The rising threat of climate change is leading countries to commit to ambitious carbon-reduction goals. Concurrently, a significant portion of Fortune 500 companies are targeting carbon emission cuts by 2030.

As digital integration grows, Technology represents a huge opportunity, yet, the energy footprint of software is often overlooked. Each application transaction, interaction and new data asset adds to the energy demand, making sustainable software and data practices crucial.

While improving sustainability in data and software alone won’t solve climate change, with an understanding of technology’s contribution to carbon emissions, a focus on tech’s foundational elements at multiple levels can pave the way for more substantial reductions in the future:

• Software engineers can reduce the carbon emissions from their software and data by being aware of the effects of their choices.
• CTOs can make environmental sustainability a non-functional requirement for all software development.
• Companies can incorporate the environmental effects of software as a metric when gauging the quality of a solution.

The goal is to cultivate a culture that embeds environmental sustainability into standard software and data engineering practices. Now is the perfect time to start!

Madeleine is a software engineer and management consultant, with her main programming languages being Erlang and Prolog. She’s been founding team member of multiple startups and spin-offs, such as ChillServices, which reduce carbon emissions by thousands of tons annually. Her current focus is on business builds as a tech lead and solution architect, working across various topics and industries.