sustainability

Where to start with (digital) sustainability?

Marjan Bugarinović

Oct 28, 2024 — 5 min read

My wife asked me - why haven't you posted anything recently on your blog? When I said I haven't had the time or will, she responded - oh, come on, the longer you don't write something, the longer will be the preface of why you haven't posted in a while.

So, I'm going to skip that preface, and just go to the main story.

You hear all the time - sustainability this, and sustainability that. What does all that mean? Or, on the other hand, you are interested in helping the Planet by doing something sustainability-wise, but you're not sure where to start. And you know that having yet another AI tool, prompt, and whatnot will not help the cause.

In order to get us started, I've comprised a (short) list of things that helped me get involved with the topic. There are three types of content that I've covered in the beginning, that were quite helpful to me.

This is a story about an online course, a book, and a podcast.

An Online Course

Actually, it's not a course, it's more the course! The course is called Green Software for Practitioners (LFC131).

Luckily for me, this is the thing I started with. It was (and still is) free to enrol and it didn't take me too much to complete it. If you're eager to learn, you can finish it quite fast.

I heard about it via Linux Foundation newsletter. Yes, LF, somebody is actually reading them. More or less...

The course is covering everything you need to know to get you started. A lot of the articles on this blog are based on my learning from this course. It goes through the following:

Carbon, Energy, and Hardware Efficiency
Carbon Awareness
Measurements
Climate Commitments.

Each of the topics above is a separate section, covered in a good degree to get you started, help you learn the basics, and get you in the know.

It is one of the best starting points if you want to learn about the topic of digital sustainability and green software.

A Book

Truth be told, this book wasn't released when I doubled my fingers in this topic. I was so eager to read it, that I followed the draft versions on the O'Reilly platform.

But then it was released, and a giant - Finally! exclamation from my side. It is the book called Building Green Software by Anne Currie, Sarah Hsu, and Sara Bergman.

This book covers somewhat similar topics like the course above, but the authors go a leap further and explain a lot of concepts only mentioned in the course, and then some. The topics covered are:

Building Blocks - things you should know to get started.
Code, Operational, and Hardware Efficiency.
Carbon Awareness.
Networking.
Greener Machine Learning, AI, and LLMS.
Measurements and Monitoring.
Benefits.
Green Software Maturity Matrix.

So, I would say that this book is the logical next step after you've completed the course from above.

A Podcast

This podcast helped me learn a lot, and it really got me started thinking and writing about sustainability. I was fortunate enough to discover it quite early in the journey, and from that point on, it was - Full on!

It is a podcast called Environment Variables, and it's hosted by Chris Adams, the Executive Director of the Green Web Foundation, and an organiser of ClimateAction.tech. This podcast holds candid conversations about green software and digital sustainability.

It was, and still is, a great source of ideas and an inspiration. Here I learned about the book I mention above, and many more... Give it a listen!

Further Inspiration(s)

The list of things I would recommend is immense! But, there are still a couple of places I tend to visit to get informed, get inspired, and learn new things. I will not go into the details about any of the below links, I'll leave you to explore on your own. And let me know in the comments below what did you find the most interesting!