certainly compared to what's happening in Europe, although there's certainly a lot of startups in Japan now that are trying to build software solutions. But it's definitely an area where they're going to have to look outside more and more to find solutions that the homegrown solutions, from a software perspective, just are having difficulty getting to where they need to be from an efficacy perspective, as well as from just getting market share and getting an understanding from users on what's the value of doing it.

Gael Duez 14:10
And how do you explain this, Paul? Because this is an engineering country, because this is a hardware country, as you stated? 

Paul Beddie 14:18
I think, so just today, I got to go visit a brand new ship brought out by Maersk. It was built in South Korea. It's on its maiden voyage. It's in Yokohama. It's the world's second green methanol-powered transportation ship supply chain component. It's a huge ship. And this is the type of thing that Japan's really excited about because it's a big ship and it's got a lot of engineering, and it has a ginormous engine in it, and it uses tens of thousands of tons of methanol. But they don't really know anything about the software. But I was talking to some of the representatives of the company, and back at headquarters in Europe, of course, they have all this great tracking software that they can provide to the car companies in Japan and to the various manufacturers of things in Japan so they can track their Scope 1 when it comes to supply chain. But I think a lot of Japanese companies are still struggling to understand, well, why would I do that? What's the point? You know, how does software actually help me reduce my environmental footprint? So that is something a lot of big organizations in Japan struggle with, for sure. I mean, the Mitsubishi’s, the Nissan’s, the Toyota’s, I mean, there's certain areas where they do, and certainly overseas, those big companies, their European operations are very much plugged into what's happening in Europe and very much aware. But when I talk to headquarters in Osaka or Tokyo of these same companies, they're absolutely blind to what their colleagues in Düsseldorfor in Paris or in London are doing to comply. It's just not on their radar.

Trista Bridges 15:57
Can I say one thing, too, just quickly, about the software piece? Just very quickly. And in digital technology, I think most people would, you know, you have to kind of look at what happened to China over the last 30 years, you know, after the bubble burst. It was kind of traumatic, frankly, for the company country. Sorry. And it kind of missed, like, there's some Internet companies here, right? There's Rakuten, there's some other Yahoo. Kind of branched off. You have Yahoo Japan. But in many ways, it kind of missed, like the biggest technological revolution that the world has known over the last 35 years. Right. First that being software, second being the Internet and digital technology and everything that came out of that. So, now Japan is really investing much more in the last few years to try to catch up with that. Right. 
So we have two trends here which you hear people talk about. One is DX, and that's very much in Paul's wheel. Paul's wheelhouse is probably both of these things, but definitely that DX digital transformation that people like, you know, these kind of terms kind of helps people understand. And the other is GX, the green transformation. And these two things kind of fit together, if you will. You can't really do one. It's hard definitely do the GX without DX. It's almost, I would argue it's probably impossible, you know, and then maybe it's starting to get hard to do DX without GX too. Right. Without kind of thinking about sustainability as well. So that's just to give a little bit of historical context. And I think it's a fascinating story, right? If you look at Japan over the last 35 years, it's really interesting, actually, what's happened in this country and its challenges around this.

Gael Duez 17:37
And thanks a lot, because just before deep diving into more the tech side of things, I might try some kind of very sociology, ground level or sociology for dummies question. But do you think that this lagging when it comes to software, which is mostly powered by data and data is somehow power? Do you think it is connected to the fact that Japanese culture is very hierarchical and you don't share power that easily, and actually data and handling data is poor, and you don't share data that easily and you don't manage or handle data that easily. Do you see a connection or is it me just going completely wild?

Paul Beddie 18:20
In Japan,  I've been on so many big projects where the IT department is driving the big transformation project, and they tell the business, you know, a year later, oh, by the way, we've changed everything. They don't necessarily get the businesses’ buy in before they do it. And so, the IT guys kind of sit back in their cubicles and think, well, how should we do this? And they start building it without asking the business. And for that reason, you get IT that doesn't necessarily give the business what they want, but because the IT budget is completely owned by it and they don't need sign off from the business, you end up with spending tons of money building IT systems that don't necessarily deliver what the business is actually hoping to achieve. And so, I see that's being one of the reasons why the digital transformation here has been slow is because they're not necessarily looking at it from a business perspective. They tend to look at it more from a hardware and an engineering perspective. Change is hard everywhere, but change is particularly difficult in Japan. Most organizations around the world do a big IT transformation project. They use IT as the special sauce to drive transformation. Japan still uses IT to spend a lot of money and buy more hardware. It's interesting. Half the world's remaining mainframes actually are in Japan. So there's still a long, long way to go in terms of how to digitize the country in a way that makes sense. And it's also that makes it the whole concept of this kind of idea of green IT,  is also difficult because the Japanese are very slow to move things to the cloud. And as you move things to the cloud, you get more control over. So, what's the power source that's running all those servers? And so it's still very slow to uptake on some of these things. Now, having said that, from a data center perspective, they're building all kinds of new data centers in Hokkaido because it's so cold that they realize they don't have to heat as much. So there's certain components of sustainability that they're thinking about. But are they really thinking about it because of sustainability, or is there some other factor as to why they're doing what they're doing?

Gael Duez 20:49
And now, going back more specifically to the IT/Tech sector, you seem to say, Paul, that you gave the example of the data centers that things are moving forward, but that the concept of green IT has been slow to take off because actually the concept of digitization has been slow to take off. And let's put aside my awkward question on the connection between data and power and stay way more pragmatic. How do you see, both of you I would say, the state of green IT in Japan?

Trista Bridges 21:22
So, I know my kind of wheelhouse is more the kind of startup world, right. And technologies that are kind of coming online to kind of tackle this problem, new companies, right? And I think one of the most interesting things that I've seen is first of all, how long it took just pretty basic carbon accounting software to come to Japan, right. You know, we have in Europe, in the US, even other countries, Australia, South America, et cetera, just hundreds of these things now, right, where we can basically just, you know, enter our information and we could track it. And it's basically a kind of a SaaS type tool, right. And everybody can access it. And I ask other people for information and we share information back and forth. And it took a really, really, really long time for that to come here. And it started in the last couple years and actually it's accelerating. And I would say that, you know, if you can kind of crack the Japanese market, you do really well, right. Because it was just kind of a completely open space. And for me, that's very kind of rudimentary technology, right? That's not anything super, super sophisticated, right? It'd be something better than I could build because I'm not a trusted technologist. But, it's kind of like the bare minimum you need, I think, to be able to manage this issue of, you know, every element of sustainability. So we're starting to see more startups doing that kind of stuff, and that's really software. And so we're starting to see innovation around that. Japanese companies, not just EcoVadis which you mentioned earlier. EcoVadis, which I have some affiliation with, is doing really well in Japan, recently came to Japan and it's a really strong market for them. And it's great, but it's also a market that didn't really have much, right? So, and there's just thousands of companies here. Like, I think that's another thing people forget is, you know, in the west, we really have kind of like hollowed out a lot of our companies in a lot of ways. We have these kind of, you know, matriarchal organizations. We've, you know, really kind of downsized them quite extensively. In Japan, you know, companies don't really die here in the same way that they die in the west. So you have just tons of companies. Right? So if you have a good product and these companies feel that they have to do it, you can absolutely do extremely well here. And so the first movers to the market, especially on the software side, are doing well. There's some more sophisticated technologies that you just don't really find here yet dealing with sustainability that you find much more abroad, like carbon capture. I have seen some more battery production technology here recently, which is kind of exciting. But yeah, I think the kind of early stuff is starting to happen. The latter stuff, even though you would think because it is very kind of industrialized country, that you would have more of that if they're kind of late to the game with that. But that stuff is starting to happen. But we don't have, for example, even in the investment sector, the size of the investment sector that we have in Europe and particularly in the US, we don't really have tons of, for example, green venture capital funds, right? They invest in carbon technology only. So there's a lot of work. But at least in kind of the startup space, things are starting to happen. But oh, my goodness, there's so much opportunity and room to improve and innovate here.

Paul Beddie 24:45
You're right, there's so much opportunity. And on the investment side, you know, it made me think of Japan's pension system is one of the biggest pensions in the world. I forget how many trillions, tens of trillions of dollars they have under management in the system. They have a mandate to allocate a certain point of that part of that to sustainability projects. And my understanding is 90 some odd percent of what they invest in for sustainability is outside of Japan because they can't find bankable projects to invest in in Japan, so they have to go outside. You know, I, in my role, I work with Japan's top 100 companies. So these are really, these are the household name companies everybody in the world's heard of. And a number of them are my customers. When I work with their operations in Europe or North America, there's a high awareness and high desire to do something with, you know, how do we make our IT more green? What are we, what are the solutions? What are your credentials to us as Capgemini? What are your credentials to provide green IT solutions? We don't get those questions in Japan. And in fact, we find it quite difficult to sell some of the solutions to Japan. The customers generally just aren't aware of them. But interestingly, what we're doing right now is we're kind of reverse engineering our way into helping customers identify. So here's some sustainability benefits of the project that you've just done. You didn't ask for this to be done, but we're doing it because we're a French-headquartered company. We have lots of stuff we've committed to in France as a global company as to how we're going to help our customers decarbonize and whatnot. And we have to actually do the work here and reverse engineer. Okay, so we took you from an on prem solution to a cloud solution. All right? We're going to help you calculate what the difference is in the carbon impact of that. We're taking you off a mainframe. We're putting you on to other types of software. So we're trying to push the needle. And I know most of the big consulting companies are doing the same. This is not unique to our company. All the big, famous consulting companies that operate in Japan, all of them are trying to build a sustainability practice. But I think everyone is still struggling to get the big companies to say, “Yes, we will spend the money to reduce our carbon footprint.” They're still not thinking that way. They'll spend the money to do the projects. But you said, well, if you add on a little bit more, we can track everything and we can go green and like, no, I don't want to do that.

Gael Duez 27:16
How come that the level of awareness is so low when it comes to the environmental impact of IT and electronic equipment in general?

Paul Beddie 27:25
I'd say it comes back to what we were saying earlier on the hardware versus software. The mentality here is engineering. I want to engineer big physical goods that generally can't see that, or they haven't been exposed to it. And again, it's also the hierarchical situation in Japan. Until you're about 45, you don't get any decision making power in a big company here. So that means these people, they're all still analog. The digital natives have yet to come into positions of power in any of these big companies. So there's a generation, it will come eventually, but it's still not there yet.

Trista Bridges 28:04
Absolutely. If you kind of look at the kind of the things that the Japanese have built, and they're very proud of having built. Cars, automobiles. I remember growing up when Toyota came to the US, that is kind of giving my age away a little bit, but incredible. Getting a car with that kind of low gas mileage that doesn't break down regularly, that's very fuel efficient. It's like a marketing marvel. The Sony Walkman. I think probably the best thing that's close to software they ever built is gaming. Right? The gaming sector, right. Which they're incredible in. My sister works for Nintendo. What a company, you know? But this is kind of like when you've done these wonderful things and also even electronics, right? All the electronic devices, television sets, you know, all these things for years that the Japanese used to make. So if you make stuff, right, you make stuff like that,  how can you even really conceive that the idea of this stuff might be a problem? You know, if you're even just talking about the physical, those physical items, right. That, like, maybe people don't need these things and maybe we need to repurpose them, and they're actually kind of good at that. So if there's an area called Akihabara, I don't know if you had a chance to go when you were here, which, you know, they take devices, they repurpose them, they resell them just because people like to tinkle, tinker with things. And like I said before, right. People kind of have this history of reusing what they have and that, you know, that's something they should own, right? They should absolutely own that. They built the stuff. They should know how to kind of repurpose it and use it and that should be their first instinct. But unfortunately, and that's on the consumer side, right. That's not necessarily on the corporate side, but I think that that's kind of, it's kind of hard to let go, right. It's hard to let go of what you did so well, right. And then of course to do all that you need the energy. You needed energy to be able to do that. 
We didn't talk about the great earthquake here in 2011, which was pretty pivotal in this story too, which you should say, you know, this was a nuclear powered country for a long time. You had this absolute tragedy in 2011 and the nuclear reactors were shut off. So, what's the response? Coal. So you need the energy, right. So, the only way that I think they could have gotten out that differently was if they completely changed their lifestyle and that wasn't going to happen. 

Paul Beddie 30:23
For 12 to 18 months, they were providing incredible feed in tariffs for anyone who was willing to put a solar panel out in their field. And there are definitely a number of people that won the lottery by putting up very quickly some solar farms in Japan that caught huge feed in tariffs but it didn't last very long and they pivoted away and said no, no, it's really hard for Mitsubishi or Mitsui or Sumitomo, these ginormous Japanese companies to keep making big money. If you've got all these cottage people building little small one two megawatt solar farms, we don't want that to happen. Let's go get another 20 year supply contract for 10 billion gas from Qatar.

Gael Duez 31:07
Yeah, well actually that connects pretty well with the question I wanted to ask. Where do you believe the change will come from? Is it more civil society, a general rise in the level of awareness? Because I also know that NGOs are very active and powerful in Japan. There are not only big corporations. Or do you believe that it will more come from the stick side, I would say. And that some legislation one way or the other will have to be rolled out for things to start moving, starting with just measuring things and then being able to act on them.

Trista Bridges 31:44
So, the regulation side which is actually super interesting, because the Financial Services Agency, the FSA, has actually been quite ambitious on this, I would say. So, they rolled out about 18 months ago sustainability reporting criteria and they're going to be adopting what's called ISSB, which is kind of the International Sustainability Standards Board, which is the standards that we're trying to develop is principally around climate-related type things, and they believe that that should be the standard. That's another cultural thing that's actually really important in Japan, which is consensus, which is agreeing to do something together as the international community doing something here. Like, I talked about the SDGs and the UN and the respect for the UN. So, they're very much kind of supporters of that. And Ikeda-san is the gentleman at the FSA who kind of manages these kinds of questions and regulations around sustainability, amongst other things. And they really want to adopt that here. So, they're planning to bring that into effect. And that requires things like aligning with TCFD. That requires, you know, I think Scope 1, Scope 2 reporting, I think  Scope 3 as well. So, these are things that are going to absolutely transform Japan. And I say that only because people follow the rules, right? So, if the government says you got to do this thing, you know, and so now people are starting to scramble to do it, it works in a way like, you know, that would not be the American instinct, right. The American instinct would be to, which is what's happening, right. To push back against it, to get a bunch of lobbies to use the state, right. To challenge it in Japan, they're like, oh, we have to do this thing. So you have to have here that top down kind of rule. I think the rulemaking is really important here. It's not the whole story, but it is important. And it's a bit of a stick. There is a bit of carrot in it in a way because if you do a good job at it, then you look like a better company, right. To stakeholders, to the government, to the people who matter.

Gael Duez 33:56
Trista, does it really matter to look good on sustainability in Japan?

Trista Bridges 34:01
I think that it matters to look good to the people who matter, right. So I think you want to be in the good graces of the people, you know, of the circle, right. Whatever. However, you define who's in that circle, right. The public is different, right. I don't think that's really a concern here, right. I don't think companies are overly concerned around, you know, looking great for the public per se. Right? But I do think there is kind of this concept of, you know, we want to seem like a responsible company, especially to the people who make decisions here, especially to the people who matter. We don't want to be a bad student. We don't want to be the outlier or the one who kind of screws up and then it's public that we screwed up.

Paul Beddie 34:45
But there is a tremendous amount of marketing efforts going on, initiatives by big Japanese companies touting their green credentials.

Trista Bridges 34:54
That's true.

Paul Beddie 34:55
People understand it's a problem. People want to see things done. But if Mitsubishi says they're doing it, then probably people think, “Oh, then it's all under control, I don't need to worry about it. Mitsubishi says they're taking care of it, so it's all good.” And I just used Mitsubishi as a, I mean you can place whatever Japanese company name you want to put in there. And people think because they trust these large organizations, following the rules and trust are two big things that you have in Japan. So, if they say they're doing it, then okay, then it's taken care of. I don't need to worry about it. And I think a lot of people would be probably, the Japanese people, would probably be surprised to understand some of the things that really happen on a sustainability or emissions perspective isn't necessarily going the way that they're being told it's going.

Trista Bridges 35:42
And I'd say that the public here doesn't challenge the corporate establishment in the same way that we do in our countries, right? Like we're absolutely, it's been like nothing but nonstop, like chaos probably since the financial crisis in 2008, right, in terms of people's relationship with established businesses. So, it's very different here.

Gael Duez 36:03
Paul, how do you believe the big corporate world where you, which you're pretty familiar with, will react to this new regulation? So there is, as Trista says, the good student effect but will they embrace it as a new business opportunity or just as, okay, some new rules to follow? That's how it should be and that's it.

Paul Beddie 36:27
I think if the legislation comes down, then they will do it. The other thing that, you know, it's still, it's not nearly as an export-oriented economy as it used to be, say 20 years ago, but exports are still a big component of what happens in Japan. And I think the external influence, particularly from Europe, on some of the regulations around supply chain, around certification, on what is green, what is the footprint of the products you're importing. I forget now that the timelines went up, but it's something like any company that has more than 200 employees or does more than $400 million a year worth of business in the EU has to comply with all the EU rules and regulations?

Trista Bridges 37:08
Yes, another few years. I think it's another few years out, but that'll come in the blanket of an eye. Right?

Paul Beddie 37:13
Cool. But as it stands right now, could Sony continue exporting whatever products they manufacture in Japan to Europe after those regulations kick in? The way things stand right now, no, they won't be able to. They won't be able to get through the new regulations simply because they can't actually get the green power to run the factory that they're manufacturing in. But those things pragmatically will make changes here, or they'll just continue shifting more of the manufacturing capacity to countries where they're actually able to get access to the green inputs.

Gael Duez 37:49
And that's something I'd like to ask you about because I had this pretty amazing interview with Professor PS Lee from Singapore. He's a data center expert, and he was explaining that no matter how hard they try, the Singapore state will not be able to go 100% renewable energy. So the way they do it is actually they're importing, as he said, green electron from neighboring countries to manage their energy transition. Because even if they cover the entire island with solar panels, which is something that they're actually doing, it won't be enough because they're so energy- intensive for many, many different reasons. The big harbor, I think they've got 10% of the entire Southeast Asia data centers just located in Singapore. So, it's a bit crazy over there. And it's very linked to the comment you made, Paul, about, hey, if I cannot manufacture using renewable energy, in that manufacturing things, using renewable energy has become more and more a standard around part of the world where I've got a lot of consumers, how will I deal with it? And so you suggested one solution, which is outsourcing the production in low carbon country or more environmental friendly standard country, which could be option one. But option two, is there any attempt to truly go full speed on renewable, maybe also coming from abroad?

Paul Beddie 39:20
I think the answer to that is yes. There's definitely some companies, big companies in Japan, that are basically trying to buy credits because they can't get off the thermal power generation or the fossil fuel-based energy production in Japan fast enough. So, instead they're investing massively in renewable energy in other markets around the world. In Europe, in China, in the United States, partly as a way to try to offset what they are unable to do in Japan. And the whole renewable energy discussion in Japan is quite a tricky one because there's a lot of factions that wouldn't seem to have a lot of political power, but that in reality, have huge amounts of political power in the countryside. Fishermen's associations, Onsen associations, businesses that would seem to be not necessarily the juggernauts of the economy, have a way to actually stop progress and innovation from happening because they don't, you know, it's not in my backyard. The Onsen Association is scared to death of geothermal power because they're scared that they're going to take away their hot water. They're taking hot water from a couple hundred feet down. Modern day geothermal goes 7, 12, 15,000 ft down to look for its heat. So, there should be no issue with the onsen being able to keep pumping up their wonderful hot water. But they don't see it that way, and they continue to block those things. And the whole discussion around wind turbines here, it's very, you know. Europe is blessed, from a wind turbine perspective, and that you've got a lot of shallow, big bodies of water right close to Europe. You know, the North Sea is not very deep. The Mediterranean is not that deep. You go not too far off the coast of Japan, and, you know, it drops 3 miles to the bottom of the ocean. So, there's all kinds of new technology for floating turbines and whatnot that are required. There's all kinds of new infrastructure that needs to be put in on the ports that want to handle something besides fish. There's challenges here to Japan having the political will to disrupt its harmony that it's got with some very long traditional components of the society in order to become more green while still maintaining modern 21st century economy.

Trista Bridges 41:53
Yeah, I think there's two things there. Topography is not always on Japan's side, I'd say, in terms of it's a huge challenge. And then also it's like the flip side of what I was saying before about the stakeholder management. Sometimes, it can be to the point where it's almost paralyzing, right. If you have all these different blocks that you're trying to kind of respond to. And, you know, again, our kind of response in the west would just be to sue them or to do basically try to stamp them out or move them out of the way, right. But that in Japan, you know, that can happen, and it's good that that doesn't always happen, right. But it can be something that's tricky to manage.

Gael Duez 42:29
And I would go for a final question. If you walk into main Tokyo streets, you will be literally surrounded by gigantic screens promoting Muslim mass consumption. Do you see, and Japan is deeply rooted in what we call Global North, highly emitting countries with a high standard of living and taking a huge toll on the global carbon budget of the entire planet and entire humankind. Do you see any discussions, any move toward some sort of sobriety or reducing these consumptions or not at all at the moment?

Trista Bridges 43:09
I think you see some very small kinds of movements, right? So, you have like Hippie movement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, there are some things like, you know, there's some really important kinds of initiatives and innovations that have happened here that might seem very kind of simple to other people, but actually kind of a big deal. So, there's one called Mymizu, which is, you know, basically a social innovation organization who got restaurants to allow people to refill water bottles, right? And the water bottles are kind of reusable bottles of water. And you would think this is, well, that seems like normal, right? In Europe, you go to a restaurant, somebody fills up water from the tap and puts it on your table. Perfectly normal. But in Japan, there's a vending machine every 2 ft, right? So you said to think about, there's something about consumption here which is a huge problem, which is convenience. It is unbelievable. There's a convenience store every 2 ft. There's literally a 7/11, a Lawson and a Mini Stop or whatever within literally inches of each other. So, this kind of feeds the machine of consumption, right, when you can just always consume. Right? So, how do we get people to still have a great quality of life and just not do that constantly, you know? And I think that that's something that's going to be very hard to change here. Perhaps in the country areas, you know, it'll be a little different, right. But in the big cities, the problem is the big cities are where people are moving and migrating to. So the rural areas are quickly hollowing out here in Japan. And urban lifestyle is just not conducive with this, right? Because there's always these stimuli to get you to consume something, right.

Paul Beddie 44:52
The other thing that's really interesting is there's been research done by different companies, smaller research companies. I'm thinking like fabric, that have found that the segment of the population that really cares about sustainability are actually what we now refer to as the boomers, the over sixty-fives. The younger people actually aren't that interested. And it's just because wages in Japan aren't that great. It's hard to make a lot of money here. And so, the young people are more concerned around, “I gotta make money so I can pay my bills, I gotta pay the rent.” And it's not top of mind to them that, oh, we gotta do something. I mean, they just think, oh, I'm from Japan. So everything here is, we're good, you know, we're sustainable. And that's just the perception that they have. The reality is quite different. But the older generation and the older generation grew up when Japan was industrializing, basically from after the second World War. And there was a lot of pollution in Japan. There were a lot o problems. Polluted rivers, you know, there's famous cases about, you know, how people got sick. But all this was in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and the young people today have no recollection or awareness of any of that. But the older people like, hey, we can see the forests are dying, we can see things aren't the way they're supposed to be and so they care about it. But the young people, for whatever reason, don't really. But as I said again, they're struggling to make ends meet and that's where their focus is. All of that said, I mean, Trista and I, we're both from the US. Trista also has connections back to Europe. Most of the long-term non-Japanese living in Japan probably don't want to live anyplace else. It's not the sustainable juggernaut that it could be. Particularly after the big earthquake in 2011, there was a real opportunity for Japan to become a renewable power, renewable energy superpower, and they kind of passed on that, unfortunately. That aside, it is a pretty amazing place to live.

Trista Bridges 46:57
So I encourage you to come visit. I encourage everybody to come visit. Plus, the yen is very weak, so that helps.

Gael Duez 47:04
And I think what a great way to conclude our podcast. Thanks a lot, both of you. It was great having this journey into the Japanese culture and into the challenges to work more sustainably with a very nuanced discussion, which is what I really enjoy. So, thanks a lot. I don't think I will see you that soon, but who knows, maybe we will organize a Green IO conference in Tokyo or Osaka at some point.

Trista Bridges 47:36
Please, we'd love to have you. That would be great.

Gael Duez 47:39
Yeah. Well, let's discuss this in 2025. I think for the moment, let's make Singapore, London, Melbourne, maybe other places in Paris as well a success. But why not? It really depends on the maturity of the ecosystem. Once again, thanks a lot for joining the show. It was great.

Trista Bridges 47:56
Thank you. Thanks so much.

Paul Beddie 47:58
Thanks so much.

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Intro 00:00

With regard to organizations prioritizing sustainability goals, a big part of that, in my opinion, is ensuring that those goals are publicly stated so that there is an element of accountability around that.

Gael Duez 00:24

Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO with Gael Duez - that’s me! - Green IO is the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools, and alternative approaches, enabling people within the Tech sector and beyond, to boost Digital Sustainability.

And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript, will be in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform, and, of course, on our website greenio.tech. 

Decarbonizing a tech stack, or a platform, or a full information system. This is the challenge many CTO face these days. And beyond carbon, more environmental indicators are taken into consideration. Far from being just a few technical choices to make, it often implies multiple decisions at multiple levels with multiple stakeholders to succeed. Hence, this episode where I wanted CTOs to share and exchange about the strategy they choose to achieve the sustainability goals their company committed to. 2 CTO with different backgrounds and operating in different lines of business are welcome today. Ludi was CTO at Lunii for three years, a highly successful toy maker in France, and she's now digital CTO at Bpifrance. But she's also part of a vibrant community, tech.rocks which gathers French CTO in Paris and beyond. Owen is CTO at Dot ECo, a company operating the registry ECO and has successfully run decarbonization of its tech stack. And he's also part of the climate action tech community. And this is where I've had the pleasure to meet him. Ludi Owen, thanks a lot for joining Green IO today. It's a pleasure to have both of you in different time zones making the effort to be in the show at the very same time. So thanks a lot and welcome to the show.

Ludi Akue 02:41

Happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation, Gael.

Owen Rogers 02:44

Thanks for the intro, Gael.

Gael Duez 02:48

So without further notice, I would like to ask both of you the same question, and it's a highly complicated one. What was the impact, or in another word, what were the goals you were aiming to achieve when you started to reduce the environmental footprint of your technical operations or your tech stack? Maybe, Ludi, you want to start?

Ludi Akue 03:16

Yeah. Thank you for the question. So the goal was pretty big. It was, we need to change the way we produce everything. So it's a big, hairy goal. Not clear at all. That was the goal I had in the beginning, knowing that the company Lunii was a toy maker. So as you said, a hardware toy maker. And I managed both the hardware teams and the software teams. So the challenge was just clear. Very clear that we need to change things. We need to be impactful, but we don't have a clue about the KPI's to get there.

Gael Duez 03:59

It was kind of top down. It was like a big strategic enterprise goal and in a very sort of OKR approach, like we've got something very ambitious to achieve, I guess not in a single year. Make something with it. Am I correct here?

Ludi Akue 04:19

Yeah, I think it's much more subtle than that. There were some key results, let's say more on the supply and the manufacturing side. The first model of the toy was made in China and brought back the manufacturing to France. For example, you have big goals but after those goals, when coming to the tech stack, everything about the tech operations, architecture, there was a blank page. Like, I needed to build a plan with my teams, of course, to measure and to reach the goal of changing, be more responsible.

Gael Duez 05:05

I guess this is a moment where I have to admit that, a) my daughter has bot histoire, b) actually, I know this because the one my daughter has has been made in France on top of it, but the one my nephew has, which is one year older as still made in China. So I was like, oh, my God, they made it. Congratulations.

Ludi Akue 05:31

But, yeah, I just want to add something very quick. I was really impressed by the vision of the founders. It's like they wanted to change things as they are growing a growing company. They now have a working business model. I can share some figures. At that time, there were about more than half a million customers, more than a million of toys sold all over the world, in France, in Europe, North America. So they had this strategic vision to say, we need to measure and change our impact. I was really impressed by that.

Gael Duez 06:15

And what about you, Owen? What were the goals when you started this sustainably journey at .eco?

Owen Rogers 06:23

So I would say for us it was pretty different in as much as it was more bottom up instead of top down. And we are purely virtual. We just deal with digital products, so there's nothing physical for us to have to worry about optimizing. So my job, I think, was probably significantly easier than Ludi's in that regard. So for us, we operate the .eco top level domain in partnership with the global environmental community in the face of increasingly dire climate effects that we are seeing in the world around us. We were feeling like there had to be something more that we could do some way that we could have an impact ourselves. But it wasn't totally clear how we could do that. Being a company that focuses strictly on digital products, we started to learn about the climate effects of technology and realizing that there was in fact, a lot that we could start to do to reduce our impact. So we wanted to understand what was our carbon footprint. None of us had any expertise in doing carbon life cycle analysis and carbon footprint calculations. So we went and spoke to a number of auditors that will evaluate the carbon footprint of organizations. And the response that we got for most of them was, we're super busy right now, and perhaps there's some work that you can do on your own in order to understand your own footprint, compile the data, and then perhaps we can come and assist you later. So we started to do that ourselves. We started to work with our vendors, with our partners, and pull together whatever data we could to understand our own carbon footprint and realize pretty quickly that this is not complicated. Doing basic carbon calculations is not a hard thing. It's certainly something that you're doing some pretty rudimentary mathematics, and it's something that most software engineers should have no trouble with. And so that enabled us to calculate the carbon footprint of our company, and that served as a basis for optimization. So we did our first carbon footprint calculations in 2020, and we established a goal of reducing our overall, that's our Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3, carbon footprint by 4% for our 2022 fiscal year. And a lot of that was through optimizing our digital services.

Gael Duez 09:23

But just for clarification, Owen, your goal was to reduce by 4% in two years.

Owen Rogers 09:29

Within one year. So that was for our 2022 fiscal year. We were quite close to achieving that objective. We managed to reduce our overall carbon footprint by 3.7%. And we have a similar target for our 2023 fiscal year. We actually have no Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions because of the fact that we're a purely virtual organization. So during COVID we gave up our office space, so we work entirely remotely. We also don't ourselves run any data centers. We don't have any office space. So everything for us is Scope 3 emissions. 

So we've tried to be fairly broad in terms of including as much as we can within our Scope 3 footprint. So one of the things that we account for is 100% of the energy used in the homes of our employees within our footprint, which actually is quite a significant portion of our footprint. But the recognition being that's where work is happening right now. And so we should account for that footprint. And our employees are not otherwise attempting to account for their home. Any emissions associated with energy use in their home.

Gael Duez 11:09

Fair point. By the way, Ludi, did you have the same approach? And what can you tell us about the carbon footprint of a toy maker?

Ludi Akue 11:23

Yeah, that's a very interesting question. Yes. We had the approach of measuring the carbon footprint. And for Lunii at that time, we have the three contributors that we have. The first one is everything related to supply logistics. So transportation, production, and manufacturing. So it's big. If we need to address only one point, we need to address that. So the first contributor, I think it's something about maybe 40%, I think. I don't have my figures. I don't have the figures here. And the second one is the operations like customer service. And the third contributor was the tech. So they take about 6%. I remember the figure because it was 6% of the whole. So as a hardware company, the real job is to tame the production before the other one.

Gael Duez 12:32

Right. That's true that you're a CTO, but you're a CTO not only in the way you were a CTO at Lunii, but not only in the way we think about it in the digital sector or in the IT industry, because you are in charge of the IT infrastructure, obviously, and we will talk about it. But you were also in charge of the entire designing and building of the toys itself.

Ludi Akue 13:00

So the first thing is to measure. So we have these carbon footprints measurements with the leader in France. It's Carbo, hellocarbo. So we found out that our… So we have pretty much more Scope 1 than everything else. Even if we needed to help our suppliers to comply with our mission, our goal said. So we had a supplier code of conduct to do that. And the key results were bottom up. So we had this high goal. We have this big result, like relocating in France, co-designing the product, and for the rest… So the operational teams come with the key results they need to address, they need to tackle. So you had all the production team, the production is supply and everything. The real job here is to tackle the Scope 1 carbon emissions. So the production teams managed to has the carbon emissions. So it was a great win that we can have carbon emission.

Gael Duez 14:18

That's very interesting that you say that actually the IT itself was only 6%, because that's, I guess, a challenge that many CTO and CIO, they face, that they don't weigh that much within an organization, but if we gather all of us together, we weight sometimes as much as the ROT freight transport worldwide. So that's quite significant. And that's what I call the green IT curse, which is you're small within an organization, but eventually you're super big at that global level. So if we focus on this more IT side of things, Ludi, you mentioned at the beginning that you had a very aspirational goal. How did you manage for IT operation and also the firmware, as you mentioned, to make it something tangible, something actionable.

Ludi Akue 15:13

The first thing to do is once we have the measurements, like the carbon footprint, we have something to reduce. You have a goal, you have something to reduce, like a salesperson, let's go differently. And how we tackle that is to identify where we are not very good. Like for example, something that I want to stress here is imagine it's a fastly growing company. It's a scale up. So the scale up, as every scale up has some technical depths. And so here the technical depth is an opportunity to think differently. We need to rebuild something, so how can we rebuild it? For example, let's go mobile first to reduce, to optimize the web pages. Some indices were like, let's move into the cloud. So I decided to move into the cloud and to use managed services and to benefit from the calculation. Even if the calculators are not really reliable, they can show you some trends. So that's interesting. You can measure that. Let's be simple in the way we move to the cloud too. Taming technical labs is when we had an existing microservice architecture, but we don't really need a microservice architecture. So it's like, it's to say like the vision, technical vision is to go back to a modular monolith, for example. It was a strong choice. Our job is pretty simple. So for the scale, everything was homemade. Like you have an e-commerce platform that is homemade on a microservice architecture. Lunii also has a mobile application for the usage of parents and kids can recall their own stories as well. And you also have an application, a usage application, I will call that, that you can download stories, you can buy stories, you can download stories, manage your toy. Right? So the technical vision here is, okay, everything was built for growth. Right now, what is the company’s job? The company's job is to make toys and audio stories. So we don't need to continue to build an in house e-commerce platform. So a strong decision was like, we need to stop building the e-commerce platforms and buy an e-commerce platform like Shopify. This was a strong decision, so we don't, don't need the whole infrastructure that comes with building an e-commerce website.

Gael Duez 18:13

And that's super interesting, because to make sure I understand it well, your main point here is leverage technical debt, because you were in a scale up company, so you had the opportunity to redo things and you, like, technical debt becomes an opportunity to rethink everything and rebuild everything in a more sustainable way. And the way you did it was a bit counter intuitive regarding state of the art architecture, etcetera. It was more… So, obviously, you had like, let's try to eco-design, let's try to move to the cloud. I will have one question about it, but it's maybe we were too ambitious with our architecture and a good old fashioned modular monolith. And buying more off the shelf stuff will actually help us to reduce environmental footprint.

Ludi Akue 19:05

Yes, absolutely. It's like, it's just technical debt was the leverage we needed to do things differently. It is simplicity [and] optimization, simplicity and automation.

Gael Duez 19:21

And just for the sake of understanding this e-commerce platform that you've chosen, was the sustainability criteria taken into consideration?

Ludi Akue 19:33

I think that, no, we didn't include that. Maybe we did, because we have a supplier code of conduct. I'm sure we have those because we have a companion wide supplier code of conduct. It was a matter of simplicity. So I think the first thing is simplicity and automation. Yeah.

Gael Duez 19:54

And what about you, Owen? What were the technological choices you made to achieve the -4% reduction? Was it cloud migration or anything related or a very different approach?

Owen Rogers 20:10

So, like Ludi, our digital services accounted for only 10% of our overall Scope 3 emissions. So not too far off from the 6% at Lunii. The 4% reduction target was going to be entirely achieved by optimizing the efficiency of our digital services. So really what that meant was we were looking to reduce the carbon footprint of our digital services by upwards of 40%. 

So for us, we are running entirely in the cloud. So it didn't entail a migration from physical data centers to a cloud environment. We were already there. But one of the key things that we did was moving our infrastructure from one region to a lower carbon region. So we ended up migrating our entire stack to Quebec, Canada. Electricity in Quebec is entirely generated through hydropower. It has one of the lowest carbon emission intensities in the world. So that was definitely a positive move in reducing our footprint. Otherwise, we did quite a bit of work in terms of optimizing the footprint of our website and services similar to what Ludi was talking about doing work around optimizing images, JavaScript, CSS. Our sites are currently already static. Not entirely, but most of them are already static. And that's definitely a huge win because you're not running any servers or we're not running any servers on the back end. But my approach architecturally is actually a little bit different from the solution that Ludi was suggesting. I can definitely understand why with a microservices architecture you may end up with a very large fleet of instances depending on how you distribute that work, cross compute. But our focus is more on trying to eliminate servers altogether and ensure that everything that we're building can run through serverless. Serverless is, I think, the current end state or optimum for virtualization within cloud providers. It enables them to maximize multi-tenancy so that you can have the most compute being run through the fewest possible instances. So that's the direction that we're moving, at least for the parts of the tech stack that we have under our control. We were already using serverless and we're continuing to use serverless, but in terms of architectural direction, that's where we're headed. Anything new that we're building, we're trying to make it serverless first and move away from having to deal with any infrastructure that we need to manage ourselves.

Gael Duez 23:10

Did you use a specific tool to measure the carbon footprint of your tech stack or how did you tool up? And maybe the answer is not at all. We didn't need to.

Ludi Akue 23:22

We used a tool, Carbo. Carbo is a French tool. I think it's hellocarbo.com. It's a bit of calculation and declarative, also measure. We also use the cloud calculators. So you have a lot of calculators with the major cloud providers so you can have an estimation of your carbon footprint. Something that works great at Lunii is we build external accountability. How do you do that? Is like we sign the global compact. So the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN we signed that we needed to provide every year some reporting on how we are advancing the mission. We are also signed with a collaborating company, Lucie. So Lucie 26000, we needed to have a clear goal in our OKR to have a Lucy label by 2022. So we build external accountability to make it work like it's not just us with our OKR, but we need to report to the UN that we measure everything that we build this, we build that, so this helps us move forward.

Gael Duez 24:48

But as far as I know, hellocarbo is a generalistic carbon accounting tool. So you didn't have the need to tool up specifically to measure anything regarding your IT stack except the data provided by the cloud providers, as you mentioned. And what about you, Owen? Did you use any specific tool or not that much?

Owen Rogers 25:14

So for us, we followed the sustainable web design methodology as the foundation for our carbon footprint calculation. For our digital services, that methodology uses data transfer as a proxy for calculating energy consumption, and then on the basis of that can be converted into carbon. It certainly is not perfect, and unfortunately, there aren't really perfect measures at this point in time in the cases where you don't own the infrastructure. But it does have the benefit of relying on data, data transfer that is relatively easy to obtain. So what we did for our digital services was look at data transfer, whether that be transiting via the content delivery networks that we were using, or load balancers, etcetera, and estimated our footprint on that basis. So that's the tooling that we used. It's not a specific third party tool. A lot of this data was just aggregated in spreadsheets, and then the calculations were being performed there.

Gael Duez 26:33

And there is nothing wrong intrinsically with using proxy metrics, as long as we don't claim that it helps us understand absolute values. And for anyone following Gerry McGovern's work, I think using data as a proxy, it's far from perfect. There is a question of embedded carbon, etcetera, etcetera, but it doesn't lead people in the wrong direction. That is simply not true. Maybe we will have better metrics, better tools, as you say, Owen, but a company strongly engaged in reducing the amount of data produced they manipulate the exchange is not going in the wrong direction when it comes to reducing our environmental impact. Now I'm fully convinced of it.

Owen Rogers 27:23

Well, in general, data transfer is correlated with energy consumption. But if you look at most organizations in terms of how they're calculating their carbon footprint, especially for their Scope 3 emissions, it's almost entirely based on spend. So whatever their expenses are, they're using some sort of a general metric that is converting dollars spent for this category of product into carbon intensity. And personally, I think the data transfer is going to, at least within the technology space, be better correlated with energy use than spend. And spend also gives me nothing. I mean, I can try and optimize my spend, but it may point me in the wrong direction, like what we were talking about before. I could move all my infrastructure to a high carbon intensity region, reducing my cloud spend and therefore, under that basis of calculation, reduce my overall carbon footprint. I mean, it's just crazy. It leads to the wrong types of outcome, at least with data transfer. Plus, one of the nice things about the sustainable web design methodology is that it is somewhat component oriented. In cases like for my infrastructure, I have a better way to calculate the footprint because I know the number of instances that are running and I can estimate the infrastructure and I know what the carbon intensity is of where that infrastructure is running, I can get a better estimate for that component. But if I want to have a broad scope that includes emissions associated with the use of our products, so the energy drain on end users devices as a result of using our digital services, I can still estimate that under the umbrella of the same methodology and use data transfer as a proxy for that. 

I'm hoping there's going to be a revision to the sustainable web design methodology. The better accounts for what we're learning now about the energy use associated with the various components involved in the end to end journey for digital services, so as to better discount the network component. 

But I do want to underscore the importance of something that Ludi was talking about, which is with regard to organizations prioritizing sustainability goals. A big part of that, in my opinion, is ensuring that those goals are publicly stated so that there is an element of accountability around that. So Ludi was talking about the UN Global Compact as establishing a requirement for a public report around sustainability. Similarly for us, we publish our Annual Impact Report and part of our impact report is setting targets for the upcoming fiscal year around sustainability and impact. And so that means that you have an element of accountability there to your customers, to the community you serve, to the general public. And I recognize that that is hard, especially in cases where we're relying on data that we know isn't perfect like there… I know that the sustainable web design methodology has flaws associated with it and that I'm sure in a couple of years we will come up with some sort of more comprehensive methodology that will enable us to produce more accurate carbon footprints. But I don't want to let the imperfect be the enemy of the good. I think it's much better for us to try and get in front of this and be transparent about what we're doing with the data that's available. Recognizing that at some point later we're going to have to say, okay, we're going to need to revise these estimates of our footprint and our impact, because this is where the state of the art is now.

Gael Duez 31:35

Ludi, Owen mentioned not the cloud migration, like you had to do at Lunii, but relocating within the cloud operators in Quebec, which has tremendously low carbon electricity, even if we include embedded carbon from the hydropower. When you talked about the migration you did to the cloud, did you consider the region that you wanted your services to be hosted to make sure that actually you might not migrate from a very old data center with a PUE of 2 to a brand shiny cloud providers with a PUE of 1.2, even a bit less if you listen to their marketing communications, but hosted in an area where the average carbon intensity of the electricity will be at time five or six higher, which is very classical case with a very famous three letters hyperscaler. But I will stop here. So my question, sorry, I'm rambling a bit, but my question is, did you have the opportunity to consider the intensity, the carbon intensity of the electricity grid from the region where you relocated your cloud activities.

Ludi Akue 32:56

Not directly. We were on a pass before. We didn't pass. Like I said, we had this microservice architecture, and it was really ineffective in terms of management, in terms of billing, bills were very expensive and ineffective. Like, we cannot really measure things in fine-grained speaking. So the first thing is we consider green goals when moving to the cloud. This was really clear. We work with a provider that helps us migrate because they're green objectives while moving to the cloud. We also consider GDPR goals when moving to the club. So we were more like, we want to stay close to our customers. And at the same time, our customers were kind of everywhere. But our big, you know, huge base of customers were located in Europe, and we chose to locate our clouds in Europe. So privacy was first, the closeness to our customer base was second, and then ended in green objectives.

Owen Rogers 34:24

For us, we migrated from Ohio to Quebec. And so Ohio, the grid in Ohio is largely powered by coal and by gas, and so there's a 200 times difference in carbon intensity between Ohio and Quebec, so it's significant. And Ohio is not the worst in terms of carbon intensity within the United States. So there are much worse places to be and many of those places operate large data centers. So I think it's absolutely something that technologists should be taking into account when they're considering a cloud migration or when they're looking at ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

Gael Duez 35:14

And just a side note, that's something really to pay attention to, because unfortunately, sometimes carbon incentives and financial incentives are not well aligned in the hyperscaler industry. And that's really a shame, because obviously, the dirtiest place should be the most expensive. And that's not always the case. And sometimes a CTO faces a very difficult challenge to explain that he wants an increase in 5, 10, 15% of his or her bill, because that is to achieve a target of decarbonization, and that shouldn't be the case. But that's okay. So that's something to pay a lot of attention to.

Owen Rogers 35:50

Well, it did increase our bill by moving to Quebec. It is a more expensive region for us to operate in, but not significantly so. So that was a price that we felt like we were quite comfortable to pay. But to both your point and to Ludi's point, as a CTO, it's essential to find alignment between overall business objectives and your environmental objectives. Now, fortunately, in many cases there is alignment. There are ancillary benefits that can be achieved as a result of reducing carbon. So specifically, a low carbon intensity website is generally going to be a higher performing website. So you're able to pitch this type of an initiative under the guise of performance improvement, which will boost user experience, hopefully boost retention in sales. So there are these ancillary benefits. 

Similarly, a low carbon intensity infrastructure, so relying on serverless or higher levels of virtualization, is generally going to be more cost effective. So often there is alignment between an infrastructure cost reduction program and reducing carbon intensity. At the very least, you can find it if you look for it. It's not to say that reducing spend within the cloud is always going to lead to lower carbon, but you can find and make the case for where those two things are going to be aligned, and then that gives you a lever to push on.

Gael Duez 37:30

And what a wonderful transition. Because I wanted to ask both of you the question of process and strategy, like how you connect, how you align with the business strategy, and what were the process, what was the organization that you set up to achieve these goals? Because we discussed quite a lot the technical side of things, but it's more a human thing than a technical thing. So maybe, Ludi, you want to share also how you actually created something from the wide statement. And of course, how did you manage to align them, as Owen just said, with the overall business goals?

Ludi Akue 38:11

My context was easy, because you have these big goals for the company, so everyone is aware it's a strategic goal. And I recommend that green initiatives should be taken at a strategic level for everybody to be aligned. Right. So once you have that, the fact is, as you are a growing company, you scale up, don't have time, do not really have time… the tech team didn't have really the time to build the product, ship the product, take a technical debt and also take into account something to reduce the carbon footprint. So for a long time, it was kind of a failure to add some green initiatives to the backlog. Something I learned is adding some green initiatives to the backlog is the failing mode. You should be able to initiative into the existing backlog. And the first thing is to work with the teams is to come up with the optimizations. So optimizations pay for the business. That's the first thing. So if you have optimizations, if you have your website that respects the providers, for example, it's good for the SEO, it's good for the user conversion. So you can show the business your optimization strategies. Link to the ARR of the subscription number of the user that will convert it to buy a product, to use your service more so you can showcase that your optimization is aligned with the business. Right. When taking the example of the cloud migration, for example, is to show that the existing is very complicated, it is costing us. So the hidden cost that we have with the existing systems and to show the return of investment with the migration to the cloud. So it is the same thing. And it is to make the business case of when you can make the business case and for the rest, as it's the whole company initiative, to show that you are working towards the goal of reducing carbon footprint.

Gael Duez 40:42

If I understand well here, there are two main takeaways of what you've just shared with us. One is optimization will pay for decarbonization. And I would love to comment on this one. And the second one was do not try to create a separate track, a separate program about sustainability. Just add it as a new criteria in the definition of dawn or a new type of task or sprints in your backlog. But do not try to run something separately, which is, as far as I know, kind of now a state of the art approach. Also, when it comes to cybersecurity or accessibility, for instance, don't try to create things on their own. So same applies to sustainability, am I right?

Ludi Akue 41:33

Yeah, you are correct. You need to shift left on sustainability.

Gael Duez 41:39

When Ludi mentioned in our previous talk that there is a sustainability manager, or at least a sustainably reference at Lunii, was it the way you were organized at .eco? Did you have someone kind of running the show? Or did you have some sustainable reference in the different teams? How did you make sure that the key results, we're not talking about the overall strategy, but the day to day operations embedded in the sustainability goals.

Owen Rogers 42:13

We're a small organization, so there's not the same level of challenge associated with communicating and disseminating these types of objectives throughout the organization. In general, we have a set of KPIs around impact that are pretty well broadly understood. We review them on a monthly basis, along with how we're tracking towards our other goals for the organization. So I think it's pretty front and center for our team.

Gael Duez 42:45

Would you be able to share this KPI? Not the numbers, but what they are?

Owen Rogers 42:50

Well, I think the main one in terms of climate impact is our overall carbon footprint reduction target for our fiscal year. So again, we're aiming for another 4% reduction from our baseline target. We also have an objective to register through SBTI. And one thing that we have achieved recently, which is not directly related to climate, but all kinds of plays together, is that we are now B Corp Certified. We will be certified as a B Corp. And that touches on a lot of different pillars around sustainability.

Gael Duez 43:29

So if I understand it well, it was a very bottom up approach. You're a small team, so the communication was pretty straightforward the moment you had the right goals and not that much of an issue on how to incentivize people. Ludi, if I get it right, it was more a top down approach and your organization was scaling at the time where you were trying to reduce your environmental footprint. So what about the human side of this? Did you face challenges to get the sustainable angle adopted? How did you convince people to join?

Ludi Akue 44:10

Yeah, so we have these goals, these top down goals, but I think in the same test, even if you have 100 people, you have the people who were at the company at that moment were really aligned in terms of their own values. So you have these top down goals, but you also have a bottom of approach. Like the teams were responsible for their key results and their key initiatives that should align with the goal, like, because they are doing the work, so they know where to look at. And something that really works, in my opinion, is having a sustainability manager reference. I think it's something really powerful because she did a lot of training. 

So first, the whole organization has champions into the teams. So every department has sustainable champions. And the champions help spread the world, spread the culture, spread the training, the information. The challenge was not on the human side, the challenge was on the workload side. Picture, scale up, growing fast. We need to build 10,000 things in parallel. And we want teams to focus on sustainability. That's not going to happen.

Gael Duez 45:41

And how did you manage to get some positive arbitrage towards sustainability.

Ludi Akue 45:47

We learned to make it right at the executive committee level. We needed to come up with priorities first to tell the teams that, okay, now we don't have 10,000 priorities to chase. You have five ones. And sustainability is one of them. So make room for that. So when we started to have those ok in place and to have these priority likes, every executive committee member has the priority to make sustainability happen.

Gael Duez 46:22

I've got one last question. What about the trend that you see in our industry? And for that, it's very interesting to see that you've got two different perspectives. Because, Ludi, now you don't work for Lunii anymore, you're at Bpifrance and you see dozens of different startups, scale ups, companies, and you've still got this sustainable young angle at heart. So I'd like to ask you the question first. What is the trend that you see today regarding digital sustainability?

Ludi Akue 46:55

What I'm saying is sustainability is not anymore an option. It's not. I can build my company and I will figure out that later.

Gael Duez 47:08

Can I borrow your statement that sustainability is no longer an option? To make it the title of the episode?

Ludi Akue 47:18

With great pleasure.

Gael Duez 47:21

And what about you, Owen? You're in the heart of the web hosting industry in particular. More generally, is the digital technology sector sustainably an option?

Owen Rogers 47:35

I think that for the time being, it is an important consideration for anybody looking to get into the technology space, whether they're launching a new business or an organization, is to think about how they can do so in the most sustainable way possible. At a certain point in time, I don't think it's going to matter. I think that with the rapid decarbonization of our electricity grid that we're not too far away from a scenario where most data centers are going to be powered using renewable energy, or at least low carbon energy. But I think that we have a role to accelerate that transition as much as possible by helping to educate the general public that their choices matter and that there are options out there that will reduce their climate impact and it won't cost the earth that there are cost effective solutions out there. One of the KPIs that I didn't talk about earlier that we have established for ourselves is the proportion of people using eco domains that are using sustainable web hosting. So on an annual basis we go and evaluate every .eco website and run it against the green web, check from Green Web Foundation to see whether or not they're using sustainable hosting. And what we're seeing is year over year growth pretty significantly. I believe that last year we saw an increase from 33% to 40%. Now, some of that is hopefully due to our education, but I think a lot of it is actually due to the changes that are happening in the overall industry where more and more hosts and data centers are working on ensuring that they offer a sustainable solution to their customers.

Gael Duez 49:43

So that's excellent news, because once we will have achieved decarbonizing the data centers on the energy consumption angle, we will have to open the even more complex and complicated question of embedded carbon and making sure that we use equipment as long as we can and not change them every five or six years. But that's a different debate.

Ludi Akue 50:10

Yeah, but it is the... I think that it's... When we are looking at the statistics, it's the huge problem ahead. It's a huge problem you need to tackle. Like, we went talking about community, we also have. We are also responsible not to like having heavy websites, heaven applications that will need people to change their mobile phone, for example. So we have many things to do on that side too. And for me, the end device is where the problem meets the core problem. It is something we need to fix what we can fix, the decarbonization, like you are talking about, Owen, to move to the real problem. The real problem is there. The end devices and the raw materials also. I mean, together.

Gael Duez 51:16

Yeah, agree. And that's true that with your angle of being someone who also had to produce hardware, you've got this, I would say some awareness about the fact that end user equipment still accounts for the largest part of the overall digital sector, carbon footprint. It's true that with an episode with a CTO, we tend to focus on how to decarbonize a tech stack, and how to actually reduce the environmental footprint of the tech stack. But if you look at the entire digital sector, the data centers and networks are not the places where the majority of the impacts happen. It's still a very significant chunk of these impacts. But the end user equipment is even worse, that's for sure.

Owen Rogers 52:08

I'm optimistic that that's what's coming next is that we'll see a real revolution in terms of e-waste management and like a cradle to grave approach with regard to electronics manufacturing because of the fact that they're. They're full of valuable minerals and it's... At a certain point it's going to be a lot more cost effective to reuse those minerals than it is to continue to extract it. 

I'm on a bit of an optimistic kick right now because I've been reading Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie, who I think would be a fantastic person for you to invite on the podcast. I know she's been doing a bit of the podcast tour lately, but I think it is important for us to ensure that we're also telling positive and optimistic stories about our future because it's too easy to get drawn into some of the fear and negativity around climate change.

Gael Duez 53:11

So two fun facts when I'm seriously considering, but I don't know if I can afford her, but to have Hannah Ritchie as a keynote speaker, or at least as maybe a keynote speaker. 

I would like to thank you again, both of you, to join, to make the effort to find a way to accommodate our different time zones and to be that precise when it comes to the goals, what you did and what you didn't do, and the process and the the human side of things as well. So thanks a lot for joining. It was a pleasure to have you on the show.

Ludi Akue 53:51

Thank you, Gael.

Owen Rogers 53:52

Thank you and thank you both. Thank you, Ludi. Great to meet you.

Ludi Akue 53:55

Yeah, great to meet you too.

Gael Duez 53:59

Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode! If you enjoyed it, please share it on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Twitter (if you are still there)! We are an independent media and word of mouth is the only way to get more listeners. I don’t ask you to rate it 5 stars on Spotify or Apple podcast because of course you already did it, didn’t you?  

In our next episode we will talk about Japan, not because the country used to be super dear to my heart. Yes, before the K-pop wave, another generation - mine - discovered Japanese animation and was crazy about it. Anyway, we won’t talk about manga but how a super techno-centric country is now considering sustainability and the potential limits that the ongoing ecological crises might create to our digital world. A fascinating discussion with 2 experts who have been living there for ages: Paul Beddie and Trista Bridges.

Stay tuned.  

BTW, Green IO is a podcast and much more, so visit greenio.tech to subscribe to our free monthly newsletter, read the latest articles on our blog, and check the conferences we organize across the globe. The next one is in London on September 19th. Early bird tickets are not available anymore but … you can still get one of the 90 free tickets for Green IO listeners using the voucher GREENIOVIP. I’m looking forward to meeting you there, to help you - fellow responsible technologists - build a greener digital world, one byte at a time [Roxane’s voice]

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☁️ What can AWS users achieve today in terms of decarbonization? And what can they expect tomorrow? 

🎙️ In this episode, Gael Duez welcomes Adrian Cockcroft, the former creator and leader of the AWS sustainability team who now leads the Green Software Foundation project “Real Time Cloud”. They had an in-depth chat about measuring carbon for software and the sustainability challenges of Cloud providers, starting with AWS. Some of Adrian’s takeaways were: 

⚡ The case for PPA and market based approach facing the AI energy-hungry boom

☀️ Why we should not chase the sun 

🌱 Sustainability of the Cloud vs Sustainability in the Cloud and other architecture tips

☁️ His confidence in getting a standard for Cloud-based GHG emissions

🤝 Why AWS internal structure prevented sustainability to ramp-up and why it should change

… And much more!

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Intro 00:00
A video conferencing company used to have an outage every Tuesday morning at 09:00 because that's when everybody wanted a video call at once. Their systems would keel over and they had to go beef them up for that one time of the week when there was a big spike in traffic.

Gael Duez 00:26
Hello everyone. Welcome to Green IO with Gael Duez. That's me. In this podcast, we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript, will be in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform and of course on our website greenio.tech 

Before we start, I would love to share a personal anecdote with you. A few weeks ago I had to do a full day of painting in our recently refurbished house and I was happy because I would eventually have the chance to catch up with dozens of podcast episodes that I couldn't listen to in the past weeks. I ended up listening to a fraction of them over the day actually, and it made me realize again how precious our attention is and how dedicating almost 1 hour to a podcast episode is a significant investment of it. And it made me feel sincerely grateful for the thousands of you allocating a precious time every month to listen to Green IO. So in two simple words, thank you and to honor the gift of your attention, today I am going to put on my captain's obvious costume with two statements. AWS remains the biggest public cloud provider worldwide, despite not having that much data on its chinese competitors. I guess it's still a safe bet to say that. Second, IT sustainability experts and environmentally conscious CloudOps working on AWS are not ballistic about the level of services provided by AWS to decarbonize a tech stack, to put it mildly. On the other end, I had the pleasure to meet several AWS employees across Europe highly involved in climate change topics, among others, in trying to move the needle in the right direction internally. 

So what can AWS users achieve today in terms of decarbonization? And what can they expect tomorrow? And what is the general trend for the cloud industry when it comes to reducing its environmental footprint in carbon emission and beyond? Now, who would be the best guest to discuss what to expect at AWS and in the public cloud industry at large than the one who created and led the first sustainability team there? And who has been one of the most influential cloud architects of the last decade, as well as one of the managers behind Netflix's highly successful homepage? And before Netflix, having worked in the most iconic tech companies like eBay and Sun Microsystem. And yes, back then it was iconic. Adrian Cockroft, since it's him we're talking about, has retired in June 2022. But he has a very active conception of retirement. He still gives talks, does some consulting gigs and volunteers actively in the Green Software Foundation. So welcome, Adrian. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.

Adrian Cockcroft 03:46
Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Gael Duez 03:48
If we put ourselves in the shoes of a CloudOps, a very climate aware CloudOps, what should I do to reduce the carbon emissions of my public cloud use today? And to be a bit provocative, why shouldn't I do nothing? Because this is my cloud provider issue, to become low carbon. And b, the electricity grid is being decarbonized every day a little more. So why should I care? What will you be according to you, the main actions and maybe some hurdles that you should pay attention to.

Adrian Cockcroft 04:23
I think there's two sides to it. The first thing that most people are looking at is measuring their carbon footprint. And it's not just from an academic point of view. It's because your users want to know what their carbon footprint is. So the one thing is that most software companies are in a supply chain. You consume services and you provide services to somebody else. And along with those services in that supply chain, you need to start communicating how much carbon it is. So I think this is one of the areas that people are starting to realize, is that if I know how much carbon to allocate to the activity of my company, then I need to find a way to allocate that, a proportion of that carbon to my customers via some algorithm for doing that. This is one of the areas which is a bit fuzzy, exactly how to do that. There's some fairly simplistic ways of doing it. 

So the first thing is measuring, and the reason you're measuring in many cases is because your customers are saying, I need to know how much carbon to allocate as a customer. And then the other side is, once you've measured it, then you can say, okay, where is this carbon coming from? And then I can say, well, most of the carbon is coming from here, so we can do some work to optimize that part of it down. And I'd say that there are, I put companies into two different classes, if you like one of them. And sort of, I have an old physics degree. So the way I like to think of companies that push electrons and companies that push atoms, atoms are much, much heavier and more energy. So if you're moving physical things in the physical world, that's atoms, that's where most of your carbon footprint will be. But if you're a purely software company, you're a SaaS provider. Most of your physical carbon footprint is going to be employees, buildings, but your purpose of your company is to do software. 

Software inherently has a pretty light carbon footprint. It's electricity, which is relatively easy to decarbonize. If you're in transport or manufacturing or anything like that, shipping, all of those kinds of things, most of your carbon is going to be somewhere else. So think of whether your company is purely a software company, like maybe a bank, or whether it's a manufacturing or some other kind of company that's moving things around in the world. And then if you're purely software, then most of your carbon footprint will be from your IT stack and you can kind of go in and focus on reducing that. If most of your carbon is from things on the atom side, you may actually want to do more software in order to optimize the hard, you know, the hardware effectively, the physical processes you might want to do run some additional software jobs to optimize scheduling or resource usage in some way. So it kind of depends on what you're, where you're starting from, but that's how to think about it from my point of view.

Gael Duez 07:42
So I know it's a bit of a rabbit hole, but could we actually explore a bit why it is so fuzzy to measure a carbon footprint in the cloud, as you mentioned at the beginning?

Adrian Cockcroft 07:56
Well, if you have a data center, you know how much power is going into that data center and you know where you're getting your power from. And if that data center is completely used by your company, you can just allocate it across the different machines. You can measure everything. When in the cloud, you don't get to measure everything. And there's a lot of shared infrastructure. So one of the reasons the cloud is more efficient is because there's shared infrastructure across customers, and customers are coming and going dynamically. 
So that's one aspect you have to figure out. How much of that network switch carbon footprint should you allocate to the particular customer that is using some percentage of it? Do you even know how much percentage of use that customer is putting on that network? So it's quite hard to measure if you're trying to get a very fine grain accurate measurement. So that's one aspect of it. 

And then when you're trying to figure out the carbon, there's really two aspects to it. Mostly it comes down to electricity and then the carbon used to manufacture and ship the equipment around. And it's mostly manufacturing. And if you look into it. Most of the manufacturing is silicon. Most of the carbon involved in manufacturing computers is actually the silicon, which is very carbon intensive. And that silicon is almost all made in Asia. It comes from Taiwan, Korea, Japan, China. And the carbon footprint, the mix of energy there, is very carbon intensive. Even if you're running on completely green energy, you still have to allocate what's called “Scope 3”, basically the supply chain of the machines that you're using.

Gael Duez 09:54
I think what is quite interesting also, and I don't remember which hyperscaler it was, so I will not drop any names. But there is also, because of this energy consumption boom, I've seen some articles explaining that we are basically turning on, again, older cold powered facility to provide electricity would actually mean that even if you use AI to, let's say, decarbonize something, the energy required might actually slow down the energy transition, because we are relying on older coal plants that were supposed to be decommissioned. But I don't know if these are information that you've also seen on your radar or if you could have been able to double check them.

Adrian Cockcroft 10:42
Yeah, I think it's pretty clear coal is sufficiently dirty and uneconomic that it's being replaced very quickly. I'm not so worried about coal. That's a very short term. If anyone's turning back on a coal plant, it's for a very short period of time. Mostly they're being shut down. What's been the current argument is whether they should be building more gas plants. And gas is a lot cleaner than coral obviously puts out carbon, but it's the least carbon intensive of the carbon options. So it is better, but it's obviously not going to be good enough. And then the other thing with the sort of IEC projections and things is they've consistently underestimated the deployment of renewable energy by a large amount over many years. And it's not clear whether the current projections are really probably being too pessimistic about how much solar plus battery and wind and geothermal and things like that can be deployed. I think people are generally surprised every year by how much solar in particular is deployed. And wind is a bit easier to track because it takes longer to build. You can kind of measure the deployment of that a bit more easily at an economic level. So I think that there's. The optimist says that while renewables will step up and meet the demand, there's still a lot of opportunity to do that, and it's the cheapest form of energy. So this is why we can't really, if we say well good. The energy industry has been decarbonising. They're not decarbonizing because they felt like it would save the world. They're decarbonising because it's cheaper. The lowest cost energy you can get is solar right now and wind as well, although there's more capital investment to put up a wind tower. So that's kind of what's driving the energy industry. 

Then on top of that we've got the large cloud providers who are all buying their own energy. They're investing in what's called Power Purchase Agreements or PPAs, and they will contract with somebody to build a wind farm and take all the power from it or build a solar farm. Most solar farms nowadays have batteries attached to them to extend the power and smooth things out. So that's developed to such an extent that the largest commercial purchaser of energy is Amazon. It's somewhere over 20 gigawatts, which was the last number I heard. It keeps going up exponentially year by year. The amount that Amazon is buying is growing extremely fast. And that's also true of Microsoft and Google. Although the carbon footprint of Amazon is much larger than Microsoft and Google because it's a physical business. Amazon's shipping and manufacturing vastly more than Microsoft and Google who are largely online businesses. A little bit of manufacturing, but not so much then. 

The other piece of news recently was from Microsoft, who have had a commitment for a while to decarbonize their business. But then they recently did a big expansion of their AI workloads and they actually started going backwards. So their carbon footprint was increasing rather than decreasing. And they said that they just hadn't planned that much AI development and they had effectively built data centers full of GPU's to run OpenAI and things like that. And they had not managed to invest in as much power purchase agreements to offset it in the short term. So I'm sure that they're trying to ramp that back up. But that was a recent announcement just in the last month or so that they are at least temporarily falling behind on their decarbonizing commitment. And it remains to be seen how the other cloud providers do on that because everybody right now is deploying as much GPU as they can and it runs really hot. That's a lot of power.

Gael Duez 15:11
I've got a question that I have to ask when I read that Microsoft is currently planning to open one data center per week, one new facility per week, so I don't know how much. It's an announcement to please investors to show that they are actually fueling the AI boom. Or if it's like true figures, there are many ways to count what is a data center. But do you believe that the business model of hyperscalers is sustainable somehow, because this is just so much energy consumption that is added to the electricity grid and so much resources? You mentioned manufacturing. We could also have been mentioning mining and all the environmental impact of mining to provide the metals within this silicon, as you've described it. How do you see the future in 10 or 20 years? This is exponential at the moment, as you said.

Adrian Cockcroft 16:09
Yeah, it's increasing rapidly right now, but the IT industry is only a few percent of the carbon emissions. Buildings are about 40%. I seem to remember transport's 25%, something like that. Mining is a big proportion, so to get a sense of perspective, yes, it's increasing. The main problems are with suddenly wanting to put up lots of data centers. You've got to find a place that you can source the power and the cooling requirements and get a building put in. It takes a little while, but the big cloud providers have had lots of experience in standing up regions, but regions don't come into existence overnight. You can add buildings to existing regions maybe a little quicker than starting a new one, depending on where you are in the world. This is something it probably takes at least six months, maybe more than a year to just get everything permitted and built out, unless you're expanding in an existing building. And one of the things is there's a lot of data center capacity that's basically empty or ready to be renovated, but that's generally lower quality buildings. And what we're looking at here is very high energy density, like the racks are very hot, and it's a specialized build to make sure you have enough cooling. So that's kind of. I think that's what's going on. The AI boom kind of caught people by surprise, and it's sort of working its way through. I think it'll settle down a little bit over the next year. But in terms of the hardware deployments. But the big companies, Meta and Google and OpenAI in particular, are anthropic, those kinds of people that are training huge models, they have tens of thousands of GPUs that they're running for those, and each GPU. So that's an enormous amount of energy and capital deployment.

Gael Duez 18:15
We've barely scratched the surface, but could we go back to sustainability of the cloud?

Adrian Cockcroft 18:20
Yeah, but I actually came up with that wording. So historically, the security model for AWS used to talk about security of the cloud and security in the cloud, and what was the customer's responsibility, what was the cloud provider's responsibility. And that was something that was sort of fairly well understood in the cloud environment as a security model. And when we came to do the sustainability messaging and write the well architected guide, that was something where I kind of adopted those words and in fact, one of the same diagrams and changed it and said, okay, let's talk about sustainability of the cloud, and then sustainability in the cloud, where how do you use it and the interaction between the two? Because one of the things is, if you use the cloud, you might only, there's the allocation of energy effectively or carbon to you, but if you use it in a way that is better for everybody, then you actually reduce the cloud providers' need as well. So one of the things to think about is the impact of what you're doing. Like if you have a footprint, which is that you use no, any, you run basically nothing at all, and then you run a flash sale thing for 1 hour once a week, and you need thousands and thousands of computers for 1 hour a week. And the rest of the week it's like ten computers. The carbon footprint of that is just the area under the curve. It's the number of compute hours that you have allocated to you. But if you think about the cloud provider, they have to have thousands of machines for that 1 hour, and those machines don't disappear at any other time. So they're still there, hopefully with somebody else using them. But what it does by having a very spiky workload, is it increases the capacity that the cloud provider has to have. And overall it makes it harder for them to have high utilization. 

So one of the things you can do to reduce your utilization and also make the cloud provider not need to have as much capacity, is to smooth out peaks. And there's a few techniques for that. But running batch jobs with fewer machines for longer, perhaps scheduling jobs so they don't run all at the top of the hour, very time synchronized, you sort of move them around a little bit so they're offset from the people who tend to schedule things on nice round numbers in terms of time. And that means that everybody schedules something for the same time. One of the companies I used to work with was a video conferencing company, and they used to have an outage every Tuesday morning at 09:00 because that's when everybody wanted a video call at once. Their systems would keel over and they had to go beef them up for that one time, at one time of the week when there was a big spike in traffic. So that's just sort of calendar clocking. 

So those are some of the things that make it easier for the cloud provider themselves to use less carbon because they can run higher utilization, because the average across all of their customers is more independent, there's less coordination. The more coordination there is across the customer base, whereby external events like Black Friday or shopping days, or Christmas or New Year's Day or whatever, those kinds of things, a big sporting event, Super bowl, whatever, those events are where the problem is. So you want to try and spread things out as much as possible. And that's why cloud providers are generally more efficient, because they have statistically averaged across many different industries and many different customers. The average across all of those becomes a much smoother workload than if you're trying to manage a small number of customers or one customer in a data center.

Gael Duez 22:22
Absolutely. And so time shifting seems to be a very easy and straightforward way to reduce the environmental footprint of a public cloud user. Do you also have some advice when it comes to architecture, data storage, or even the way we code?

Adrian Cockcroft 22:42
Yeah, just thinking about storage. The most high performance, high availability storage typically has more copies of the data, and typically on solid state disks. And then if you get more into capacity storage, it's more on spinning disks. Now, the difference between the two is interesting, because we talked previously about scope two and scope three. The energy use of a solid state disk is extremely low. In fact, the energy used to manufacture a solid state disk, there's so much silicon in it, is typically more than the energy it will use in its lifetime. So you look at like, the energy used to manufacture that SSD is whatever it is in tons of carbon, and then you just power it. For several years, you've used less carbon, you've generated less carbon because it uses so little electricity. If you take a spinning disk, it's the other way around. They're made of iron oxide and a bit of metal, and they're fairly well automated, and the carbon footprint of manufacturing isn't too bad. But they have like a ten watt motor spinning all the time, spinning that disc. So they consume quite a lot of power, even if you're not using them. So it's the other way around. And then finally, you look at the tape. And tape is great because you write it to tape, and the tape sits somewhere and gets put in a cabinet. Whatever just sits there consumes no energy. So one of the techniques you can do with storage is to try and archive two tapes, because tape is extremely low carbon. And that's kind of the sort of hierarchy in terms of storage. And then just try to compress. Another thing you can do is just compress things better. You should always be compressing long term storage anyway. But we did some work at Amazon, which did get published, but we switched from GZip to Z standard compression and saved about 30% on storage for one of the large internal workloads. And that was an exabyte or something, because several exabytes of data was being compressed and it went from like, I guess three or four exabytes to two or three exabytes, something like that. So that's kind of the thing you can work on from the storage point of view. It's basically keeping data for less long, compressing it and archiving it to tape in particular, if you can. 

And then I like serverless architecture. It's for most workloads, they are pretty lightly utilized. Your machines are idle most of the time, but you have a big spike in work every now and again, particularly corporate IT type workloads. And I think serverless is the best approach there. AWS Lambda is particularly efficient at that. You're sharing your compute capacity with a large number of other people, and so you only get to pay for exactly what you use. And that's a very efficient way of thinking about how to allocate, particularly workloads that are sort of spiky in nature. And obviously, if you've got something that's running continuously, then it's going to want some more dedicated capacity and you can run more efficiently. If you're running 24/7 effectively with a very constant, predictable workload, you can do that better with a containerized workload. So there's different options there.

Gael Duez 26:25
Once you've done the basic homeworks, I would say, would you advise people to shift to a bit more carbon aware computing, carbon aware cloud operations? I know that you've got some nuanced opinion on it because you've got some unintended consequences, just to quote you.

Adrian Cockcroft 26:47
Yeah, I could talk a bit about that distinction, but the basic questions you've got, if you've got a workload, you've already tuned it up, you think it's running as efficiently as it could run, then the question is, where are you going to run it? When are you going to run it? If you can choose when, if it's a batch workload, you can decide, well, do I want to run it at night because demand is less then.

Do you want to run it during the day because there's a lot of solar energy wherever you live, and that's curtailed. So there's this idea about what's the marginal difference? Like, if you ask for one more kilowatt of energy from your grid, where does it actually come from? Not what's already there, but where does the additional kilowatt come from? And in many situations, that variable amount, you know, there's the baseline of some wind and some hydro and whatever nuclear, those are running all the time. And then the variable amount on top is often gas because it's easy to spin up and down a gas powered station. They're particularly good at that. So a lot of what's called Peak Plants deal with the peaks in load. So when you say, I want, I'm going to use a little bit more capacity to run this workload. If you do it at night, you're mostly probably going to be running on a gas peak plant. And then you need to look during the day and say, well, how much solar is there? If you're in California during the day, there's an excessive amount of solar, and they're actually turning windmills off and not using all the solar power that they could generate because they don't, there's nowhere to put it. So running during the day, for example, I have an electric car and I have a Tesla, and it has an option that says charge whenever there's excess solar energy. I have Tesla batteries in my house and solar panels and a car. And basically the panels charge up the battery for the house. And then when it takes out whatever's being used to run the house, it takes whatever's left over and puts it in the car until the car's finished charging. And just make sure that the car is always charging off fresh solar energy, which has been transmitted several feet from the inverter to the car. It's not going across the transmission line. So it's the most efficient use of that energy. And that's a standard option in the way they're set up. So that's kind of the, what you're trying to look for is what is this marginal use of energy? And so the question is, how can you find out what the marginal production percentage is?

Gael Duez 29:43
That was my question, because it's not that easy to find.

Adrian Cockcroft 29:48
Well, there's a company called WattTime that produces that data. And the problem is that the data is you can get it hour by hour and you can get it as a prediction for the next hour even, but you have to pay for it, it's a commercial company, so you have to pay for a subscription to their API. They provide more general data, and data that's a little older. I think they have one region in California where they provide full access to the data, so you can experiment, but only for that region. So there's the good data you have to pay for, perhaps, if you want to do it.

Gael Duez 30:29
And do you believe that at some point this marginal grid approach, which I like to call grid aware computing, which goes beyond carbon aware computing, do you believe that a service like world time would be provided or even incorporated in some IT solution, in some cloud provider solutions as a very basic API call that you do before launching any job, any training, AI training, whatever, etcetera?

Adrian Cockcroft 31:03
I think it's unlikely to happen in the short term. I think it's more to have it built into the cloud provider. One of the ideas that's been floated would be to change the way the spot market works, so that the pricing in the spot market is effectively driven by the carbon impact, if you see what I mean. So you've got spot pricing for different resources and the people look for the cheap. When you're using spot pricing, you're looking for the cheapest resource. If you could price that resource so that it took carbon into account, so it wasn't really what was cheapest, but it was what was lowest carbon, then that might be an interesting way to get people to lose the low carbon resources. Whereas if you've got something sitting in the spot markets, an unused resource, but it happens to be a high carbon resource, you'd rather people didn't use it, because it's better to have it sit idle and consume minimal power than to have somebody using it. So you could differential spot pricing at different times and around the world, and different instance types, you could bake that in in some way. I don't think the cloud providers are going to are likely to put in their own detailed carbon footprint. So one of the problems is that the data you've got is very hard to measure then. So if you really want to know what the carbon footprint of a particular point in time is in the cloud, the data isn't actually available to really know until sometimes a month or so later, depending on how accurately you want to know. It's one of these things where you can get a rough estimate in real time, but if you want to have something that's going to pass an audit and be reported as a corporate number, you want to be more accurate and you have to wait until everything settles and you get all the numbers from all the different places. And in some parts of the world you can get numbers fairly quickly, but in other parts of the world, the automation isn't there and these are global providers. So if you look at, well, I want to provide this data globally, well, I can give you the data in North America or Europe quickly, but in Asia it's going to take me a month. Well, I'm not going to have different data for different regions. I'm just going to wait a month everywhere. So that's one of the aspects that affects our providers right now. The data you get from them that is for audit purposes, is generally delayed by two or three months. In Amazon's case it's three months. I think in Microsoft it's about two months, something like that. And that's purely so that they can gather the data from everywhere around the world and give you a final number that they don't have to revise when they get more data in. And that's one of the aspects of why it's annoying. So this is great for reporting the carbon footprint of a company. It's useless for tuning a workload because you run the workload, you run it again, I gotta wait three months and the numbers are blended into something else. It's not helpful. So the tool people use for real time, if you like, is an open source tool that was largely developed by thoughtworks called the cloud carbon footprint tool. And that works off the billing records because you pretty much, you know how much you're going to be charged for something. Billing data comes out. You know, I think there's hourly billing data records out of AWS, but certainly you can get daily, and from that you can see all the resources you were being billed for. And then they've got a way to turn those billing reports into a carbon estimate. Again, the data you get there will be different to the data you get from the audit report a few months later. They're not related, they're estimates, and they include different things and they're calculated differently. So you end up with multiple different ways of calculating carbon which will not match. They're just based on different algorithms.

Gael Duez 35:18
And carbon footprint relies on electricity maps approach, which is the carbon intensity of the electricity grid at some point, which is slightly different from the approach that you advocated for, which is a marginal grid intensity. So obviously in the long term, we can safely bet that all the decisions will manage to align. But in the short run, we could have this counter effect of highly optimizing some workloads or shifting services and actually triggering extra fuel powered capacity.

Adrian Cockcroft 35:58
Yeah, it comes under what do you want to use this measurement for? Depends on the number you'll get that drives the number you'll get. So if you are trying to measure carbon in order to report it as part of a corporate, this is the carbon footprint of my company. That's one use case. If you're trying to measure a workload so that you can optimize it, you want to measure two different variations of a workload. You're doing that kind of benchmarking thing, then the cloud carbon footprint is good for that because you can just hold things constant, say, okay, we're in the same region, but how much carbon is this workload? And which portion of the workload is most of the carbon? Coming from those kinds of questions, if you're trying to do real time optimization of where to run a workload, then you want to use the marginal number. And there's another metric called SCI, the Software Carbon Intensity, and that uses the marginal data. So the idea there is you're looking at a particular transaction, say a customer logging in or looking up their account or whatever, that you'd be able to get that single transaction and say, what is the carbon per customer, event per transaction, if you like. So they're trying to normalize the workloads down to that level. Customer visits, a web page, or whatever, a particular piece of whatever your business logic is, what is the purpose of your company? What is a unit of that? If you're Netflix, you showed somebody a movie that is a transaction effectively for Netflix. What is the carbon footprint of showing that customer that movie, or in general, showing customers movies at some point in time, and they use the marginal intensity by default for that. And again, this is location based, which means you're measuring the energy used by the data center directly, and it doesn't include any of the power that's generated by the companies. So you end up with a much higher carbon number for sci and cloud carbon footprint than you do from the cloud provider audits. And this is because there's two basic ways of calculating carbon. One is called the location method, and one's called the market method. And we can go into that a bit more detail, if you like.

Gael Duez 38:30
But for someone trying to reduce its workloads, carbon footprint, it makes more sense to use location based, I would say data. And in that sense, I think SCI and CCF are pretty well aligned with tooling up Ops guys, Ops folks to try to do what they can achieve, whether or not the main cloud provider is trying on its own end to be as low carbon as possible when it comes to energy consumption.

Adrian Cockcroft 39:10
Well, there's a thing there because Google only provides location-based data and Microsoft and Amazon only provide market-based data. And so they're just not comparable numbers. You can't compare across cloud providers at all.

Gael Duez 39:31
And maybe this is the good time to discuss a bit, because we were mentioning that the future of the cloud industry, and one project you lead at the Green Software Foundation is actually about building a real time, not real time, almost real time standards, about this carbon intensity workloads and how to compare it between cloud providers and how to make them as actionable as possible. And before just you enter a bit more the details and you explain what you expect and how well it has advanced in the past months. Does it mean the end of a cloud carbon footprint as it is today if this standard is applied?

Adrian Cockcroft 40:14
I don't think so, because it would get better data and it would be more accurate. You may have some different options, but a cloud carbon footprint underneath that is a bunch of guesses. This sort of unwinds this a bit. The Green Software Foundation was set up a few years ago. It's an interesting organization, it's been quite successful. It's got lots of different groups working on lots of different things, including standardizing this software carbon intensity metric. I proposed a real time cloud project to provide a place where we could engage with the cloud providers and try to get them to align around, providing the same data in the same way and getting it more up to date, because rather than every few months we want it to be more current, like every few hours or something. So I wrote that proposal for wouldn't it be nice if they all had a common standard and that proposal then turned into a project? We've been meeting now for about nine months. Projects like this are very slow, but what we've done is map out every tool, piece of information, whatever, and how they're all related in a big mirror board which you can visit. It's a public mirror board. If you go to GitHub and find the Green Software Foundation and find a real time cloud, there's a GitHub account there with some information about the project, and the mirror board there kind of maps out. And if you find something, if you know of a tool that isn't on that, then let me know and we'll add it in there. So that's one of the things we've done, is sort of document end to end. Where does all this data come from? What's going on? And then we started trying to standardize various points, and one of the things that we're trying to wrap up right now is regional metadata. So this is data that changes fairly slowly, like once a year about a cloud region. So if you're running in US east one, which is the big AWS region in Virginia, what do we know about that region and year by year? Well, there's all kinds of information that you can get on that. What are the different carbon coefficients that would apply to that region? What is the electricity maps lookup key? What is the time lookup key for that region? If you pick one of the Google regions, they have a bit more data available, and for Azure, you get the PUE, the Power Usage Effectiveness, which is like, so if your computer is using a kilowatt in a data center and the PUE is 1.5, that means that it's pulling 1.5 kw from the grid. So it's a number that you have to multiply your energy use by for a particular data center. Data centers in Asia have particularly high PUE numbers because it's hot and humid and hard to cool. Some of them up there as high as two cloud providers generally run better than that, but commercial data centers quite often are around in Singapore or whatever, like 2.0. Some of the better data centers are sort of 1.08 or something like that. Particularly if you're in Finland or something where it's nice and cold, it's easy to keep the machines cool, so you need to just know what that number is for every region. So we're figuring out that number, and it's also a place where we are engaging with Google and Microsoft directly and sort of, I'm using my contacts at AWS to engage with at AWS more indirectly to try and make sure that they're all hearing, please can you do this number? Please, can you all do location? Can we get a PUE number that's comparable and can we tidy up whatever's available and get more consistency across the cloud providers? And they've sort of bought into that as an idea, and we haven't made an enormous amount of progress, I think. But one of these things is it just, it takes a long time to get people to come into alignment, and it takes a long time for them to get around to updating new things. Most of the carbon data comes out in the summer and then in June, July time. So I think in the next few months we'll see more updated information from the cloud providers.

Gael Duez 43:58
And Adrian, I was wondering whether the recently passed European Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), which requires data centers above 500 mw, so all hyperscalers obviously are above this, will be an accelerator or the kind of data that is required, PUE. But you know, PUEwas also the absolute values, not only the relative value, will be an enabler or it's kind of a different way, different approach than the one that you're pushing through the Green Software Foundation.

Adrian Cockcroft 44:38
Really, this project is trying to be a focal point for communication with the cloud providers. We're not trying to duplicate work happening elsewhere. So wherever something like that is happening, we'll just refer to it and go and ask the cloud providers, well, what are you doing about it? And can you please do the same thing about it and try to coordinate somewhere somewhat? So that's the general idea I'm trying to achieve. So you can say that all models are wrong, some models are useful. What I'm trying to do in this project is to make the models a little bit less wrong, a little bit more useful. They're never going to be fully accurate, they're never going to be quite what we want, but we're trying to sort of nudge things in the right direction. And we have a group of people that engage pretty regularly. There's a meeting every two weeks, and I recommend that people that are interested join the Green Software Foundation if their company is there, or at least go visit the website, look at the project and the work that's been done there.

Gael Duez 45:40
Yeah, thanks a lot. And we will put the links in the show notes as usual. You know, we are heading to the end of the podcast and I realize that we've been talking about cloud providers at large. Actually, maybe it's time to talk a bit more specifically about AWS, because you've got a great experience there. And I don't know, I wanted to ask a pretty general question about AWS: how do you feel about the current situation at AWS for the sustainability team and what they've been able to achieve since you left and what didn't move that much and the general trend. Because I was, you know, when I was researching for this episode, I reviewed the slides that you put for it was not QCon, I think it was CNCF Sustainable week. And some of them were pretty depressing when you were comparing it as GCP in Azure. And I was wondering, how do you feel about it? Because hey, you're the guy who pushed for sustainability to become a pillar at AWS. So I guess the situation is not all that dark and all that light. So, could you enlighten us a bit about it?

Adrian Cockcroft 47:00
Yeah, I think there's a lot of good work going on where AWS is helping customers decarbonize their companies. That side of it, lots of good examples. They're happy to talk about that, and that is a significant thing. The other good area is all of the investments in energy generation. And then it comes down to the carbon footprint tool, which was created by a real... I don't know exactly how to describe it. It wasn't a full on service team effort. Right. It was done by a team that wasn't really one of the product teams, because they knew customers needed something and they managed to get it put into the billing information area of the AWS console. That data was hard to get produced and hard to get released. So that was kind of annoying. And then it just sat there. There's been basically no updates on it in two years. And one of the reasons is that just as they were kind of going, okay, we need to staff up a team to do this properly. And there were some internal reorgs that happened as well. And then there was the. The sort of big layoff crunch happened, and they just got short on headcount everywhere. And if you look across the company, where are you going to leave your headcount? You're going to put your headcount on things that generate revenue. This is not revenue generating. And you're going to put things in areas where there is a strong leader who is advocating for this thing being important. And the carbon stuff didn't fit into the normal systems. It was being run by a group within the energy team that builds data centers. It wasn't really being run by the people that build services. It wasn't part of one of the collections of service teams. It's not part of the S3 storage organization, or the EC2 organization, or whatever, or the Lambda organization. There are these large groups of software services. You look at all the AWS services, they form groups, and each group has a manager and VP’s going all the way up and a budget. This was done on the outside of that, as part of the energy team that was basically, their job was to buy PPAs. Most of the work they're doing is doing contracts to build solar farms. And on the side, they built this little tool and managed to get it stuck out so that customers could see it, but it was never properly invested in. So that was the situation two years ago. And then it got worse, because there were layoffs. And then in the last year they've started to reinvest in that team and hired people, but they haven't actually released anything yet. What I can say is that they do now have a team and they are working on it and they are staffed to do something that hasn't come out yet. I'm hoping that they will release some more stuff this summer. And as I mentioned, there is an annual cycle where carbon announcements tend to happen in June July time. The 2023 data takes almost six months to accumulate and get it all tied up and audited. And they generally release an annual report in the summer. And everybody does that report at various times. Amazon, because it's such a large, complex organization. It's got an airline, it's got delivery stuff, manufacturing. It actually takes longer for them to gather everything and sort it out. So we get an update then. And I'm hoping that part of that update will include some more updates on what's going on with AWS. I'd say I'm unhappy that nothing has happened for a year or two, but I'm more optimistic now than I was a year or so ago because there does seem to be a team at least working on it internally.

Gael Duez 50:57
Where I'm a bit surprised is the AWS culture, at least at the beginning, was to really give your customer what they want and they were super reactive, like every day is day one, etcetera. You have a lot of customers, at least in Europe, at least for regulatory reasons, asking for tools. And I was surprised that AWS didn't see it as a business opportunity, not necessarily generating tons of revenues, but being some sort of a market differentiator against competitors. And to be honest, one of the analyses that I found today, I would say, which explained the best, the pretty strong commitment of Google Cloud platform regarding sustainability. And I'm not, as you say, they provide the data on the market globally, on being local-based, those things are not comparable, et cetera, but they brand quite a lot. They sustain the effort because they're number three and they're significantly behind both AWS and Azure. And my bet, and I didn't get any internal information, I will try, but I didn't manage so far, is that they're using the sustainability angle as a market differentiator. So why didn't AWS catch this opportunity to differentiate, according to you?

Adrian Cockcroft 52:30
I think that when it comes down to it, how many deals are going to be lost just on that one thing? Almost all deals are one. On other aspects, they're won by price, features, product stability, security, and the sales relationship. A good sales team will sell something against another team. Most of the time, AWS has been able to sell its way around the carbon data and where it's been super critical. They've just done a deal with that customer. If it's a big enough deal, they've just done a deal that says, we'll give you some information under NDA that will give you the information you need. So that's when it comes down to it, if that is the last thing that's going to make or break a deal, they will do an NDA level disclosure of whatever that customer wants. But that doesn't solve the problem for everyone else. It doesn't solve the problem for small customers that just want to get some data and optimize. So I think that fundamentally, AWS is very customer driven, but it's also driven by the customers that spend money on things. They are driven by customers' purchasing power rather than. Yes, I'd also like this other thing, but it's kind of optional because it's not going to make or break a deal. And I think that what it came down to for a long time was not enough deals were being lost that they could document were lost because of a lack of transparency on sustainability, because the underlying actions they are taking with all of the power purchases are good. They do actually have a substantially low carbon cloud footprint. It's just that the data that they're providing just doesn't let you do anything useful with it from a developer point of view. So we were advocating for this while I was there, and it never really happened that we needed some kind of developer oriented tool that you can use for optimizing workloads. And the sort of the counter argument is, well, if you just wait long enough, we'll get rid of all the carbon and it'll be zero carbon anyway in that region. But that's Scope 2. That counts for the energy, and what's left is the Scope 3, which they're also working on but haven't released, which is going to dominate the amount of carbon it took to make the machines that you're using. So that's the sort of internal kind of viewpoint that I think it was not, it didn't have a strong enough centralized like the team that was working on it was in the wrong organization. That was my kind of thing. As I left, I said, this team, yeah, they're not, there needs to be a real team, they aren't in the right part of the right organization, but it wasn't clear where they should belong and the managers of the different parts of the organization didn't want to move things around. So I think that that has finally moved into that. They are actually part of an organization that makes sense and they have got a team there now. So I think that's the kind of the thing that got fixed, but it took a while and it's only now that they're hopefully working on something that's going to come out soon. So I know there's a team there. I don't know what they're. I couldn't say if I did know anyway, but I don't know when they're going to release what, other than that in general, they are, they've said they are going to do Scope 3 at some point. I think they're going to do better. I hope they're going to do pue. That seems likely. There's some other things they could do that would be fairly easy and they need to be more granular on their carbon tool. So one example, I was looking at a carbon report and it said, you have three buckets. It says, here's your S3 footprint, here's your EC2 footprint. Here is other and another is all other services bundled together. And the numbers sort of moved from month to month and then at some point others shot up and became more than EC2 and S3. And we weren't sure why. And it was in. And then they just have Europe, US, Europe, all of the Americas and Asia. And it wasn't clear which region this was in because the data wasn't per region, so we couldn't tell. And when there's multiple regions we were using in this geography, we couldn't tell which region it was or which service it was. And this workload now is dominated by whatever isn't other. And we can't figure out what to do about that. It's going up, the traffic's increasing, so it's going up anyway. But we're trying to work out what to do about it and there's just not enough resolution in the information to figure that out. And that's kind of escalated internally. Say, come on, we need more data. Here's a clear example of why you need to provide everybody more data. Now on Google and Microsoft, they have much more fine grained data, but it is still delayed by a month or two. They'll tell you service by service and region by region, and I think down to maybe zone level on Google so the data is there. One of the reasons they don't want to provide the data is that you can reverse engineer what's going on inside the organization from a business point of view, and they regard it as sort of leaking proprietary information. But since the other cloud providers are already leaking that information, it doesn't seem that it's that much of a big deal or it shouldn't be that much of a big deal. So that's all the arguments. But ultimately, what it takes is having the right leader and the right organization with the mandate to go and do something, and then it takes just time. And that's, I think, where we are right now. I'm hopeful, but still waiting for more useful information out of Amazon.

Gael Duez 58:42
Well, that was a very comprehensive tour of public cloud issues and solutions and very transparent answers on what is going on in AWS, in your own opinion, because I say it again, you don't work at AWS anymore. So thanks a lot for all this transparency exercise and pedagogical exercise. Also, I think it was very valuable. It might be a bit of a nightmare to make some hard choices of where to cut and what to keep, but thanks a lot, Adrian, that was really lovely to have you on the show.

Adrian Cockcroft 59:17
Yep, thank you.

Outro 59:19
Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. If you enjoyed it, share it and give us five stars on Apple or Spotify. We are an independent media relying solely on you to get more listeners. Plus, it will give our little team Jill, Meibel, Tani and I a nice booster. Green IO is a podcast and much more. So visit greenio.tech to subscribe to our free monthly newsletters, read the latest articles on our blog, and check the conferences we organize across the globe. The next one is in London on September 19. Early bird tickets are available until June 18, but you can get a free ticket using the Voucher GREENIOVIP. Just make sure to have one before they're all gone. I'm looking forward to meeting you there to help you fellow responsible technologists build a greener digital world one bite at a time.

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 📧 Our Green IO monthly newsletter is also a good way to be notified, as well as getting carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents. 

🤔 Why do we do so little to decarbonize software despite already knowing so much? 

🎙️ In this episode, Gael Duez is joined by Janne Kalliola, author of "Green Code," together with Satu Heikinheimo, Planet Diplomats’ founder, to discuss how to trigger more actions among Tech people to reduce the carbon footprint of our code.

🌍 Both being based in Finland, a nice side-benefit of their exchange was exploring how the Nordic countries handle the environmental footprint of digital technology.

Key takeaways: 
🏃 trend of employees considering resigning if their company's values don't align with their own,
🤝 importance of collaboration among multidisciplinary teams to create sustainable digital products and services,
⚙️ concept of carbon-neutral software and the choice of focusing mostly on energy consumption, and
💡 Nordic approach to trust, self-organization, and low hierarchy in fostering psychological safety and agency for individuals to drive sustainable initiatives


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Intro 00:00

When we talk about agency, we need stories. We need to hear what somebody has already done. Otherwise, how is it possible?

Gael Duez 00:20

Hello everyone. Welcome to Green IO with Gaël Duez. That's me. In this podcast, we empower responsible technologists to build a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript will be in the show notes. You can find these notes on your favorite podcast platform and of course on our website, greenio.tech

Sometimes, and I do mean sometimes, nice connections happen via social networks. When Janne Kalliola, Exove CEO, reached out to me to chat about his book Green Code, I was happily surprised to discover his work and a bit ashamed that it flew under my radar so far. Our discussion went from code efficiency to the Nordics way of deploying sustainability. Janne being based in Helsinki, Finland, and it made me curious about local specificities once again. So, after Latin America, Singapore and soon Japan, let's focus on another geographical area to see how the Nordic countries handle the environmental footprint of digital technology. A sector where they weigh significantly more than the size of their population would suggest around 26 million if we gather Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. 

And I also wanted another point of view, less technical and with a clear focus on organizational challenges to bring sustainability within the IT sector and beyond. Hence our second guest, Satu Heikinheimo, longtime founder of Helsinki design company, who launched Planet Diplomats last year. So welcome, Janne and Satu, thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.

Janne Kalliola 02:28

Thanks for having us. It's a pleasure.

Satu Heikinheimo 02:30

Thank you. It's fantastic to be talking about very important topics with you today.

Gael Duez 02:36

Yeah, thanks a lot. And you know, before we deep dive into green coding and enabling action in the Nordics way, I'd like to understand better what triggered both of you to become more planet aware, I would say. And Sato, you mentioned to me in an earlier conversation that you were a climate quitter. At first I thought you meant that everything was lost and we cannot save us from the massive force calming climate disruption. But actually, I got it all wrong, didn't I?

Satu Heikinheimo 03:06

Yes, a little bit. Okay, so two things. So what got me into sustainability was actually already a long, long time ago. More than ten years ago, I was studying service design and business like strategic design. And then I had an opportunity to do my Master's thesis, actually quite near where you, well, not near, but near where you live in Zanzibar. And I was examining how you can use design tools or can you use design tools to solve systemic problems. So that was like my starting point. And then I realized that sustainability is my thing and there is so much to do, and with design skills we can make a difference. And then ten years, or more than ten years passed, I worked in IT and in very many different sectors. And then I realized that I actually want to do only sustainability. And that wasn't possible in my current position, like previous positions. So that's why I am now calling myself a climate quitter since last fall. And that means that I am fully dedicated to fight climate change, create businesses and services that are fully embracing sustainability, the opportunities within sustainability, and to create a better and more regenerative future for all of us.

Gael Duez 04:40

And actually, you're not the only one. I think there is a significant trend of people changing jobs.

Satu Heikinheimo 04:47

Absolutely. There have been lots of studies made recently where I can see that I'm not the only one. So, for example, there was this study made by Paul Polman. It's called the 2023 Net Positive Employee Barometer. And they were researching the climate quitting phenomena and it seems that it's major and we're not really talking about that much. According to the study, nearly half of the employees, I think there were like 4000 employees interviewed or answering in the survey, were considering resigning their job if the values of the company did not align with their own values. That's major, isn't it?

Gael Duez 05:32

Pretty impressive. That's something claiming it and then something doing it. So congratulations for doing it.

Gael Duez 05:41

Janne, did you have an uh huh moment? Or was it more something consistent over your professional career and personal path?

Janne Kalliola 05:50

I think that I had like two moments that were sort of like a pinch moment, like in a war, that there was one from our employees, from Exove, that their demands for the sustainability, especially social sustainability, and the diversity, equality and inclusion were getting stronger. And as I'm a middle aged white male from a developed country, then there was a lot for me to learn. So that was one sort of starting point that there's something here that I need to understand better. And then the other one was that I'm the Chairman of the Board of Code from Finland association, and there we had a sustainability initiative. And then I went to Finnish think tank Sitra to discuss the ecological impact of IT, to understand it more, and then found out that everything is not right, that it actually is. There's a lot to fix. And then I started to think that, okay, I will do something about it on gold from the Finland side. Then I started to talk about it and hoped that somebody would pick up the topic and do something. After doing that for a while, I found out that actually nobody is really moving because of that. I'm beating the drum. So I decided, okay, I'll do it instead. And I started to write the book and preach about these things, because at the end I thought that the. I have three kids, so I would like them to inherit a livable planet. And if they later ask me, dad, or maybe someday. Granddad, what did you do when we were ruining the climate? And I said, I actually sat back and hoped that somebody else would do something. That is not a really good story that I would like to tell to anybody. So I decided that, okay, I need to roll up my sleeves and then get things done. And then it's sort of one thing that has led to another, and then I've been more and more entangled in a positive way with the topic and being discussing and speaking and doing things.

Gael Duez 08:08

That's a very good way your grandchildren keep on visiting you. The only other way is to dig a pool. But I'm not sure that you use it that much in Finland. I'd like to start this episode by being a bit nerdy first and talk about Green Code. And before we cover several points in this book, Janne, I'd like to ask you a question. What are the two most unconventional tips that you gave in the book?

Janne Kalliola 08:33

One is for the. I don't know whether they are unconventional, but at least these are not easy. Let's put it this way. One is for the companies to actually use the golden rule that they who have the gold make the rules. So the organization that buys a lot should demand sustainable solutions and maybe put some money out of it on it. But especially that it would be a requirement because the money makes the world turn around. And then the adoption of sustainable policies would be way easier. The other one is probably very hard, that everybody should restrict the use of digital services. Less watching videos, less doom scrolling, less Netflix, more being outside, more being with friends without devices, at least from personal experience. It's surprisingly hard. And it's sort of a habitual thing that you grab the phone and people are not sort of… we don't sustain boredom, for example, anymore. And that is really bad for creativity.

Gael Duez 09:54

For example, it's a consumption angle. And there is the chapter in your book that I love the title, which is raiders of the lost efficiency. And it really connects to a battle that a dear friend of mine is fighting at the moment. So Tristan Nitot, about the reverse Moore's law, he calls it the erooM law and starting with this simple statement, which is our 20 years old computer, they still work, they're still perfectly functional. The problem is that we cannot operate anything on them anymore, because software gets bigger and bigger and bigger, et cetera, et cetera. And it kind of resonated with what you wrote about code efficiency and us becoming lazy in this raiders of lost efficiency. What were your main drivers to read this chapter?

Janne Kalliola 10:50

Let's start from the history that I was nine years old when I got my computer in I think Christmas 83 or 84, I'm not 100% sure which Christmas, but it was week 20 with 5 kilobytes of memory, 1 MHz processor. And you could not do much with that computer. And every single software should be and had to be really efficient, because otherwise it would not run. And if you have patients who are nine years old, then you know that you don't wait too long for the computer to crunch the numbers. And recently, a few weeks ago I was in the alumni meeting of a 30 year old club that I founded when I was in university. And there was week 20 there with demos, with recent demos, like one year old demos. And I could not believe how much the people could get out of that computer. They were really fancy, the stuff that was there on the screen. You can do a lot. And I think that we don't currently after Amigas or the early PCs, Atari ST. You don't really need to stretch the envelope anymore, because there's always enough power. Deep loading is harder and then most focus. And I think that because it makes economic sense, the faster the code is produced, the better. And that is the problem. The problem is that the coder's time is way more expensive than the electricity used by the bloated code. But you're absolutely right that they are perfectly fine devices. I have an old iPad mini, the first version that runs two software of those that have been installed still, luckily for me, they are the software that I'm using almost daily. So it works. But for example, I can't surf any web pages because it runs out of memory. For the same sites that I used to flawlessly use on that iPad like five, seven years ago. The site has blown it, but the information, the amount of information that is on the site hasn't changed. You don't need to do an all encompassing software. And you don't need to do software that is like a hundred tools with an army knife. Just do something simple like it used to be back in the days and 70s, 80s with Unix. That there are very simple things that do one thing and they do that one thing well, and then you can combine those things to do something else. But then one thing that is crucial to understand is that the software developer is sort of at the mercy of a designer, because the designer figures out how the software interacts and a lot of that interaction then decides how it has to be implemented. And then if the designer doesn't really understand the eco-friendly approach, then the developer can do just that much.

Satu Heikinheimo 14:26

Yeah, I think, Janne, you're wonderfully talking about the importance of collaboration and how important, when we are creating more sustainable products and services, digital products and services, how important is that we bring the knowledge and the skills of different experts on the table. No developer alone can create the premium sustainable service nor can a designer. So this is what I've also been seeing, that we are so much going into our own boxes when, in this era, when we are wanting to tackle and actually create super good, very human centered services, digital services, we need to bring the multidisciplinary teams to work together.

Gael Duez 15:24

A final question when it comes to your book, Janne and Satu, please help us also to understand this decision. You decided to focus solely on energy consumption as an environmental variable. That was really the red line in all your book. Not that much mention of embedded carbon or carbon footprint of devices themselves, and no other mentions to water consumption, resource depletion. Why did you make this choice?

Janne Kalliola 16:01

I think that the energy consumption, or at the end, the efficiency is the key. That if we have more efficient software, we need less energy to run it, we need less hardware to host it, we need less network capacity to move the data around. So if we have the efficiency in the core, then the rest automatically follows. Of course, you need to do improvements, efficiency gains on the server side, on the network side, that development needs to march on. But for me, everything starts with the energy usage, and everything else sort of is a secondary matter because the software dictates the environment. Of course, the environment somewhat dictates what kind of software you can run, but the requirements of the software create the rest of the ecosystem and not vice versa. So that's why I started from the software.

Gael Duez 17:16

That's why you started from the software. And Satu, is it something, this focus on carbon and more specifically on energy consumption, is it something that you see a lot in your different initiatives, or do we also start discussing other environmental variables?

Satu Heikinheimo 17:33

I think it's like what Janne has been like, the focus Janne has in his book about energy. I think energy is very. It's kind of easy to grasp because energy equals money. So if you can save money by creating more sustainable software, then it's very easy. It's easier for businesses and leaders to understand, isn't it?

Gael Duez 17:58

Yes, it is. I'm just concerned about the pollution transfer there. But I guess it's less the case in your country. But we're seeing more and more a trade off between carbon reduction in water consumption, for instance, in data centers, and to cut this cycle. Actually, I'd like to investigate another aspect of your work triggering action. Because what I've noticed, reading your book, and what I've noticed discussing with you, Satu, is that we already have quite a lot of tools and quite a lot of awareness on these issues. I mean, it's pretty rare to find a CTO not being aware that there is an energy consumption issue. And no matter how hard it tries to reduce it, there are new usages, new needs, or not, maybe not needs, but popping up everywhere. So my question, and it will be starting with you, Satu, is why don't we act more? What is preventing us from building an agency? And I know that's a word that you use a lot, so could you maybe explain to us what are, according to you, the main pain points?

Satu Heikinheimo 19:17

Yeah, of course. Everybody wants to do good in their job and in their lives, right? Nobody wants to harm the planet and destroy it, unless you work in the oil industry. But even there, you have people who want to change things. And I think fundamentally, the core of humanity is to grow, to build, to create. And I think in the past years, we suddenly woke up to the fact that we have a climate crisis. It's been going on for years, but suddenly it's like we are in a serious situation. And that's why I think if we really want to change things, we have to consider that every job has to be a climate job. And now that Yanne has written a book about green code, he's doing what he can in his domain of ICT. He's giving the tools. And like Gaël, you said, there are already a lot of tools in different industries of how to really actually do the change. But what I think Janne has been able to do is that he's been giving the information, creating awareness, but also showing, like practicing what you preach. And I think this is like when we talk about agency, we need stories. We need to hear what somebody has already done, right? Otherwise, how is it possible? So we need inspiring stories, we need to make sustainability and even green coding a fun thing. It's not scarce, it's suddenly you're like, oh, I need to do something like I'm losing something. But we need to think of sustainability as a positive thing that brings hope. And when we are in this environment of hope and where we see that what we do has a meaning in the long term and also now, then we can get that agency. But agency is not possible if you don't have a community to support you.

Janne Kalliola 21:33

Yeah, I think that you're absolutely right. The thing is that I don't know how to put this in a positive spin because I fully agree that this should be fun and this should be cool and so forth. That everybody should be at the end accountable. What did I try, did I do or did I invent excuses because China is a bigger polluter? Or we have this like my company's parent company, they are printing a lot with the traditional printing. We could say that here in Exeter we don't really need to do anything because there's always the printing that is using propane and using a lot of electricity and producing a lot of garbage or that kind of thing that needs to be recycled, we don't need to do it because the bad guys are somewhere else. Everybody is a bad guy. And if we can make it so that you don't do it because you have that kind of climate angst, that you are motivated by fear or depression, but you are motivated with the possibilities.

Gael Duez 22:48

Could you, both of you, concretely share an example of how you manage to create a momentum towards change regarding green coating or even sustainability in general?

Satu Heikinheimo 23:02

I have been working with social sustainability before. I think it all starts when you realize what your values are, what is important to you, and then when you are in a healthy relationship with yourself, then you can start doing these things and then you can inspire others. That's how I see it. And sustainability has been my value for a long time. So, for example, in my previous job, I started to talk about, like, maybe we should create a sustainability strategy. And then kind of getting a little bit of buzz inside the company, I invited people to speak about interesting sustainability topics so that, you know, creating awareness for my working community, basically. So creating awareness, getting other people also excited about, oh, these are the opportunities. Maybe I could do that too. And suddenly we started creating sustainability training and then we created a sustainability strategy. And then Janne has been developing this green code, what do you call it?

Janne Kalliola 24:23

Yeah, the carbon neutral software company label in Code from Finland association.

Satu Heikinheimo 24:30

Absolutely. So I also discovered that and I'm like, of course we're going to get that. So getting people involved is super important. And also getting people to discuss these topics together. I think that's super important.

Janne Kalliola 24:47

Yeah. For me, the turning point was, in all of my thinking, when I got kids. Now the oldest one is 19, and soon, soon goes to the army. We will have a less full house. But then I have found out that I'm not the most important person in my life. That was sort of a turning point. That was actually worded by our CTO a few years ago, because then there were a lot of that kind of demands from the developers, especially the younger generation, that what they are entitled and so forth. And he said that it would be really good, that they would not be the most important person in their lives. And when you find out that you are not that important, that there are more important things, then suddenly a lot of things that you felt that were sort of burdensome to you were actually pretty okay things, if they were good for the other people that you felt more important. 

And then the other one, that I think that sums nicely, this meaningfulness and the fun. And the other is the Japanese concept of Ikigai. I don't know if you know it, but there's that. If you do what you love, what you are good at, what you can be paid for, and what the world needs, then you have passion, mission, professional vocation, and that forms the Ikigai that is the meaning of your life. And I'm currently doing those things at that time. I'm sort of good at it. I'm still learning. I love the topic. I get some money out of it, and then I surely know that the world needs it. So there's meaning in my life and having meaning, being on a mission with a passion, is truly an empowering thing.

Gael Duez 26:45

The fun fact is that I used Ikigai three years ago when I decided to pivot, and that was really like. I remember printing the page and playing a bit around. And after a few days, it was crystal clear that I would focus 100% on digital sustainability, and hence Green IO and all the things. There is something that I find quite interesting is that when I ask you the question how we could trigger change, et cetera, you start a lot from an individual perspective, and I'd like to deep dive a bit more with the Nordics way of doing things. I think it's very important for both of you to say, okay, this is, pardon my French, but this is your shit. You know, you need to eat it and to manage it. And you were not that much into it. Our leadership should do this, the government should do that, et cetera. Satu, you mentioned several regulations, but more of the force for good, rather than something that was a blocker or needed before starting to act. Could you tell me a bit more about how you do things and how you implement sustainable initiatives in the Nordics, starting, obviously, with Finland, where both of you live?

Satu Heikinheimo 27:59

Yes. It all starts from the individual. And I actually launched a podcast about the psychology of sustainability today. And I think it's… Even if we are, I can see that there are lots of collectives, communities being born. But at the same time, I believe that we're moving very much more towards the individual era. And that means that we are kind of like, people are tired, people are burned out because they've been grinding in their jobs for years, and they don't see the rewards. And then they realize that, oh, okay, so this wasn't as promised when I was 18 and I went to study business, for example. So now people are kind of turning back inside themselves, and I can see that there is more and more of this happening. So we're going into this individual era where people are actually doing more Ikigai. They're going deeper into what is important to me. And I think there was a good saying. One of my friends said this quote, that your future self is talking shit about you. So I think that we are actually becoming more aware of what is a good life for me, how I want to live, and what is a good life for me. And that also requires that we actually do the work ourselves. What are your values? How are you treating yourself? Or are you just numbing your pain, for example, with doomless scrolling and such things? And that's where we go into the lifestyle changes. So from there, when you are more in line with your values and with your Ikigai, I think then we can actually make massive changes in companies, because then you can be honestly, brutally you. You can talk with your colleagues, you can create honest, aligned communities that are in the same mission as you. And that's what I'm seeing happening a lot, especially in Finland. We have so many networks of like minded people who want to do good. People are in different stages in their processes and lives. But I think that's where we create communities. And I think the communities can exist, like outside of companies, but also inside companies. And that's where we can create massive change. And the leaders are part of these communities. Right? That's how I see it.

Janne Kalliola 30:42

Yeah, I fully agree. I think that the Nordic way starts with that there's inherent trust, that people are trustworthy, that they can be trusted without proving that they can be trusted, that this seems to be the other way around in most of the parts of the world. And then the other one is that we are expected to be self guided or self organized. I don't know, maybe because we have been always so little amount of people compared to the amount of land that you are there in middle of forest, with yourself or with your family back in the days like 1800 century or whatnot. And then you need to cope because there is no network, there is no huge amount of people. This is something that reflects that when people are self organized, then the communities start to self organize. There are a lot of companies in Finland that the management doesn't really tell people what to do, but expects and trusts that they will do the right things when it's time to do the right things. And that goes… It's not against planning, it's not against sort of structure. It's more that the planning and the structure happens during the execution, during the work, and it sort of emerges out of it. Instead of that somebody needs to say that, okay, this is the scaffolding that you need to work inside, because somebody else has decided that we can't really trust you, that somebody would go, that if he would let people roam free, they would go outside of the area and do something else somewhere else that would not be beneficial for the organizational community. So that is probably one of the striking things that then helps us to create those ad hoc stuff. Of course, I am sort of product of our culture, but I think that it's the crucial way, because the climate disaster is upon us right now, that everybody needs to start moving, and then we figure out what are the best ways, what should be stopped, and then you should be humble enough to say that, okay, I did not take the right direction in the beginning and I learned, and I'm now changing. Instead of that, I will go to this direction at the bitter end, because that is the risk that everybody starts doing things and then some people get stuck, that this is actually harmful, that it feels that it's not. It sounds like that it's good, but actually it's harmful because of reasons A, B and C. And the person said, no matter, I'm still. I've sort of invested myself in this cause and I need to continue that one. So if you can avoid that risk by accepting that nobody's perfect and failures to happen, which in Finland, we are not that good compared to states, for example, that if there's a personal bankruptcy, then that you are just one experienced richer here in Finland, you are member of pariah class, that you are not to be trusted because you couldn't handle your own personal finances. So there are differences also on the other side. But I think that the pace is more important in the beginning than direction, because the direction will form, the pace is harder to create.

Satu Heikinheimo 34:20

Yeah, I totally agree with the low hierarchy and this you can see everywhere in the society in Finland and also in the Nordics, and also in the society and also in companies that there is… When you have a low hierarchy, then you have a higher chance of having psychological safety. And when you have psychological safety, people feel safe in themselves and with others that is making the agency then possible, because agency, you can't act if you're not feeling safe, then you're just kind of in this fight or flight mode.

Janne Kalliola 34:59

Yeah. And then you feel that you are fraud, and then you end up later in burnout or something that you try to predance, something that you don't feel that you are, even if you could be.

Satu Heikinheimo 35:12

Absolutely. And we have this peace. I wanted to also talk about peace, because we understand the value of peace. It's very much linked with safety, so we have a respect for others. And that also has to do with, again, low hierarchy. So let's say Janne has an idea of developing something in his company. He can just put it in Slack. I have this idea of an initiative, so it's very peaceful, safe to start things. And I think we need more starts, initiatives where people can then, you know, be engaged.

Gael Duez 35:59

The specificities of the Nordics' way are definitely based on law, hierarchy, and a sense of self organization. Like, you know, you're on your own in a big forest, you need to do your stuff, and you don't have to be told what to do. But there is also this sense of safety that you will be able to try something and fail. And that's okay. This is where I'm not fully sure to understand, because on the other end, Janne, you say that if you fail in Finland, you're a bit of… you're part of the pariah class, at least if you fail your business. So isn't there a discrepancy? Is it safe to fail? And do we need to be able to fail? If you really want to create momentum or to accelerate things? When it comes to sustainable initiatives?

Janne Kalliola 36:52

Yeah. I think that we are not the perfect society. That is the one thing that I want to make crystal clear. This is not the perfect way of doing everything. Even if we are in a number of different surveys, the Nordic countries are always on top and it's about happiness or different kinds of economical performance. So something there is done right. But that example was for the… that we could still learn from the other countries that are more tolerant of certain countries. This doesn't mean that we have… we would not have that kind of issue, that if somebody fails that this would fail worse. Like the, like some of the, that we don't lose face except in financial sense, that this problem is an exception. But then the other one, people understand that you can't be in the business, that you can't succeed in everything. And it's not always that it's sort of successful then out. This is not the way we do here, but we understand that people fail. But of course if it would have even the… although also the financial failure buffer like the states has, we could be way better. I think that in the other Nordic countries that failures are not seen that critical, but the safety comes from, I think, from the trust that you are trusted upright. If it fails, then it might be that you lose some of the trust and so forth, and you might lose some of the safety. Yes, that might happen, but it's still better that everybody is trusted upfront because then everybody has the possibility to have the agency and not wait until they have sort of proven themselves to somebody that they have the agency.

Satu Heikinheimo 38:53

It's a good place to start innovating and creating. But then again, I also see that safety has this kind of dark side in the Nordics. At least I can tell. I've been living in Sweden and Finland, so I can talk based on my own experience. But sometimes I think we are also afraid to take risks. And I think that's the dark, like the other side of safety. So we want things to be so safe that we are not taking risks. So everything has to be like, well, not everything, but you know, like we want to see that somebody already did it and then we can take those steps. And that's also a reason why we need more agency, more brave, courageous people like Janne and Gaël to show us examples, stories through podcasts and different kinds of events and so forth.

Gael Duez 39:52

I think what I really like about the discussion we had on the Nordics way is that once you've built trust, you've got this ability to try and fail. Even if you've been perfectly honest about the dark side, as you say,Satu, sometimes we don't dare enough, but I think it makes total sense. And it's come almost all the way back to what triggered the agile revolution. And I'm not talking about it in a buzzwording way, but really, truly, at the beginning, we realized that developing software was super complex. And actually, sustainability is super complex. And we can literally freeze in front of such complexity because we're so afraid of failure that we want to have like double, triple, quadruple safeties before starting to code or starting to design or starting something. And what is scariest than climate change and biodiversity collapse, etcetera? Nothing. I mean, for me, nothing. Not even maybe nuclear war. But let's not talk about this. And my point is, if we don't dare to take small steps, knowing that others will trust us to at least go in the right direction, even if we make a mistake, then it can really freeze us. And that's something that I see in many organizations. Where do I start? And if I make a mistake, and if I do enough, don't do it right. But the truth is, when it comes to sustainability, everyone makes a lot of mistakes because we don't fully understand the magnitude of the problem, but we understand the directions. When you reduce energy, that's okay. Now, you know that it's a bit more complex than this because, of course, you've got the rebound effect, etcetera, etcetera. But if you're meaningful about reducing energy and you're meaningful about not reinvesting this energy in something, even with more consumerism, that's the right direction. That might be the best absolute, that might not be the absolute best choice to make right now if we had a full map and a full modelization of the system, but that doesn't happen. So I really like this kind of approach, like enabling people, trusting people, and daring to do the first step. Hence, to build success stories to follow. And then, of course, they will be broadcasted on my podcast. I follow your piece of advice.

Satu Heikinheimo 42:16

I also wanted to add one thing. When we're thinking about how we, like, actually make the change happen in a product service, digital development, sometimes. Like Gaël, you also said that there is enough information available, but now it's time to act. And how can companies and how can people in their daily jobs act? So I am hoping to see, like, a shift from lean consultants and scrum consultants to actually, like these sustainability coaches who are going inside companies, walking, you know, going hand in hand with the development teams, and then in practice, making these little changes that Janne is also talking about in his book. So really small steps, and that's where we can start building, like, bigger things and the maturity in the company grows, and then there is more willingness to actually pivot to something more incredible and something with bigger impact.

Gael Duez 43:31

You believe, Satu, that some external help is still needed to trigger change at some point?

Satu Heikinheimo 43:38

Sometimes it's the same with facilitation. Sometimes it's good to get someone from the outside. It's like, hey, come and help us out a little bit. So it's like the person comes with a different position, doesn't know about the history and the legacy and whatever is going on in the company. And then just focusing on, let's get this thing done brings the value. So, yes. So external. Yes. But also the awareness, like, I'm not really sure, like, how much sustainability training there is for, say, regular employees. So there actually needs to be training, like practical training. Sustainability shouldn't be something that is only for the sustainability directors or leads. It should be part of every single job. So everyone should be able to, or at least given an opportunity to reflect on their own job. From this perspective, what does it mean? In my life, you can't even make the change if you don't even know how to. How to change your job or what you're doing that day, isn't it?

Janne Kalliola 44:44

Yeah. If you don't understand the vocabulary and it feels like that it's only for the experts. And it might be that the best expert for your job is probably yourself. But if you don't have the tools, if you don't have the understanding, if you don't have the awareness, then it might be really hard. There's a good example of how we have launched the green it metric model in Exove, and we tested that out with our parent company. And after the test run, sustainable director said that this was the first time ever that she had been able to discuss with IT about sustainability on IT terms. And the IT people understood what sustainability actually means outside, that they need once a year, provide data for the carbon calculation. So there was that kind of missing link that we could then forge together in that meeting. And then now there's a green IT committee formed that there are people that are doing those things. They made immediate changes to certain ways of procurement and so forth. So there were a lot of sparks happening because they had the mutual understanding vocabulary, and then they shared the values and the goal. So then things started to happen. There was nothing actually changed except that they learned a bit more about the ways of understanding IT and sustainability. And then a lot of things happened. And I think that this is crucial, that there's so much expertise and sort of execution power locked, because people don't really know what they should do or what they could do because they just are not asked to think about this.

Satu Heikinheimo 46:48

Yeah, absolutely. I love this example. And here again, the importance of dialogue. And what is the narrative that is in the company, in the teams? Is it like, oh, yeah, the sustainability team is doing these strategies and doing, taking care of the compliance and da da da da. Or we need to actually change the narrative so that, okay, I'm a UX designer, for example, okay, what can I do in my job? How can we create an internal team where we discuss these things? And I've seen this already happening in big companies and also small companies in Finland, where teams are coming together or people are coming together and forming teams, and then they're showing like, oh, I did this kind of thing here, this kind of change in our product, and this was the impact, and people get excited. So, yeah, the narrative and the dialogue is super important, and the change is happening through people. When we're talking about products and services, it's the people who are actually the creators and the developers.

Gael Duez 47:58

Fair point. Now to close the podcast I will ask my traditional question to both of you. Could you share one piece of positive good news regarding sustainability? And who knows, maybe sustainably in the IT sector.

Janne Kalliola 48:13

Awareness is rising. And I was yesterday speaking in lobbied and the University of Technology to students that were focusing solely on sustainability, on IT, that their whole study program is about sustainability. So we are getting new generations that are sort of tooled already from the universities to tackle the problem. I think that there's hope at the end. The hope is something that if you have the hope, then you can do miracles. And I think that there's hope especially how quickly things have progressed on the sort of talk level. Of course, talk is shit that the actions matter about then they typically talk always comes first and then the action comes later. And we are now in the talk phase and hopefully we are in the action phase soon.

Satu Heikinheimo 49:09

I actually also have two answers. And the other one before you even said that you were lecturing or had a keynote yesterday. I would have also said the same, that there is so much happening in educational institutions, in academia, there are even doctoral programs where the focus is sustainability. And this to me shows that the idea of every job will be a climate job is becoming a reality. It starts from different levels and education has a huge role in it. And also the collaboration that different educational institutions have with businesses then. So I think that is fabulous to see. And I hope I can also collaborate more in the future also with these domains. 

The other thing that came to my mind is we're going back to the people. I think it's great that it's easy to find your people who have the same values because it's becoming more obvious now. Maybe it's a little bit polarized that you have people who are super into sustainability, then you have people who are like, I'm interested and curious, and then you have the people who are kind of. It's not in their agenda, but most of the people that you meet nowadays are, at least I meet, super inspiring and we have fabulous conversations and there are opportunities for collaboration. And I think that's where what Janne mentioned about Ikigai comes into play. So I think it's very important that we as individuals also know where we are standing and where we are headed and we have a vision. I think it's super important to have a vision where you're going and then you can execute and of course there are several like I don't know dozens of ways to get there but I think it's important that you have a vision, you know your values and then you will be able to find your people.

Gael Duez 51:15

I think we can close the podcast on this statement. Thanks a lot both of you for joining. That was inspiring and it was an interesting angle to see how the cultural context helps to understand what works well and what doesn't work that well when it comes to sustainability. So thanks a lot. It was great to have you on the show. I hope you enjoyed it as well.

Satu Heikinheimo 51:41

Thank you so much Gaël and Janne, thank you. It was a pleasure.

Janne Kalliola 51:45

Yes, thanks for having us. It was a true pleasure.

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🔎 Major regulations have been built up in Europe these past years impacting the Tech sectors. How have they been built? What does it take to pass these kinds of bills in the unique European Union political system? And what are the consequences for the people working in the digital industry? 

🎙️ This episode 39 welcomes Kim Van Sparrentak, a Member of the European Parliament involved in legislation related to tech and sustainability, and Max Schulze, the founder and chairman of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance, one of the main lobby groups for more responsible technology. Together with Gael Duez, they share their perspective on the European regulations in Tech.

Some points which have been discussed:

⚖️ the Artificial Intelligence Act,

🌱 Environmental transparency among actors, and

🤝 the Influence of big tech companies through lobbying

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Intro 00:00

When you sit in a plane, you want the plane to be safe. And you look at your government, your elected government, say like, Hey, you better make sure those planes are safe because otherwise I'm going to die. With tech, most of society today, they're getting a lot of their truths, their information out of modern technology. And it's a little bit like asking somebody who really likes to smoke to advocate for stopping the tobacco industry.

Gael Duez 00:34

Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO with Gaël Duez. That's me. Green IO is the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world, one byte at a time, twice a month on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript will be in the show notes both on your podcast platform and on our website greenio.tech

The long arm of European Tech Regulation, I'm not sure who coined the term, but it surely resonated with me when I heard it the first time. The classical example is GDPR, the data protection law which has inspired similar bills in Indonesia, India or Colombia, just to name a few. It's fair to say that despite remaining an economic giant, the European Union is not leading the race in digital technologies compared to lets say China or the USA. However, it's clearly having a major influence in shaping how people use digital technologies worldwide. And when it comes to sustainability, it's an arm the size of Elastigirl from the Incredibles movie that was talking about taxonomy, GDPR, energy efficiency directive, you name it. Major regulations have been built up these past years impacting all economic sectors and especially tech. This is why I have been eager for a while to have a good overview of these regulations, as well as those in the pipeline for quite a long time now. And to be honest, I'm also curious how they've been built. What does it take to pass these kinds of bills in the unique European Union political system? 

Hence, my need to have solid guides to navigate the Brussels Maze and I couldn't find better than Kim and Max. Kim Van Sparrentak is a member of the European Parliament. She's a member of the Green Party, and she has been involved in pretty much all legislation related to tech and sustainability in these last five years. And Max Schulze, he's a former engineer with quite long experience in it, and he's now the founder and chairman of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance and he has been very involved in positive lobbying, I would say, among sustainability for the tech industry. 

Now, I'm honored to have both Kim and Max. I owe some disclosure to my audience before I let them introduce themselves in more detail and explain how they've been interested in this sustainability work. This work, sorry around sustainability, but I owe you a full disclosure. I'm a member of the SDIA, a very, very passive member, and that was just for support and I'm not a member of the Green Party, so full disclosure, and I'm not a member of any political party.

Very nice to meet you, Kim and Max. Maybe just to clarify a bit the wordings and set the stage. Kim, could you, I'd say that I know it's super hard exercise, but what kind of legislation does the European Union pass? How does it, I mean, we hear about laws, bills, regulations, et cetera. I think it's maybe good to, for instance, we've heard, I've mentioned GDPR, which is a regulation, but there are different kinds of laws. So without answering a full lecture, it might be worse for understanding the discussions later to get a grasp on how it works.

Kim Van Sparrentak 04:28

Yes. So basically you have, if you keep it very short, there's two types. You have directives, and a directive gives basically guidelines to member states with sort of minimum standards on what they have to make sure happens in their member state. But depending on what the current rules are already in a respective country, they can adjust as long as they sort of reach the goals of the directive. And then you have regulations and acts, and that is a standard for the whole European Union. And especially when it comes to digital technology, we have lots of acts and regulations because they are related to the internal market and we want the same standard for products and platforms in the European single market and the single digital market.

Gael Duez 05:20

And I think it was just a good reminder of how it works. Now, my first question for both of you would be what are, according to you, the main legislations covering both sustainability and digital technology that we should be aware of? And maybe, Max, you want to start with?

Max Schulze 05:39

Yeah, I think we talked about it before the call a bit, but, so I would describe it, people can't see me, but I would describe it that we have regulation on the very top layer and at the very bottom layer. And what I mean is we have something like the Digital Markets Act, we have the Digital Services Act. We have things that are trying to regulate the products and services. So the metas and the really big platforms and Airbnbs of this world and Spotify and try to set rules on how you can make a product or a digital service in the European market. And then we have the very bottom layer, which is about digital infrastructure. So data centers, fiber, which is the energy efficiency directive. There is something in the taxonomy about this where we say this is how we want the physical infrastructure to be built. 

One point, because you already described me as a lobbyist, so I'm going to lobby here. What we're missing at the moment in Europe is always a more systemic perspective because these products and services that are very large use a lot of these infrastructures, and we don't target it as one. We target it as two different blocks. And I think we ought to have a bit more of a systemic perspective on the digital realm to be more effective in implementing sustainability. But at the moment, it's these two fronts, which are also two different parts of the commission essentially pushing different things. But maybe I missed something, Kim.

Kim Van Sparrentak 07:03

No, I think you're very correct. And I think one of the things that is, I think the most important thing to know before we can really dive into the legislation per se is that we actually don't fully grasp what the environmental impact of technology is right now. Because all these tech companies are very fake about how much energy they actually use. They are claiming their sustainment. I mean, Amazon lobbyists have told me they're the most sustainable company in the world. I don't know how, but they are according to themselves. And one of the things that we're all the time seeing is that we don't have enough evidence on how much energy they actually use or how much water they use, which is, of course, also a major issue, or how much rare materials they use. And that makes it more difficult to make legislation. And I can tell you, as an environmental activist, when I hear we're fighting for transparency, I was always like, no, we want change. But in this case, the first fight is more transparency on how much energy and rare materials and water is actually used by these tech companies.

Max Schulze 08:19

I'm just building on that. I think I've been doing this now for four years, and I've been stuck in this endless loop that I have come to understand is actually a political strategy of the other lobbyists, let's say, which is of European value, says we only regulate things where we have facts. It's very deeply rooted. I'm German also, even more so in Germany. We cannot touch something where we are not sure, where we don't have evidence and facts and scientific things, which I think is a really good value to have. I think that's nice. But because in the absence of this transparency, we never have real facts. Like, we might know that Google uses this many kilowatts, hours of energy, but how much is in one YouTube video, we don't know. Right? How much is in an Instagram picture? We don't know. How much is in online banking applications? We don't know. So by not having this transparency, we can never really effectively come up with standards or regulations or levels of what we want to get to. All I can do, really, what I'm an activist for, is transparency, because in the absence of facts, it's hard to make good regulation. And though I wish that maybe this year or after these elections, we can try to break out of this loop and just make a regulation to enforce transparency.

Gael Duez 09:33

And being able to build proper regulations based on facts, facts being provided by transparency regulation. Okay, so thanks for the clarification, because I think this is a very important statement that we are kind of guessing at the moment and not being able to be as precise as we would like, as we are today in all the economic sectors. As you offered, Kim, we deep dive a bit. Maybe you want to start with your little darling, which is an Artificial Intelligence Act. And I guess the environmental impact is very interesting as well.

Kim Van Sparrentak 10:09

Yeah, it is, my baby. Especially the environmental part, because this is what we've been really, as greens, fighting for. Of course, the focus of the Artificial Intelligence Act was to make sure that it was like that we have artificial intelligence based on ethics, on human rights, but we knew that from the start that we also would like to look at the environmental aspect, because we know that the amount of emissions that comes from making AI, and especially generative AI, such as ChatGPT, is just– it's massive. And as I said, we don't know exactly how massive, but we know pretty massive. There's estimates that asking Alexa to turn off a light bulb is as much as leaving the light bulb on for 12 hours. So, you know, like, you're completely trumping the idea of sustainability or turning by turning your lights off. So we knew that in one of the first leaked versions of the Artificial Intelligence Act. So when the commission was still working on it, there was also part on sustainability in it, really making sure that because we have some key risk areas in the AI Act, like, if it can impact the judicial system, then it's high risk, and then there's stronger rules. And there was also one for sustainability. It was very disappointing to see when the final version came out of the Artificial Intelligence Act, that part had been deleted, and we still don't know how and why, but it was quite a frustrating situation. So we've been really, really pushing to make sure that we get some sustainability aspects in again, to make sure that artificial intelligence doesn't, and the regulation doesn't only protect human rights, but also the environment. 

Just like one example, that critical infrastructure, to some extent, is also looked at, whether not only for safety, but also whether it will impact the environment. And if it can impact the environment when you use artificial intelligence, then you should also fall under high risk. And that is something we got back in. And I'm also very proud to say that we asked for actual environmental standards for artificial intelligence and also environmental transparency. Well, and that's in the European Parliament's version. As I said before, we have different versions of the act there. We really got it in. So we were asking for environmental transparency from all artificial intelligence, or at least the high risk ones, and we asked for environmental sustainability standards, really for general purpose AI. So the ChatGPTs of this world, of whom we know that they use a lot of water, energy and critical raw materials. And in the final version, we now have this environmental transparency in. And there will be in the review, at some point, they will have a look at environmental standards, which is really like, you cannot imagine what a big fight that has been, because we even had a commissioner who said artificial intelligence is numbers. Numbers can't pollute. Numbers don't have an environmental impact. You know, and it's really been a massive fight to only get people realizing that the fact we're talking about clouds, the fact that we are talking about just AI and things that sound very futuristic, doesn't mean that there's very big, ugly boxes in our environment that are just using lots of CO2 and water. 

So the fact that we managed to get it in and even got the member states on board to accept it is something I'm very proud of. And we're going to have transparency. They were going to have to be transparent. And that's such an important step to make sure that as soon as we know how much they exactly use, and we have ideas and estimates, which are mind boggling, we can really do something about it.

Gael Duez 14:32

So if I understand it well, we do have standards, or we have to have standards. What will be the standards? Because at the beginning of the discussion, we say that we terribly lack transparency. So can we have a grasp of what you think will be the future? Okay, so we've got a standard. The bill is passed. How does it work a bit more concretely?

Kim Van Sparrentak 14:56

Well, so we have a standard for transparency. But I think when you're talking about environmental standards, for example, for artificial intelligence, you are basically, you should look at the full supply chain of artificial intelligence. So you already start with thinking about, do we need, how much data do we need? There's, of course, the more data is better in the artificial intelligence world and in the tech world in general, the more data we have, the better we can do everything, which is not true. It's about quality data.  And it's not per se about more data, because if you just add more bad data, that in the end you don't have quality data. But it's also about how do you program these systems? You can program systems to run more efficiently and make sure that they don't use as much computing power as they do right now. Right now, the only goal is to make sure that you end up with something that you like. Whereas if you are a smart engineer, you can also immediately make sure that you reduce the computing power. 

And then lastly, of course, we have to also make sure that the data centers that they use are more sustainable, use less water, et cetera, and are more circular. But I think, yeah, when we really have environmental standards for AI, it really means the whole supply chain has to be readjusted. And I really hope that just by having environmental standards already, a lot of these companies are realizing how much money they waste. Because in the end, it's of course, the bottom line for these big corporations by just polluting more. And I really hope that's going to be a thing. 

One of the things I've been very worried about is that when you see these booms of certain digital tools, also with cryptocurrency, for example, suddenly it becomes almost worthwhile again to reopen coal power plants, because you will make more money than it will cost to buy off the pollution of these coal power plants. So we really have to have a different mentality and a different approach, and at least having transparency and these corporations being held accountable, hopefully through that transparency, will really change the way that these digital companies work.

Max Schulze 17:25

I really like the way you explained this, Kim. By the way, we shouldn't forget that our economy is based on energy conversion into value. And the digital world has the highest delta. So a kilowatt of energy put into the digital world can lead to the biggest value creation. A good example of that is a very good friend of all of us, Chris Adams from the Greenfield Foundation. He drilled into AWS, or Amazon's as a whole company, power consumption. He found that, first of all, that's the equivalent of Ireland. That's how much power they consume. But how much of their revenue is that in cost? And it's about 4%. So really, do they really care about the energy consumption of their business? Is it really affecting their bottom line if it's only 4% of revenue? And there you see this, how much value they squeeze out of energy is just insane, right? Just have to acknowledge that.

I want to be the digital philosopher in this podcast for a minute… So, Kim, if you would really ask her, honestly, I was never in these AI discussions, right? Even though I am a clear activist for this stuff. I've also never been in the crypto discussions because I know that I can't do anything about it, because the power that is pushing to do it exactly the way they want is so big that there's no way we can stop it. And that makes me, as a citizen of Europe, it makes me really sad that we cannot choose if we want to have AI or not. We cannot choose if we want to have crypto or not. We cannot somehow make various based choices anymore. 

To put an example, if somebody builds a nuclear power plant over there next to my house, I have a say. But if somebody builds a 400 megawatt data center, which is actually, I live in an area of the Netherlands where around me, I have about 400 data centers, I have no say, I have no way to stop it. And my values are not embedded. I cannot vote on it. I cannot say, “I don't want it. I don't want it to use fresh drinking water.” I can't. I have no power over it. And I find this incredibly frustrating. And that's why I keep also talking about the systems perspective, is that we ought to unbundle this power, because that's really what's going on. It is not that… Kim, you also talk about the right to repair a lot. Like, there's no problem repairing these things, like an iPhone or an Android device. It's just that the companies don't want it that way, and they have so much power that they'll keep it that way. And that's the systemic issue we need to get to. And so if I have very little personnel and energy. So that's why you don't see me in these, let's say, application discussions. You see me only in the discussions at the systems level or at the infrastructure level, because I think that there is, for me, as an activist, there is more impact at the moment that I can have at the top level. I know we need to do it, but I have never felt so powerless than being in these kinds of conversations.

Kim Van Sparrentak 20:28

You know, one of the major difficulties working on digital affairs is that there's not many discussions in society around these topics for generally whether we want them or not. And I think it was very clear during the Artificial Intelligence Act, at some point, we were at a point where a majority of the parliament, because of lobbyists, big tech lobbyists, set general purpose AI, generative AI, and foundation models like ChatGPT and DALI from the AI Act. That's where we were at. No one is better than I. Most people were like, AI act also my colleagues. Great, you are doing that because it sounds complicated. And then ChatGPT came out, and there was a massive discussion in society on what these systems can do. Do we want that? Do we want them to be regulated? And suddenly the mood shifted, and we wrote a whole chapter on what we had to do with foundation models. What we don't have right now is a societal discussion indeed on what we want when it comes to digitization, is it useful? Do we need all these things that can generate videos for some reason, while we know that that uses lots of energy and can be used in a dangerous way when it comes to our democracies, for example, we need that discussion, and it's very difficult to start a discussion from top down. 

So it's something that I'm really thinking about. And I think one of the first things, and this diverges a bit from the core of this podcast, so I'll keep it very short. But one of the core things I'm working on is seeing how we can deal with digitization in the work environment, because that's where most people actually experience digitization already, and where we can actually have discussions on whether we want our bosses to know exactly how many keystrokes per hour we do. And I think by having a lot of people involved in the discussions on whether they want digitization on the workflow, we can actually, hopefully, create a more broad discussion. How much digitization do we actually want, and to what extent do we want to stay human in this world? So that's really something I hope will happen. But it's necessary in order to, indeed change that system where right now there's a few big corporations with all the knowledge and all the power versus, you know. Yeah, quite a difficult situation.

Max Schulze 23:15

I just want to point out. Okay, you are an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur– used to be. And I'm the son of a secretary. I came into software 15 years ago thinking that I can automate all the stuff that my mom is doing because it's such a waste of time, like scanning receipts, scheduling meetings, responding to silly emails. And these problems are still not solved 15 years later. We have amazing technology. If you read the news, like, wow, I still scan receipts with my phone. The OCR still doesn't work. I have to manually correct the amounts and upload it to some system. Even with jet DBT and all this stuff, the fundamental things that digitalization promised us, making us, giving us a better life, more free time, that we don't have to do menial work. I feel like I have to do more menial work now than I've ever had to before, but I just use 40 different tools to do it.

Gael Duez 24:11

But Max, if you allow me to borrow your philosopher hat, and then we will move on to one of the regulations. Actually, you worked quite a lot on it, but you know, that's going to be true philosophy. I think we need a bit of a niche here. When you say, you know, God is dead, we killed it. And the truth is, in today's society, technology is not a tool. It's a God. It's a religion. It's the religion of progress that has completely bypassed all the former religions in Europe. Europe is a very, I mean, except maybe some eastern countries and still very agnostic, I would say, to say the least, places. But there is one true religion, which is technology. Technology is good. Technology will solve everything. And I can say it very freely as a technologist because I enjoy technology. But as you stated in the introduction of this podcast, it's very important to use it as it is, which is pharmakon, which is both a cure and a poison. And that's something that is barely understandable, I think, in today's society, because technology is not at a rational place. It is literally at the place almost at par with God. So it will save us. And that's very hard to open the debate in societies and even harder when people are working in technology, because they like the new doctors of society, you know, they can cure and save everything, and let's save the problem. But if we move on to something where, Max, you believed you had a bit more influence on top of being a tech philosopher, you mentioned the right to repair directive. Maybe we should talk a bit about this one as well.

Max Schulze 25:56

Yeah, but I think to give some space to Kim, I think she should give the overview again, and then I can add some commentary on that.

Kim Van Sparrentak 26:06

Sure. So, yeah, we have an initiative to have the right to repair, and this is now also legislation that we only need a final vote on. And it means that, yeah, we want to give people the right to repair, and that's also what the legislation said. But what does that mean? It sounds a bit vague, but, for example, think of your iPhone. I think it's the easiest example, one part of your iPhone breaks and you have to buy a full new one because it's not possible to change the battery because it's glued in, it's not possible to properly change other parts. So at some point your phone just goes to waste. 

But there's also other aspects, which is, for example, the internal software. This is not fully part of the right to repair, but that's also one of the things that we're seeing more and more, that at some point you can't update your software anymore and you just have to get rid of your phone. And this is, of course, a very smart business model, but it's not a business model that's going to get us anywhere, us having to buy a new phone every two, three years when we're lucky. 

So yeah, this is one of the things that we wanted to work on and one of the things that we are now going to push for is making sure that products are able to be repaired. And secondly, that also, this doesn't only have to be done by the company itself, so you don't have to go to Apple with your iPhone. And also that spare parts will be still available for a long time, so you can actually do it for a long time. And it's not that after three years, like, oh, yeah, no, that spare part doesn't exist anymore. So it's very interesting that we really go from the angle of consumer rights and that we make it a right to repair. And I think this is actually something we're going to see more and more in the future, that we are coming from a consumer protection angle when it comes to environmental but also digital rights. And it's very interesting. And I think the right to repair is really one of the first ones.

Max Schulze 28:22

It's a good overview. I think there was something in there that I will build on, which is this idea of software obsolescence, because I know that Gaël’s audience is a lot of people who make tech. And you all maybe remember the Internet Explorer thing where I was a web developer and I hated Internet Explorer because you had to always build websites that work in the most cutting edge case, but also in the legacy case, which was Internet explorer. And eventually we said we're just not going to support it anymore. But we still do that in software that we build on the latest MacBook Pros. We have the supercomputer at home and that's what we're building for. But we need to start thinking about building for less fast devices and also supporting them for much longer because we need to realize that it's always software that forces hardware to be thrown away. Always. It's an operating system that doesn't work anymore for me. I'm not so much on the consumer side, I'm a lot on the data center side. And there is firmware of switches that gets deprecated. And then all of a sudden a very functional switch that's maybe three years old needs to be replaced because somebody said, ah, you know, this switch, it's like three years old, we're not going to support it anymore. 

This is all a choice of software engineers. Sometimes it's also a business decision, but a lot of times it's a, it's a, it's a choice of software people, and we need to be really careful with those choices. Especially most hardware doesn't get faster anymore. So this idea of replacing it to get more speed has long been obsolete. And we need to make sure that everything should be backwards compatible at this point, at least for the last ten years of hardware generation.

Gael Duez 30:08

And is it this ten word number, which is a pretty big one for any software engineer or designers? Is it something that is already enforced by law, or is it something that we should get prepared to?

Max Schulze 30:22

Well, I tell you, I wish I had some numbers that I could tell you how much hardware is being made obsolete by software, but there we go with my favorite word, and Kim is also now using it a lot is the word transparency, we just don't know. But I appeal to all of you who are using these days browser based applications or things that are desktop apps, but they're actually just Google Chrome inside, Electron apps, for example. Look at how much memory they're using. You look at how much of their computer's performance is absorbed by essentially software that assumes that you have 8Gb of memory or 16 Gb of memory. And like I said, it's the same with the argument of my mom. I have a very fast computer these days, and I still manage to find like four applications that completely drag it down. And that just means that somebody didn't pay attention to that and assumed that everybody sits on this mega machine. If you want an economic argument to that, the majority of society does not have MacBook Pros. So if you want your product to be usable, high performing, you must make it work on really slow devices. Because the majority site is not on iPhones, not on MacBook Pros, it's not on HP elite books, it's on cheap 300 euro laptops, cheap phones. That's where the market is at. And if you want economic reasoning, there you go. Go get that market. 

Gael Duez 31:50

Thanks, Max. Still, I go back to my question. This right to repair, I got it about spare parts not being forced to go to your vendor. And I know that Apple is a true champion about it. But what about this software angle? Is there anything in the law saying that, “Hey, you need to maintain the software long enough” Or was it a kind of a lost battle in the bill?

Kim Van Sparrentak 32:17

If I'm correct, it's not in this specific law, it's in another one. And we now are saying that planned obsolescence also for software should not be possible. I think, yeah, I think it's the eco design directive, part of the empowering consumers for the green transition. But there's so many of these legislations that it's very possible it's the eco design directive, but there are so many right now. And indeed eco design again is then an environmental standards directive. And then you also have the consumer angle again, where it's about, I think also about this plant obsolescence. So I'm not sure if it was an environmental standard or consumer protection standard, but we're saying plant obsolescence shouldn't be possible anymore. But that's a problem because how can you prove that a company actively planned for your products to not work anymore? So we're still working on the legal angle of that.

Max Schulze 33:22

I think that's also something we really struggle with in general for your listeners, is that enforceability? One of the biggest problems in general with software. And I'm going to use our favorite search engine in the world again as an example. Let's say we force Google to reduce the energy consumption per search by 10%. Let's say we do that. How are you going to check? Because every time you ask them, can I see it? They're like, no, sorry, that's intellectual property. How we do search, and it's true. That's their IP. How they do that is their secret. I get that, but how are we going to check? If we can never look behind the curtain? And they always say, like, we promise it's better now. You can't show you, but it's better. That's a bit. This enforcement issue and we don't have, unfortunately, Kim knows we don't have any internet police either that drives around and looks at digital applications and is checking like, is this one energy efficient? Is this one energy efficient? Is this one using minerals from child labor somewhere down the value chain? It's very tricky, because software, you only see the facade and it's very hard to look behind the curtain. And the first attempt to do that was to look at data centers, but it's very far behind the curtain. That's like looking at the light bulb of the stage. All we wanted to do was look behind the curtain, but now we're somehow like in the very back of it. And that's why I think we need to figure out a way, how do we actually check software to uphold the rules and values that we have tried to embody through regulation?

Gael Duez 34:55

And is there anything in the pipeline about this specific enforcement issue or not at the moment?

Max Schulze 35:01

This year's advocacy strategy for the SAA, and soon with a new name, is to educate policymakers. So to essentially just train people on the systemic understanding, because as long as we use technology and product also as synonymous, and data center, and fiber as synonymous, it's very tricky to get there. But I think the thing that's in the pipeline is a better understanding of how this works, which should lead to better regulation.

Kim Van Sparrentak 35:29

One of the things I'm trying to get into place is a digital agency. So one agency in the EU that can enforce all the major digital legislation. This would mean that there is an agency that gets insight on artificial intelligence, for example, that is being used by big corporations. And if they already have that, they could perhaps also look at the environmental impact and the computing power. So if we manage to have the smartest people in one agency working on these things, hopefully that will, in the end, also make it easier to have legislation on these kinds of aspects that can be more easily enforced. But it's an uphill battle.

Gael Duez 36:11

So I got it about the digital agency enforcing those regulations. And yes, that's definitely something that could be done. And actually just bouncing back on what Max said about intellectual property, Airbus has a lot of intellectual property also on how they make their plane flight. And still you do have a lot of controllers coming and checking everything. So I think this IP stuff is full of bullshit. Once you've got accredited people, and under the oath people, they should have access to everything. This idea of, like, a business secret is just complete nonsense. Business secrets stop when sustainability matters, human rights matters.

Max Schulze 36:52

I agree with you completely, Kim said it very nicely. Who cares right now? When you sit in a plane, you want the plane to be safe. And you look at your government, you elect the government, say, like, you better make sure those planes are safe, because otherwise I'm going to die. With tech, most of society today I mean, I try to have a lot of discussions with people who are not at all in tech and try to really understand how they're thinking about it. And, I mean, they're getting a lot of their truths, their information. They're getting a lot of pleasure out of modern technology. And it's a little bit like asking somebody who really likes the smoke to advocate for stopping the tobacco industry. And it's very hard to explain that there is somehow a safety risk because it doesn't feel like a plane, but there is. I mean, if you see the humps of children these days from holding the phone and scrolling TikTok, I cry, I'm a father. How do I protect my children from this? And unfortunately, I'm not in that part of advocacy. I wish I could be, but I really think, like, I mean, just the safety risk is so visible in our children. And it's not this argument, like, oh, you know, you're old now. You know, back then it was the same with TVs. Everybody said it's bad for you, but it's not that bad for you. But look, there are physical people who have these dumb things. They have this hump. Even the Chinese government is outlawing a certain amount of gaming. It's obvious that there is something, something there.

Kim Van Sparrentak 38:21

I'm working a lot on addictive design of mobile phones, and it is psychological tricks and manipulative tricks that they are putting in our mobile devices, in social media, which is harmful, and we have to do something about it. Check out addictive design and what we did on that in the European Parliament. I'm very proud that I led the work on that.

Gael Duez 38:40

I'd like to jump on the last one because you mentioned the light bubble of data centers. But actually, I know that both of you worked quite a lot also on data center regulation. And Max, you were specifically involved with the SDIA on the European Energy efficiency directive from the European Union. Why did you invest so much energy into this specific battle?

Max Schulze 39:05

So, tech, really, from an environmental science perspective, is all the environmental impact of the digital world is in its physical infrastructure, in servers, phones, devices, data centers, these buildings. So that's one. 

The other thing is, it's a lot easier to get people what we just discussed to care if it's a physical thing. And so I advocate a lot for the transparency of the environmental impact of data centers. So we can essentially create more outrage because every single time, a number comes out of how much water, how much energy, how much of the Dutch, for example, renewable energy goes into this infrastructure, the more people are making that connection between, well, we have this massive pile of digital technology that I actually don't really like that much. And somehow a third of my country's energy goes there. Why? That's for me, why I invest so much energy in there, because I find there a storytelling lever, and I need that data to be public. I need to really rip it open so that we can then do real advocacy at the moment, like, in the absence of facts, I find it very hard. 

I'm not a former US president who invents facts. I would like the facts to be transparent and public, and then I can do advocacy with those facts. And that's why I'm so much behind this energy efficiency directive. And unfortunately, in the current version, most of the facts that I need are not public. Again, they have managed to make it only visible to the commission, which is progress, but they're not public.

Gael Duez 40:48

And what are these numbers that you were looking for?

Max Schulze 40:53

So, actually, the list of metrics that was developed in this directive is very comprehensive. It goes all the way down to the hardware being used, how rare minerals and metals are in there, how much traffic goes in and out, energy, water. Everything we have dreamed of is in that list. But what's public is only the effectiveness of how they're using it. So imagine a financial statement of a company only showing you profit margin, but not revenue and cost. And then they're saying, like, look, we're fine. We're having a 30% margin. How much money you're making, can't tell you.

Gael Duez 41:30

Making things visible is a very smart approach, especially when you said it countless times in this episode, that transparency is key. But once transparency is done, that needs to be also accessible and understandable by people. So I got it. In talking about transparency, how these laws are made for real, how does it work? Specifically, what are these lobbyists? And actually, Max, you acknowledge to be considered as one of them, so that's pretty cool, but maybe if you're more an activist than a lobbyist. But how does it work?

Kim Van Sparrentak 42:08

Let me start by saying lobbyists are not per se bad. I think it is actually quite a crucial part of politics, to be honest, because they give us precious information and insights in certain things, also in industries that make us better lawmakers. But there is a limit. And the limit is, of course, first of all, making sure we have a bit of a level playing field. And the fact that €100 million

 a year is spent by big tech lobbyists in Brussels doesn't really give a level playing field to people who are not trying to fight for big techs. Right? So that is really a very problematic part. And if you want to know how exactly laws are made, no one really knows. But we do know that there's a very big chunk of big tech companies trying to influence these laws and trying to make sure that people decide not to put forward certain things or try to make sure that certain companies or certain systems are exempted from legislation. Just to give you an idea of what kind of things I see, maybe, from lobbies. 

So first of all, of course, I get the emails with, we would like to talk with you, and this is our position paper. Then I can have talks with lobbyists where they tell me, for example, Amazon, that they are the most sustainable company in the world. But also sometimes, actually, I also have interesting conversations to learn a bit more on how their systems actually work and what kind of different departments they have working on different, different ideas or different parts of companies. But then that's the formal part. That's the formal part of lobbies. 

Then the informal part is that they help produce reports or their lawyers produce reports, and suddenly it says something about a big tech company in a newsletter that everyone in the European bubble reads based on a seemingly independent report. But then if you look, it's actually the lawyer who also represents the big tech company who wrote it, or it's a call from startups for tech, which sounds very nice. You know, we want to help European startups. Turns out that they've all been sponsored by Google, and what they're saying is actually what Google wants. When you walk around the European district, almost all the billboards are filled with big tech company ads saying how they're going to protect children, how they will protect the environment, how they will protect democracies. When you turn on a podcast in the European parliament, usually the first ad you hear is Google does everything right. So it's a lot more than that. And I think what is important to understand is that it in general doesn't influence, I think the people who are really at the core of working on this legislation, to some extent they might the rapporteurs and the shadow rapporteurs, but it's especially the people in their political groups that don't know anything about the topic that are influenced and then try to have a say in how the group votes in the end. And those are the ones that then have, that the lobbyists have an influence on. So that makes it very difficult.

Gael Duez 45:31

The 100 million budget spent by big tech companies. Is it a firm number or an estimation? What does it come from?

Kim Van Sparrentak 45:39

I think it's a firm number. It comes from a Corporate Observatory in Europe. They do very, very good research on all the different lobbyists.

Gael Duez 45:47

Shouldn't we have a way to differentiate a scientific report from all the other reports? And the scientific reports being something published by people with non financial links, plus, peer reviewed, plus, plus. And isn't it the main transparency battle, the mother of all battles is that you cannot call a scientific study something that is not scientific. And actually it should even be made compulsory to say, this is an unscientific report.

Kim Van Sparrentak 46:15

There are scientific reports made by very smart professors that did that in their university. And turns out when you really look into them, that they're also on the advisory board of a big tech company. So we had one example when it was about the Digital Services Act and how we should deal with targeted advertising. There was a report. If you actually read the report, it was quite damning for the big tech companies. And it was actually like, you could have read it as a strong call for stronger regulation. But when you read the summary and when the professor came to explain the report… No, there was not really a need for regulation. And, you know, then you really have a problem. Then you have a professor that has done independent research, but the message they're conveying is actually blurred by big tech influence. And this is really a problem we're having. And that's also why it's actually a lot of work. When you get an email from someone or when you get requested for a meeting by certain organizations, you really have to, I always really have to go through their websites to see, but who are they actually representing? And that's that. And that becomes more blurry all the time. And every time they come up with new tricks, which is very frustrating.

Max Schulze 47:43

To go even deeper, we were talking about the AI Act. I was at the German AI campus, which is like a government, state funded mega facility together with the Max Planck Institutes, and I talked to the professors that everybody's doing a collaborative project with Google right now, and this is state funded. And I'm like, okay, and then they say things like, oh, any process that we digitize is by nature more energy efficient. That's a physically correct statement, but that's not really how reality looks like, does it? 

And I think we have technology, we have a power delta problem, the same as we knew with the tobacco industry and we same, we knew with the oil industry that there's just so much money and they're just everywhere and when Kim says 100 million, we're talking about direct spending on lobbying. We're not talking about working with the different municipalities in every country, making sure that Ireland feels like, hey, we're bringing jobs to you, and in return, we want your vote. They're everywhere, and they have so much money available to them to do that. And what we did with tobacco and all, at some point we said, hey, in the Netherlands, the tobacco industry cannot lobby. And I'm not saying that's the way it needs to go, but we can have the tech sector lobby. But there is a certain scale of the company that is as a civil society organization. I represent society. I can tell you I cannot compete. Even if every European citizen would give me a euro a year as a donation, my budget would still be just barely on par with the big top five lobbyists together, just to put that in your mind. But then comes the geopolitical angle. We can't piss off the Americans. Then the US government calls and says, well, we would like you to stop bullying our tech companies.

Gael Duez 49:30

And how do you do on a daily basis dealing with this frustration, Max? Because we had some success in regulations. I mean, we've listed quite a lot of them. So somehow we managed to get through some of these hurdles.

Max Schulze 49:46

Kim said it. We just need society to be aware. That's it. That's where my energy comes from. The more I get people to be aware, the happy I am that I can be on this podcast, Gaël. That you build this platform is amazing because it touches more people. And eventually there will be a momentum shift. And once we have that momentum shift, everything will change. But to create the momentum shift, there needs to be people like us that push.

Gael Duez 50:11

I think that's nice closing words to describe why we've launched the Green IO podcast and all the other related events. I like to ask this very simple question to close the podcast. Can you share some good news? Something that really uplifted you when it comes to sustainability, even better if it's digital sustainability.

Kim Van Sparrentak 50:35

One of the things that has given me a lot of hope is going to the Make Amazon Pay Conference in Manchester in November. And there, it was so amazing to see how trade unions, environmental groups, indigenous people rights groups, digital rights groups, policymakers, I must forget other groups that are involved there. All are working together to make sure that a massive corporate moguls such as Amazon becomes more sustainable and will be held accountable. And it's so cool to see that groups from all different aspects are working together on this. So that really, really gives me hope. It also means, you know, it also shows how much work it is that we need people from every angle. But, yeah, that's something that really gives me hope.

Max Schulze 51:30

Yeah. And for me, the positive thing is we talked a lot about the 100 million being spent, but it means something really positive. It means that Europe is considered to get the job done, to embody values in our digital world. And that's why everybody's here. That's why the battleground is in Brussels and all over Europe. But it means that people know that European citizens care about this and we will get it done. We're showing that we have teeth and we will get it done. And we need, just as citizens, to remain active and engaged. That's really important.

Gael Duez 52:03

Well, that was a nice closing word. So thanks, both of you, for your very precious time to enlighten a bit how it works in the European Union political system. The different legislations, we didn't cover all of them. We didn't talk about CSRD, we didn't talk about taxonomy. But hey, that would be, maybe that would have required a fully other episode. But thanks, both of you. Talk to you soon, hopefully. Bye.

Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. I hope it has strengthened your decision to vote in the next European election by illustrating the pivotal role of European institutions, starting with the parliament. 

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In our next episode, we will welcome Yannick Aliola, Green Code author, and Sato Heikinhaimo, the founder of the Planet Diplomat Initiative, to get a Nordics angle on digital sustainability. Stay tuned! Green IO is a podcast and much more. So visit greenio.tech to subscribe to our free monthly newsletter, read the latest articles on our blog and check the conferences we organize across the globe. The next one is in London on September 19th. Early bird tickets are available until June 18th. Even better for you as a Green IO listener, you can get a free ticket using the Voucher GREENIOVIP. I'm looking forward to meeting you there to help you, fellow responsible technologists, build a greener digital world. 

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🔎 What are the main angles to be covered when you truly want to design, run, and sometimes decommission, software, in the greenest possible way?

🎙️ In this episode, Sara Bergman, a seasoned software engineer and one of the acclaimed co-authors of the O’Reilly book “Building Green Software” joins Gaël Duez to discuss the book, and more specifically the chapters on AI, measurements, and hardware.

Some takeaways:

💻 Software people’s responsibility in utilizing hardware

🌡️ Concept of temperature-aware computing

☁️ Importance of major cloud providers

🌱 Some follow-up on the discussion on carbon-aware vs grid-aware computing for more effective environmental impact 

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Gaël Duez 00:00

Hello everyone. Welcome to Green IO, the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world one byte at a time. Every two Tuesdays, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. Because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO. All the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript, will be in the show notes both on your podcast platform and on our website greenio.tech

O’Reilly books remain a world class reference when it comes to sharing IT knowledge. It kind of sets the tones on what matters in the software industry. And to be honest, if you do a quick research on a topic like security, you will easily find ten to twelve books talking about these topics in the last, I would say five years. I did the exercise with machine learning and AI and data, and it's just overwhelming. And then when you do the exercise with sustainability, I have to say that until this year, the only book mentioning clearly sustainability in its title was the one from Tim Freak, which was published way back in 2016.

So it is a fair statement to say that the new O’Reilly book, Building Green Software, written by Anne Curie, Sara Bergman and Sarah Hsu, has been very much awaited in the green software industry, in the green software community. So this is why I'm delighted to have today on the show Sara Bergman with us to talk about the latest trends and what are all the angles to be covered when you truly want to design and to run and to maybe sometimes decommission software in the greenest possible way. Sara, as I said, is one of the co-authors of this book. She is a senior software engineer. She works at Microsoft. She's based in Norway. And I think I have to give her double kudo in this episode, because this year she gave birth twice. First to a wonderful book, much acclimated and much awaited, as I say, but also to a beautiful little boy. So nice to meet you, Sara. Congratulations for bringing yet another beautiful human being on planet Earth. And thanks for joining the show today.

Sara Bergman 02:44

Thank you. Thank you three times. Yes, it's been quite exciting the last twelve months, indeed. I'm really glad to be on the podcast. Thanks for having me.

Gaël Duez 02:55

You're more than welcome. And Sarah, if you listen to us, the other Sarah, you know you don't have to be jealous because you will also join the podcast at some point in September. And you're the one in Green IO London, the conference, the on-site conference that will have a book signing session. So we will have the three Musketeers on the show at some point or the other.

But, Sara, before we jump into the nitty gritty of building green softwares, where you will bring your own expertise, I must say, I admire you so much. Every time I try to write an article, it's great for, I would say the first two thirds, and then I just can't make it. I just cannot close the project, etcetera. It's just a little article. And you wrote a book. You have to tell me, what is your secret recipe to manage to write a book on top of being a very active member of the climate action tech community, a very active member in the Green Software Foundation? A very active member. I guess. I mean, you're still on their payroll at Microsoft. So how did you manage?

Sara Bergman 04:08

Yeah. Also while being pregnant.

Gaël Duez 04:13

I mentioned it, but I didn't want to bring it up yet another time in the discussion.

Sara Bergman 04:18

Yeah. Sometimes I question my life choices. Sometimes I'm very happy with my life choices. No, but I think there are several things. So, first of all, I got the question to co-write this book. It was in the early stages of my pregnancy, and I was like, is this really a good time? There was definitely a lot of mom guilt from my side, you know, should I be doing this sort of selfish project when I should really just be focusing on my, my kid? But then, you know, how many times in your life will you get the question to write a book, especially the book I always wanted to write for O'Reilly, like, I felt this was maybe a once in a lifetime opportunity and I didn't want to regret it. And after all, you know, my son is going to live on after me. He's going to have a whole life on this planet. So I want to do everything I can do to ensure he has a bright future. So, yes, I said yes to write this book, but I wasn't the lone writer. I had Anne and I had Sarah. And when I asked other people, like, who have written books, like, oh, what are your best tips? A lot of them said, don't have any co authors, but I want to say, do they have co authors? Have co authors that you know and trust, Anne and Sarah, I mean, there would have been no book without them. It's been a great collaboration. We work really well together. I'm so pleased to be able to say that. And that's been such a driving function. You know, when you did a little bit of motivation, they had my back and I had their backs, and we could proofread each other's stuff. So that's been, that's been a really big part in sort of getting this book out.

Also, having deadlines when it's like enforced by someone else can be really, I am at least motivated by that. You know, you should have this done by this date and sort of set it up at a reasonable pace. It hasn't been, in fact, we were a little bit faster than what O'Reilly suggested because we were motivated to get the book out the door. So that was helpful.

And thirdly, it's a really fun thing to write about, I think. I enjoy writing. I always had and I miss it in my normal work, so to speak, because then I write code, but I don't write so much text except emails. Write a lot of emails.

Gaël Duez 06:49

Are you going to use the generating AI to do your emails? I'm surprised.

Sara Bergman 06:54

They will take away the creative process of writing. No, I know it's a great feature. I enjoy writing. So I guess that was a long answer to a short question.

Gaël Duez 07:04

Yeah, but that's a very interesting answer, I guess. Enjoying it. You need to find pleasure in entering such a big adventure. And let's talk about green software now. I guess you brought some specialties, some special knowledge compared to your colleague. I remember, for instance, that Anne was very proactive and was very, even a bit provocative regarding how you should code, looking for efficiency, trusting language builders rather than trying to tweak them, et cetera. She had also a pretty strong stance on AI, who would be a no brainer when it's about coding and coding efficiently. But I guess you brought other areas of expertise. And correct me if I'm wrong, one of them is artificial intelligence and data management.

Sara Bergman 08:00

Yeah, I did write a lot of that content for the book. And I want to say I'm not a data scientist, I am a software engineer. But AI and sustainability has really been a focus of mine, especially my talking career. I had my first talk on that subject in 2020. So that was like before the hype sort of. And the reason I've been interested in it is because there's been so much good research in that field. There's been so many fantastic researchers who have done a lot of studies, published a lot of data on it. So it's really, it's been a topic that was really easy to understand because other people have made all this wonderful information available and I don't know if it makes me weird or not, but I do enjoy reading research articles. I think they're fascinating. I think it's so cool that we as a global community have this practice where we pay people to do cutting edge research and then they publish these results for free for everyone to reap the benefit of, I think that's amazing. So, yes, AI was definitely something we wanted to bring into the book. It wasn't actually originally in the plan when we first decided to write it, but then of course, with the LLM wave that happened in 2023, it was a no-brainer to include it.

Gaël Duez 09:30

That was actually one of my questions, because there is this debate, like, is data management, data science part of software engineering, or is it subtopic, or is it a completely different field now? And I don't think it really matters to enter the debate, but I was happily surprised to see a chapter. So what are the top three main takeaways for you? If I want to be a sustainable software engineer, I have to deal with large amounts of data or AI. What are the main takeaways?

Sara Bergman 10:04

So, the main takeaways, I would say the first, is to reuse what's already out there. Other people spend a lot of energy and time and carbon to, for example, collect large datasets or for example, already trained models. Can you use those data sets? Can you use those models either directly or use transfer, learning to apply them to a new problem domain that's sort of similar, then you save carbon compared to starting from scratch, because you can utilize something that's already in existence. So if you think about the waste permit of reduce, reuse, recycle, burn, then the same applies here, right? It's always best to reduce, but if you can reuse, that's great, etcetera, etcetera. So that's the first takeaway.

Secondly is to shrink the model size, both the training phase, but also once you deploy it and shrinking model size is ongoing and has been ongoing for quite some time, research space. So there are already all these great techniques. You can compress, you can use distillation quantization, and that saves you time, which is more efficient because if you have a smaller model, you can, for example, train it faster. Training it faster means you can utilize this hardware, this energy used to power the hardware on for other things.

Same with the model. Once it's in production, a smaller model will take smaller space. You can even use smaller hardware devices. For example, you might even be able to deploy to the edge or to an Internet of Things device. So yeah, that's the number two. Shrink the model size.

Gaël Duez 11:53

Regarding this smaller is beautiful approach, you mentioned edge computing. Do you believe that that's a viable option when it comes to AI?

Sara Bergman 12:05

It really depends on what you're using AI for and the type of model that you have. I think for some scenarios it's absolutely viable. And not all AI needs to be these huge models. I believe we can use it for smaller things perhaps as well. And then I think edge can be really good. It's also a great way. If you're using user data to train your model, then you could even use something called federated learning, where you train your model closer to the end users. You sort of collaborate on a model, and in that case edge can be good because you don't have to transfer all the data back and forth to your data center, but you can rather share the model and not the sort of data itself, if that makes sense.

Gaël Duez 12:50

I didn't know about federated learning. Could you share an example? Did you have some ideas and illustrations in your mind?

Sara Bergman 12:58

So there is a paper actually called Can Federated Learning Save the Planet? And that's really good. In that paper, they had some examples of what they used it for, and then they compared it to traditional centralized data center training and saw that this can be a bit slower to converge, obviously, because you have all the end users collaborating on a model, but it can also be a greener approach, mostly because you're more efficient in how you use your hardware and you use the network less as well.

Gaël Duez 13:28

And do they provide an order of magnitude? Is it like 5 times, 50 times, 1 million times less carbon intensive?

Sara Bergman 13:37

Yeah, they're a little bit careful because it sort of depends on external factors like the grid intensity. Where do you place the data center? How long do you send the data? So it's a lot of ifs and buts, the way it can be in grant software. So it's not super straightforward to give a magnet to it always.

Gaël Duez 13:57

You mentioned reusing data in like the three R of waste management. I really love it. So of course there is a reducing part, and I think we could spend an entire episode on. Do we really need to gather that amount of data? Most of it, which will not be used with the reducing. I mean, if I'm a software engineer, not that well connected to the AI community, etcetera, etcetera. You know, someone asked me, okay, some sort of generative AI, etcetera, and the obvious answer would be, okay, I'll go for char GPT or GPT-3 depending what you want to achieve, and I don't want to do that. Where could I find these models or these data sets? That I can reuse that.

Sara Bergman 14:46

Two great places to look at, at least, are Kaggle and Hugging Face. They have lots of both data and models open source available, and they're community led, which is pretty cool.

Gaël Duez 14:59

Okay, so Kaggle and Hugging Face are the two places you would advise people to look for. Jumping on another part of the book, there is something that was really music to my ears, that you've got an entire chapter dedicated to hardware. And once again, I believe that you're kind of the expert on this topic, and this is not that usual to have a software engineering book going all the way down to the hardware level. So once again, what are the main takeaways of this chapter, and how could you share useful tips or actionable things to do for a software engineer?

Sara Bergman 15:34

Yeah, so I think there could definitely be a whole book, or like many books on hardware and sustainability, another area of research and really focused attention for a long time by the community. Anything new? I come from so my background in engineering was actually half hardware, half software. So I had, you know, coursemates who, like me, became software engineers. I have others who design hardware. So that's my background on hardware.

So here's the thing. No matter what type of software you write, it runs on some kind of hardware. You have to accept that fact and accept that hardware is a part of your life. Even if you just see hardware as, like, a means to an end. Or if, like, there's some people who love hardware, right? They collect old machines, they learn how to program on punch cards. Like, those people are still very much alive and kicking and active in our community. So you know that we have the full, the full range. But either way, like, wherever someone falls on that range, hardware is like a fact of life as a software engineer. And hardware comes with this great carbon debt, right? It's incredibly carbon intensive to produce the kind of hardware that we use to run software. What we wanted in the book is to make sure that this is known, right? I don't think anyone is unaware of this fact, but to really make it, to highlight it, to make it clear that this is a fact and there are things that you in your software can do to affect it. And that's the thing we don't cover anything on. Like how do we make hardware greener? Because, again, that's a topic for a completely different book with other experts to write that book. And there's plenty to be said there. However, we as software people, have a responsibility for how we utilize said hardware.

And there are two main things I want to say that you should be doing. And the first is to increase the lifetime of your hardware. Simply use what you have for longer, even if that's a server in your server hall, or if that is to promote end user devices longevity. So basically making them last longer. And the second thing is utilizing what you have effectively, so increasing the utilization, again, more relevant, I want to say, on like the server side, where you have more control. If you are programming for end user devices, you can't really control how much an end user is running simultaneously on their phone, for example. But you can if you own the hardware, and you can if you're deployed to the cloud, by making sure you are using the right tools to enable the cloud provider to be more efficient. And I believe Anne talked about some of those things when she was here.

Gaël Duez 18:36

And on this specific topic. Did you talk about some sort of graceful degradation concept? The fact that I think Ismaël Velasco is the one who coined it, sorry if someone else did it before, but the idea that it's okay, that maybe some features won't be available on older devices and yet they should be able to smoothly run through your services, etcetera. Hence the graceful degradation. And I really love the graceful degradation idea. Is it something that you believe is applicable? Is it something that you talked about in the book?

Sara Bergman 19:13

Would you talk briefly about it? Yes. And also how some of that functionality that you may be able to live without should never be security, right? You don't want to leave users on an unsafe device. You still have a responsibility as a software engineer. So that's something we talk about as well. But it's an action packed chapter and it's not super long. So yeah, there's definitely more to be said in the future on that topic.

Gaël Duez 19:43

And I have one last question that literally popped up in my mind when I was listening to you and connecting the dots with the interview I had with Professor PS Lee who was one of the really worldwide top experts on data center sustainability, especially tropical data centers. He's based in Singapore and he was telling us something that I guess pretty much all of us knew but we don't pay attention to is that the temperature on which you run your processor matters a lot when it comes to the longevity of your equipment.

And my point is, and I'm pretty sure you didn't have this crazy idea in the book, but do you believe that at some point we should introduce in our software some sort of feedback loop saying, like for instance, if I launch a very massive batch, data treatment, whatever you name it, real time processing I guess that we should introduce some kind of feedback loop regarding the temperature of our hardware and saying, hey, by the way, you know, if the temperature reaches a certain threshold, even if it doesn't threaten the operation itself, we know that actually we're damaging the hardware. So that could be interesting to pose or to reduce the amount of computing that we are requiring from our machine, whether it's virtual or not, because hence we will literally make its life easier and make sure that the hardware will last longer. Some sort of temperature aware computing.

Sara Bergman 21:22

I think that would be super cool. And I think this is where we come into, like a distinction of who should write which type of software. I don't think that maybe every software engineer should write that piece of code. It will likely look exactly the same for everyone, but there should be some kind of controlling software that allows you to take these options. So you can just say, when I deploy this, I want to have the temperature aware computing option so you don't have to make the decision, if that makes sense. It's the same when I use my washing machine. I don't know how a washing machine is built. I guess it uses a lot of electricity and water. I know there is an echo program, though. I use that echo program because I trust that the people who build the washing machine are smarter than me and they know how to save the most electricity and water. So I just click the button and the washing machine does it for me. Same with this type of software. All software people can like, understand how it works. Like, yes, keep temperatures down, make hardware last longer, great, but they just want to check the button and not write the code for reading the temperature of the CPU and figuring out when is a good time to switch off and how long should I delay, etcetera, et cetera. It will require us to write possible or breakable programs, though, that can allow for that type of action. But I think that will come more and more when we have more renewables on the grid. We might have to, not might. I think we are going to have to accept that we live in a world where electricity fluctuates, where there's time with more electricity, time with less electricity, and our software is going to have to get on with their lives anyway and sort of gracefully scale up and down, depending on that. And temperature can be the same type of variable, right.

Something we did touch a little on in the book is repairs. Right. Sometimes you might notice that some part of your server always kicks the bucket first, typically like your disks, because they get a lot of tension, especially mechanical discs. So maybe you can even change your software to write less, keep those discs around for longer. That's, again, a little harder thing. But it's definitely possible. And depending on the scale you operate on, it can definitely be a worthwhile exercise to at least investigate.

Gaël Duez 23:53

Yeah, food for thought, indeed. And by the way, you know, these echo programs on your washing machine, I learned very recently that this is the only program that is tested when they deliver the ecolabel. So it means that, you know, when you buy a washing machine with A or B ratings, etcetera, because you're very conscious about, you know, electricity consumption savings and water savings as well. If you use any other program, there is no promise at all that the ratings would be achieved. So the test is only on the echo program. So I guess we have to trust them and use the echo program a lot.

Sara Bergman 24:34

Oh, that's interesting. I don't know.

Gaël Duez 24:36

But Sara, I know that you wanted to talk about this topic as well, because that's one of your areas of expertise, something very dear to my heart, actually measuring. And my first question would be how accurate our measurement needs to be to start to do things or to be actionable?

Sara Bergman 24:55

Yeah, it's a great question, and I think different people have different points of view. Here I am firmly in the camp of let perfect be the enemy of progress. I don't think perfect measurement, of course, it's a goal. It would be great if we could have perfect, reliable, trustworthy carbon data. That will be amazing. We don't, however. So we can't halt all progress just because we don't have this perfect measurement yet. Sometimes I feel people get so caught up in it, it's like, oh, but if I don't have these numbers to report, then I can't show that I made progress, and then there's no point in making progress. And that is exactly what I don't want to happen. So I don't think we need to have perfect measurements. I do think you have to be scientific in the way you measure, though. You can't measure one way. First do some changes and then measure in a completely different way. Obviously, then the result isn't scientific. So you need to keep a scientific approach and measure in the same way. But it's fine to use a proxy, like just measuring energy, it's fine to use cost. For example, if you do it a bit smartly, it's fine to use the amount of hardware that you use as a proxy. You don't have to measure every single detail just to do something, is what I really firmly believe.

Gaël Duez 26:15

And what is interesting in what you say is it's not only a question of having impact metrics like carbon equivalent emissions, water consumption, abiotic resource depletion, etcetera, having them in a not so accurate way, although always scientifically measured and with a scientific process, because, as you say. But you also find with using proxy metrics, like for instance, for trying to assess the carbon footprint of a website, there is this big debate around whether the weight and the amount of data being exchanged or whether the network really matters or not, and whether it matters short term, etcetera. Well, big debate, but your point is that it's fine to also use this kind of proxy metrics, as long as we know that they go sort of in the right direction and that we measure it in a scientific way.

Sara Bergman 27:07

Yes, you can always find more things to measure, more complex ways to think about things. There's always more data, more things to consider. What about erosion of the soil? What about eco diversity? What about the water use? What about this and this and that? You can add on, and then you end up in a state of analysis paralysis, where you are just trying to model the perfect reality to make decisions. And that can be a fun exercise to do. And I'm very glad that there are lots of people who are doing it, so the rest of us can make use of that eventually. But that shouldn't stop us from starting to make progress today, because I am convinced that almost everyone is writing software. They know at least one thing they can do to be more efficient, and they might not be able to say it's like ten times more carbon efficient, or even one time more carbon efficient, but they know it will be better. So just having something that can show some number, maybe so you can just show your manager, your datasheet, whoever, you know, decides if that was a good or a bad thing, then I think it's a good thing. I think it's a valid thing, because we are in this state where we can't really afford to sit back and just do the numbers for a while. We need to take action. We need to do things, preferably yesterday.

Gaël Duez 28:27

I'm on you with this one, that actually, it leaves too many people also on the side of the road waiting for the perfect metrics. And don't get me wrong, I'm part of the Boavizta. These folks there are just geniuses when it comes to metrics, measurement, etcetera. They run one of the most comprehensive databases in the world when it comes to impact hardware. We're very happy to have this kind of people helping us. But for the 99 other percent, waiting for the perfect numbers will be an issue.

Sara Bergman 28:59

Yeah, and then, and that's why I'm also glad that all major cloud providers have some kind of metric now. It's, I dare say none of them are perfect, but a few years ago we didn't even have that. That is one number you can use to get better. Because like you said, the majority of software people should not be spending their time modeling and figuring out the perfect metric. They should be spending their time writing software. And it's great that we have other people who can focus and do this really in depth analysis. We absolutely need those. But not everyone in the field needs to be doing that.

Gaël Duez 29:35

We've talked since the beginning of the interview of software engineers, but we know that it comes in very different shapes in flavors, and the same goes for the sustainability experts in our field. Some of them are very much into the clouds. I will slightly disagree that it's better than nothing, but a bit more will be better than better than nothing when it comes to the data provided by main hyperscalers. But I know also that there are great people within these companies trying to move the needle way higher. I would say kudos to them, but I think we could do better, especially regarding the revenues at the end of the year. I think they could allocate a bit more money to speed up things, as you say, preferably yesterday.

Sara Bergman 30:19

Agreed? Yes. And I think also people who are the customers of cloud providers should ask for this, because that's how any business operates. What the customer wants is what the business will spend time on. If people ask for it, it will be a worthwhile investment for the major cloud provider. So that's something that everyone actually can do to make measurements better.

Gaël Duez 30:44

Let's use our consumer power also, whether it's in our personal life or professional life. I have one last question, Sara for you. You wrote the three of you a full chapter on carbon aware computing. Sara, don't know if you had the time to listen or to read the episodes that we've made recently with Ismaël Velasco and Hannah Smith on carbon aware computing and the limits of this approach just for the listeners who didn't have the chance to listen to it. The main takeaway from these two great experts is that be cautious about carbon aware computing because it cannot be used as a silver bullet sometimes. The idea of shifting over time or over space your computing workload to go where the grid is greener, aka low carbon. Please stop using the word greener, except me in the subtitles of my show. But it is because I do very lazy marketing tricks. So sorry for this, but otherwise, let's talk about low carbon and renewable. Their main concern, and that connects nicely to what you said about specialization, is that a software engineer and even a data scientist, etcetera, that they're not experts in electricity grid management. And there are some things that we need to pay attention to.

For instance, if you shift your workload in a place or in a time where the electricity seems to be low carbon, but actually you're at the very peak of your low carbon production, you might actually trigger the production of very highly carbonized electricity via gas or mostly gas or even coal powered factories. That was one of the issues. The other issue being that for the moment, it's a zero sum game. And if you take the low carbon electricity of someone, he or she will have to use highly carbonized electricity. And it cannot be an excuse not to reduce. You mentioned, like you reduce, reuse, etcetera, it cannot be an excuse not to reduce. And there were other aspects, so I cannot redo the entire episode, but I think there were two of the main takeaways of this discussion, which in a nutshell, ended up with, we might talk about grid aware computing rather than carbon aware computing. And knowing that you're an expert on this topic, and you're a very loud advocate on this approach in the green software foundation, what's your take on it? What's your position on this fine tuning of our approach?

Sara Bergman 33:34

Absolutely. Hannah and Ismaël, are giants in this field. There are great people. So obviously they have very smart ideas. So yes. Once again, the grid is so complex these days, and not everyone has the time or should spend the time figuring this out. And in the book, we do have a chapter on carbon aware computing, but it's only one chapter out of a whole book, because as you said, it is not the silver bullet. If it was, then, you know, we would only write that chapter and be done with the book but it's not. It's a great tool that can be used. I want to say it's not always perfect considering the signals that we have now, but I believe the signals could be if they were a little bit better. For example, now we sort of have two signals. We have the carbon intensity of the grid, and we also have the cost of the electricity because typically, if it's cheap, no one is competing for that electricity. If it's expensive, a lot of people are competing about that. Electricity. You could combine those two signals and get something that's closer to what I think they suggested. But again, I, as a software engineer, don't want to do that. I want someone to do it for me. So I just have a signal that I can read as an API, for example. I think if I'm allowed to be a visionary a little, I think that will come because I think it will be worthwhile. And then all the things that we talked about in the carbon aware space will apply. It will just listen to slightly different signals is what I personally think. I don't think carbon aware computing is necessarily bad. I don't think it's bad at all, actually. I think it's good. I think it sometimes can be a little counterintuitive, but yeah, that full episode was great. Now let's not redo it. But I strongly agree that it's not the silver bullet. It should not be used as a sales silver bullet, but it is a useful tool to have in your tool belt with all the other things.

Gaël Duez 35:34

Yeah, fair point, fair point. So I think we unpacked quite a lot of your book. We need to save some chapters for Sarah as well. So maybe I'd like to close the podcast with. Not this time, one, but two questions. The first one is, of course, we talked a lot about your book. You mentioned several references. Do you want to add one or two other references that could be extremely useful. It could be a video, it could be books, it could be articles, podcasts, you name it to software engineers truly willing to decarbonize the most urgent environmental issue but of course there are others as well to decarbonize their code base.

Sara Bergman 36:16

I think if you're brand new to the space, the green software engineering course, it's a really good place to start to just get your feet wet. It's not super long and it covers a lot of the basic stuff, so I think that's really good. Also, the Green Software Foundation podcast. I think it's cozy and nice, and it's similar to this one in the conversational style and being else. I don't know. Personally, I don't like when the rhetoric becomes very like, lecturing to me. That makes me sort of shy away because I, you know, when you're trying to do something good, when you're trying to learn something, you don't want to be like, told sternly that you're doing things wrong. And that's also the tone we strive for in the book. Everyone is on their own unique individual learning curve. And no matter where you are, like, you shouldn't be shamed for not being further along or things like that. It's very important to meet people where they are. And I think this podcast and I think the Green Software foundation podcast are both also. Sorry, one more InfoQ has had some good articles recently as well on sustainability and so on.

Gaël Duez 37:31

Thanks a lot for sharing these references. Yes, some of them are guests pretty familiar with the listeners, like environmentally viable. My dear fellow podcast. Hello, Chris and Asim, who are longstanding podcast hosts of this great show.

To close the podcast. Sara, could you share some good news, like, a piece of good news when it comes to sustainability, or even maybe IT sustainability?

Sara Bergman 37:58

Yeah. Well, I had one piece of news that was not really related to IT sustainability, but to sustainability. In Norway, where I live, we're actually pretty recently Greenpeace and natural Ungdom, which means nature and youth in Norwegian. They won a case against the Norwegian state regarding new oil fields. So the state wanted to do three new oil fields, anger, peace and nature. They took them to court, and they won. So there will be new. There won't be these three new oil fields anymore, which I think is pretty great. Of course, it is very controversial here in Norway, who makes a lot of money from oil but I think if we really want a low carbon future, then we need to focus on other methods of generating energy.

Gaël Duez 38:57

Yeah, that was a great victory, actually. And I guess you won another one pretty recently with a ban on deep sea mining. That was also very controversial. So it's a good signal because Norway, I guess, is, unfortunately, the remaining country where climate denial has some momentum. I think maybe in Poland as well. But I don't want to say stupid things. Sorry, Lukasz, if you listen to me and say so. But I think there is, or maybe it's Hungaria. I don't know. Sorry about that, if I recall. Well, there is one eastern country which is still pretty deep in climate denial. And Norway, for obvious reasons, likes the connection with oil production. And you don't really want to kill the hand that nourishes you. But that's very positive news that even in areas where the fight against climate change is not as consensual as it should be. I'm not saying that there are no issues in other countries. I mean, in France, to talk about a place I know pretty well, we are between 30 and 35, sometimes 40% of people around some sort of climate denial. So either it doesn't exist, which is a small minority, or it exists, but it's not human related. So I'm not lecturing anyone or any country here, and that was not my point. But it's just that no way is a specific challenge as a specific challenge on its own. And still my main message, that being said, because I didn't want to sound too pretentious or whatever, that was a million of miles away from what I intended to say, that yeah, we can still win cases and manage to get massive sustainability achievements. So I think that's very, very positive news coming from Norway. Thanks a lot for sharing it, Sara, and thanks for joining the show. That was great to have you. I hope we didn't spoil the readers too much, but it was great. I mean, thanks again for making this book happen. I think it's a very important milestone in our road toward more IT sustainability. So thanks a lot for sharing all of this in the show, too.

Sara Bergman 41:09

Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. It's been really fun and taking time off your busy schedule and early morning and all of those things, so thank you so much for that.

Gaël Duez 43:11 

Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it and give us five stars on Apple or Spotify. We are an independent media relying solely on you to get more listeners. Plus, it will give our little team Jill, Meibel, Tani and I a nice booster. In our next episode, we will talk about politics or actually how the European Union Parliament has delivered several legislations to the green IT industry, either directly or indirectly. And what does it mean for product and tech people in Europe and beyond, such as GDPR did? I will be joined by the members of the European Parliament, Kim Van Sparrentak and Max Schulze, the founder of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure alliance. Stay tuned. Green IO is a podcast and much more, so visit greenio.tech to subscribe to our free monthly newsletter every last Friday of the month. Read the latest articles on our blog and check the conferences we organize across the globe. The next one is in London on September 19, and you can get a free ticket using the voucher GREENIOVIP. The call for speakers has also been opened, so feel free to apply if you wish to speak. I'm looking forward to meeting you there to help you fellow responsible technologists build a greener digital world.

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