Charting the course for a greener IT future

Why Sustainable Software Development Matters

Global concern and awareness about the impact of climate change on our future has massively grown over the last few years, with IT finally becoming a point of focus as the reality has sunk in about the size of our digital carbon footprints and the massive level of inefficiency in enterprise IT.

We seem to spend more time obsessed with sustainability "of IT" (i.e hardware and data centres) and not enough time considering the sustainability "in IT". This matters simply because nearly every organisation could reduce their digital carbon footprint by 30-50% just by operating more efficiently and adopting more sustainable development practises.

In this article, we will probe into some pragmatic suggestions that can be used to ensure that your software development processes become more sustainable, looking at ideas such as optimising code for energy efficiency, curtailing data storage demands, capitalising on open-source software, and harnessing the potential of cloud services. We'll also touch on the potential merits of adopting a "follow the sun" approach to minimise the carbon footprint of your dev projects, and where practical show a few easy examples to illustrate each point.

This list is definitely not exhaustive and there's so many additional examples you could use, so please don't assume this is meant to provide a complete answer! Here are 5 quick examples...

1. Optimising Code for Energy Efficiency

Energy-efficient software commences with clean, optimised code. Developers can adopt a proactive stance by employing techniques like memoization (caching the results of expensive function calls) and lazy evaluation (delaying the evaluation of an expression until its value is needed). Additionally, they can reduce the number of superfluous operations, such as eliminating redundant calculations or minimising the use of nested loops. Utilising efficient algorithms (e.g., QuickSort instead of Bubble Sort) and data structures (e.g., HashSet instead of List for quick lookups) can also contribute to energy efficiency. By optimising code for energy efficiency, developers can aid in reducing the power consumption of their applications, culminating in considerable energy savings and diminished environmental impact.

2. Stop Wasting Storage

As the demand for data storage continues to grow exponentially, the environmental impact of data centres has become increasingly significant. To mitigate this impact, developers should concentrate on minimising data storage requirements. Strategies include compressing data (using formats like GZIP or Brotli or tools from vendors such as Dell & NetApp), implementing data deduplication (eliminating redundant copies of data across storage systems), and employing efficient data indexing techniques (e.g., bitmap indexes for low cardinality columns). By reducing data storage demands, developers can help curtail the energy consumption of data centres and contribute to a greener IT ecosystem.

3. Moving to Open-Source Software

Open-source software can play a pivotal role in fostering sustainability within the software development landscape. For instance, your developers can leverage existing open-source solutions like TensorFlow for machine learning, Bootstrap for front-end development, or PostgreSQL for database management, averting reinventing the wheel and reducing the duplication of effort and associated energy consumption. Furthermore, open-source projects encourage a collaborative environment that champions constant improvement, resulting in more efficient and sustainable software solutions.

4. Harnessing the Potential of the Cloud

Cloud is definitely not the only answer to sustainable IT, but if your organisation has adopted a cloud-based approach, then it can present an opportunity to further advance sustainable software development practices.

By optimising cloud infrastructure (think of FinOps but applied specifically through the eyes of sustainability), you can minimise energy usage and carbon emissions. Techniques like autoscaling (adjusting the number of computing resources based on demand), rightsizing instances (selecting the appropriate instance type for the workload) and employing energy-efficient storage options (such as Amazon S3's One Zone-Infrequent Access) can all contribute to a more sustainable cloud infrastructure. Additionally, cloud providers are increasingly investing in renewable energy sources, further reducing the environmental impact of cloud services (note - please don't buy the hype that they are green because they talk a lot about renewable energy, they have a long way to go, far further than they'll admit when it comes to being sustainable). 

5. "Follow the Sun"

The "follow the sun" approach entails moving workloads to data centres situated in regions with lower carbon intensity during specific periods of the day. For instance, an organisation could shift its compute-intensive workloads to data centres powered by solar energy during daylight hours, and then move them to a region with abundant wind energy during nighttime hours. This approach necessitates sophisticated workload orchestration (using tools like Kubernetes) and real-time monitoring (e.g., with Grafana) but can result in substantial energy savings and a reduced environmental impact.

It's important to note that this isn't the answer for every workload, there are many where you might actually increase your emissions by doing this, but web-based services are a great example where it can work and deliver great results.

Conclusion

Sustainable software development is not merely a trend but an imperative in today's environmentally conscious world. By adopting ideas such as optimising code, curtailing data storage demands, leveraging open-source software, and the cloud (in a sensible way), you can make a significant contribution to a greener IT landscape.

Approaches like "follow the sun" can help harness the power of renewable energy sources (as long as you're proactively monitoring actual carbon intensity), charting the course for a more sustainable future in software development.

The long-term benefits of incorporating sustainable software development extend beyond environmental impact. Adopting a more sustainable approach to development will lead to cost savings, should increase efficiency, meaning hopefully improved performance, giving your org a competitive edge in an increasingly eco-conscious market. 

This will also make you more employable! As more organisations recognise the importance of sustainability, the demand for developers with expertise in these areas will continue to grow, making this an essential skill set for the future, letting you stand out from your peers.

Embracing sustainable software development practices is a win-win for both the environment and the business.

The time to act is now – together, we can create a sustainable future for the software industry and help preserve our planet for generations to come.