64% of software practitioners are measuring their carbon impact

Developers and other ICT stakeholders are already working towards climate goals. According to the SOGS survey, 15.6% of over 2,000 software practitioners work for an organization that always measures the carbon impact of their software, and 49.3% say that their organization sometimes measures the carbon impact of their software.

Many software practitioners are taking steps to decrease the carbon impact of their software: 11.5% say they always do this, and 44.8% say they sometimes do it. In terms of the type of measures underway to decarbonize software, 24.7% say they do it by creating energy-efficient software, 20.93% stated by developing software that can run on older hardware or devices, 35.2% shared by maximizing the utilization of their hardware, and 44.6% said by minimizing the amount of data their software sends and receives.

With positive momentum, it’s no surprise that green software has developed name recognition despite being a relatively new field. The SOGS survey further emphasized this shift, with 13.5% of respondents saying they were very familiar with green software and 53.5% stating they were somewhat familiar.

Companies and other organizations need tools to reduce, measure, and report their scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions according to the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. Scope 3 emissions are especially difficult to quantify and manage, but green software can help with those efforts. BCG’s 2022 report on AI for the Planet states that AI can help with measuring and reporting carbon emissions. Encouragingly, 53% of respondents from the SOGS survey said they or their employer measured the environmental impact of their software at least some of the time.