Martin Lippert, Spring Tools Lead & Sustainability Ambassador @ VMware September 2023 The Sustainability Mythbuster from a software engineering perspective

We need to decarbonize the entire world of software engineering hardware production commute to/from work heating / cooling datacenter operation (energy) energy production network data transfer business travel food at work accommodation energy consumption . . . . . . . . . . . . conferences virtual meetings / zoom calls

This is Extremely Difficult

Sometimes it sounds like we are already close, almost done we are running on 100% renewable energy this () is 100% carbon neutral we aim for net-zero by 20xx the green cloud we are producing renewable energy on-site we switched to a di ff erent language zero waste we do virtual meetings only we deploy to a public cloud, that takes care of everything

"We produce, run, operate 100 %Carbon Neutral"

"We are at Net Zero"

Reducing Emissions Eliminate (do not emit carbon) Offset (continue emit carbon) Compensate (ask someone else to not emit carbon) Neutralize (remove existing carbon from atmosphere)

Reducing Emissions Eliminate (do not emit carbon) Offset (continue emit carbon) Compensate (ask someone else to not emit carbon) Neutralize (remove existing carbon from atmosphere) Carbon Neutral

Reducing Emissions Eliminate (do not emit carbon) Offset (continue emit carbon) Compensate (ask someone else to not emit carbon) Neutralize (remove existing carbon from atmosphere) Net Zero

Carbon Offsetting doesn’t solve the problem We need to eliminate the emissions

"We are running on 100% renewable energy"

What it means We buy as much renewable energy as we consume in total

You are not running your workloads on 100% renewable energy all the time

There is not enough renewable energy production (yet) - wasting green energy causes more fossil energy production somewhere else

"If not used, it doesn’t consume energy"

Reserved Resources consume energy (~50%)

Zombies are a real problem Related study: Jonathan Koomey & Jon Taylor: „Zombie/Comatose Server Redux“, http://anthesisgroup.com/zombie-servers-redux/

Really think about your container resource requirements

"Hardware will be more efficient"

Don’t ignore the rebound effect

data centers will consume 10% of world- wide energy by 2030

"software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster" (Wirth’s law)

Write better software that uses less energy that uses less hardware

Green Software Foundation https://greensoftware.foundation

Let’s do it !!!

Thank You for listening Martin Lippert @martinlippert