Environment Variables

This Week in Green Software, Chris Adams is joined by new co-hosts Kate Goldenring and Tzviya Siegman to explore the latest stories on their radars. They unpack Microsoft’s community-first AI infrastructure pledge, the rise of gas-powered data centers, and the hidden embodied emissions behind AI models and storage hardware. The conversation also dives into the energy cost of AI prompts, new research measuring real browser energy use, and emerging models like billing AI by the kilowatt-hour. Together, they examine how transparency, standards, and smarter engineering decisions can shape a more sustainable digital future.Learn more about our people:Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | WebsiteKate Goldenring: LinkedIn | WebsiteTzviya Siegman: LinkedIn | WebsiteFind out more about the GSF:The Green Software Foundation Website Sign up to the Green Software Foundation NewsletterNews:Building Community-First AI Infrastructure - Microsoft [05:00]Microsoft Pledged to Save Water in the A.I. Era - The New York Times [08:29]Building Community-First AI Infrastructure - Microsoft On the Issues Betting big on data centers, U.S. now leads world for new gas power development - Global Energy Monitor [13:56]The Robles v. Domino’s Settlement (And Why It Matters) [21:56]From FLOPs to Footprints: The Resource Cost of Artificial Intelligence [23:53]The Cost of Politeness in AI [29:54]Green Coding Solutions: webNRG Released [36:50]Energy-Aware Hosted Inference | Neuralwatt Portal [42:35]Resources:Environment Variables Ep 62: Greening Serverless w/ Kate Goldenring [11:24]Environment Variables Ep 104: OCP, Wooden Datacentres and Cleaning up Datacentre Diesel w/ Karl Rabe [12:16]GitHub - Green-Software-Foundation/real-time-cloud: Real Time Energy and Carbon Standards for Cloud Providers [14:56]Web Sustainability Guidelines | W3C [20:14]WCAG 2 Overview | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C [21:00] Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification | GSF [23:22]Ecoinvent [27:06]Solar power in Finland - Energy [44:38]On using solar & batteries to provide 90% of the world population with 90% of their electricity demand for below 90 €/MWh | Chris Adams Solar and batteries can power the world How Did This State Become the Data Center Capital of the World?  Subsidizing the Cloud: U.S. State Incentives to Data Centers Scope True - Reality-Based Corporate Carbon Accounting For the Decarbonization webNRG GitHub - webNRG If you enjoyed this episode then please either:Follow, rate, and review on Apple PodcastsFollow and rate on SpotifyWatch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

Chris Skipper hosts Florent Morel and Joseph Cook to discuss Carmen on this Backstage episode. Built at Amadeus and now part of the GSF ecosystem, Carmen helps organizations measure software carbon emissions at both infrastructure and application levels using existing observability and FinOps data, all powered by the GSF Impact Framework. They discuss why granular, team-level emissions data matters, how Carmen works in practice, and how standardized, transparent measurements can turn sustainability insights into concrete engineering action.Learn more about our people:Chris Skipper: LinkedIn | WebsiteFlorent Morel: LinkedIn | GitHub | WebsiteJoseph Cook: LinkedIn | WebsiteFind out more about the GSF:The Green Software Foundation Website Sign up to the Green Software Foundation NewsletterResources:Open‑Source Carbon Measurement Engine: How Carmen Advances Sustainable Engineering | Amadeus  [00:30] How Amadeus engineers are contributing to a carbon-aware software industry? | Amadeus [03:08]Impact Framework | GSF [05:30]Environment Variables Ep 96 | Backstage: Impact Framework [07:48]Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification | GSF [17:13]GitHub - AmadeusITGroup/carmen: Open-source carbon measurement for cloud infrastructure and Kubernetes workloads. [20:48]If you enjoyed this episode then please either:Follow, rate, and review on Apple PodcastsFollow and rate on SpotifyWatch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

Anne Currie hosts Anna Forlati to discuss why sustainability is not a cost center but a business advantage. Drawing on her journey from UX designer to Head of Digital Sustainability and Impact, Anna explores how inclusive design, ESG strategy, and cultural change can make digital products more resilient, ethical, and profitable. From B Corps and EU regulation to GreenOps and AI efficiency, the conversation reframes sustainability as a mindset shift that aligns purpose, performance, and long term value.Learn more about our people:Anne Currie: LinkedIn | WebsiteAnna Forlati: LinkedIn | WebsiteFind out more about the GSF:The Green Software Foundation Website Sign up to the Green Software Foundation NewsletterResources:Why inclusive products are green products - TetraLogical [11:57] Green AI: Hype or Hope? | Harvard Magazine GenAI Ecosystems Are Software, Not Magic: What It Takes to Build Something You Can Live With | by Wilco Burggraaf | Medium  If you enjoyed this episode then please either:Follow, rate, and review on Apple PodcastsFollow and rate on SpotifyWatch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

In this episode, host Chris Adams is joined by Wilco Burggraaf and Robert Keus of GreenPT to unpack what greener prompting and transparent AI actually look like in practice. They discuss why most AI services hide their environmental impact, how GreenPT exposes real energy and carbon data to users, and why user behavior plays a major role in AI’s footprint. The conversation explores prompt length, session design, model efficiency, and the limits of chat-based AI, making a strong case for transparency, better defaults, and more purposeful use of AI if it’s going to scale responsibly.Learn more about our people:Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | WebsiteRobert Keus: LinkedIn | WebsiteWilco Burggraaf: LinkedIn | Medium | WebsiteFind out more about the GSF:The Green Software Foundation Website Sign up to the Green Software Foundation NewsletterResources:GreenPT [01:14] Green Software - The Netherlands | Meetup [02:34]Scaleway [22:40]Neuralwatt [29:23]If you enjoyed this episode then please either:Follow, rate, and review on Apple PodcastsFollow and rate on SpotifyWatch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

Anne Currie is joined by Sara Bergman to explore what the shift to greener computing really looks like in practice, using .NET and modern CPU architectures as a concrete example. They unpack why moving from traditional x64 systems to more efficient ARM-based platforms can cut costs and carbon, how runtime environments like .NET make architectural transitions easier, and why staying up to date with platforms is essential for performance, security, and sustainability. Along the way, the conversation connects DevOps, modernization, and energy efficiency into a clear message: the green shift starts with building systems that are designed to change.Learn more about our people:Anne Currie: LinkedIn | WebsiteSara Bergman: LinkedIn | WebsiteFind out more about the GSF:The Green Software Foundation Website Sign up to the Green Software Foundation NewsletterResources:Building Green Software [Book] [03:17]Environment Variables Ep 115 - Real Efficiency at Scale with Sean Varley [09:06]Environment Variables Ep 107 - Cloud Infrastructure, Efficiency and Sustainability [09:47]RISC vs CISC - GeeksforGeeks Microsoft .NET If you enjoyed this episode then please either:Follow, rate, and review on Apple PodcastsFollow and rate on SpotifyWatch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

This Week in Green Software, Chris Adams and Asim Hussain round up the latest stories shaping sustainable tech. From new research on AI and energy use to policy shifts, tooling updates, and signals from the wider climate and software communities, the discussion connects the dots on what matters right now and why. It’s a fast-moving snapshot of the trends, tensions, and progress driving green software forward.Learn more about our people:Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | WebsiteAsim Hussain: LinkedInFind out more about the GSF:The Green Software Foundation Website Sign up to the Green Software Foundation NewsletterNews:AI Energy Score v2: Refreshed Leaderboard, now with Reasoning | Hugging Face [05:57]Digital Transformation, IT Cost Optimization & Sustainable IT Solutions | Antarctica [15:43]Scott’s Chamberlin of NeuralWatt’s survey link on charging for AI inference by the KWh, instead of by the token, to align incentives [29:16]Simplified European Sustainability Reporting Standards | ESG [31:10]Climate rift opens between Amazon and rivals in row over data centre power | Financial Times [40:46]Resources:SCI for AI spec referencing token use | GSF [14:35]Are these all the tokens we should be counting? Ismael Velasco’s talk at Green IO [25:57]GitHub: System Prompts for Grok chat assistant [28:36]Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, started calling itself 'MechaHitler' | NPR [28:53]Wow tech firms STILL need to report their revenue from the oil and gas sector, even after reporting standards have been ‘simplified’? | Chris Adams [31:19]An E.E.D. update: Who is disclosing and who isn't ? - Green Web Foundation  [34:43]The secretive cabal of US polluters that is rewriting the EU’s human rights and climate law - SOMO [37:27][Draft] ESRS E1 - Climate Change If you enjoyed this episode then please either:Follow, rate, and review on Apple PodcastsFollow and rate on SpotifyWatch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

Host Chris Adams talks with Adam Newman and Oli Winks of Root & Branch about their new Software Carbon Intensity Web model for measuring the real carbon footprint of websites. They break down why current methods miss the mark, how their bottom-up approach captures actual energy use across servers, networks and devices, and why better measurement can lead to smarter, lower-carbon choices for teams. It’s a candid look at what it really takes to make the web greener, and the tools that can help developers get there.Learn more about our people:Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | WebsiteAdam Newman: LinkedIn | GitHub | WebsiteOliver Winks: LinkedIn | GitHub | WebsiteFind out more about the GSF:The Green Software Foundation Website Sign up to the Green Software Foundation NewsletterNews:Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification | GSF [00:48]Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) For Web: Measuring energy and emissions of web applications [02:03]Kitemill [09:32]Cardamon | Root & Branch [12:56]GitHub - Root-Branch/cardamon-web-model [32:09]Green Metrics Tool | green-coding.io [43:18]Green Software Brighton | Meetup [58:09]If you enjoyed this episode then please either:Follow, rate, and review on Apple PodcastsFollow and rate on SpotifyWatch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

When artificial intelligence grows, so does its thirst. Chris Skipper hosts sustainability expert Valeria Salis, digging into the hidden cost of powering AI: the massive volumes of water needed to cool the data centers. From submerged servers off China’s coast to European communities pushing back on tech infrastructure, they discuss the environmental trade-offs and the push for solutions that keep innovation flowing without draining local resources.Learn more about our people:Chris Skipper: LinkedIn | WebsiteValeria Salis: LinkedIn | YouTube | WebsiteFind out more about the GSF:The Green Software Foundation Website Sign up to the Green Software Foundation NewsletterNews:China's HiCloud launches wind-powered underwater data center [07:21]Microsoft finds underwater datacenters are reliable and sustainable [24:26]Thirsty AI mega projects raise alarm in Europe’s driest regions [25:49] How datacenters are innovating with sustainability in mind [36:08]Resources:Green Software Italia 🌱 [03:18]Green Software Italia | LinkedIn Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) [11:06]Environment Variables Ep 59 | TWiGS: CNCF TAG Environmental Sustainability [11:25]Environment Variables Ep 14 | Community Clouds and Energy Islands with Dawn Nafus and Laura Watts [17:56]Green Software Movement [35:25] SCI for AI [41:16]Projects | GSF [41:46]