Environment Variables

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...

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 softw...

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 te...

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...

Guest host Anne Currie speaks with Karthik Vaidhyanathan, Assistant Professor at IIIT Hyderabad, about integrating sustainability into AI development. They discuss how the world can balance digital growth with renewable energy goals and how AI systems can be designed to be energy-efficient rather than energy-intensive. Karthik shares insights from his research on sustainable AI and MLOps, includin...

Guest host Anne Currie is joined by software engineer and sustainability advocate Julian Gommlich to explore how green practices can be embedded throughout the DevOps lifecycle. They discuss how modern operational practices like continuous delivery, automation, and agile iteration naturally align with sustainability goals, helping teams build more efficient, resilient, and energy-aware systems. Th...

Host Chris Adams speaks with Didi Hoffmann, CTO of Green Coding Solutions, about building energy awareness into operating systems and making sustainability a first-class concern in software development. They discuss Didi’s journey from Linux kernel programming to climate-focused tech and many more! Learn more about our people: Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website Didi Hoffmann: LinkedIn | Webs...

Guest host Anne Currie speaks with Boris Gamazaychikov, Head of AI Sustainability at Salesforce, about aligning artificial intelligence with environmental responsibility. They explore the wide range of energy impacts across AI models, the development of the AI Energy Score benchmarking tool, and why transparency is essential for sustainable choices. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

WIN FREE TICKETS TO GREEN IO LONDON: CLICK THIS LINK AND COMMENT BELOW TO WIN   Learn more about our people: Chris Skipper: LinkedIn | Website Gosia Fricze: LinkedIn | Website Find out more about the GSF: The Green Software Foundation Website   Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter Resources: Green Software Movement | GSF [04:33]  Green Software Practitioner Course | G...

Host Chris Adams is joined by Asim Hussain to explore the latest news from The Week in Green Software. They look at Hugging Face’s AI energy tools, Mistral’s lifecycle analysis, and the push for better data disclosure in the pursuit for AI sustainability. They discuss how prompt design, context windows, and model choice impact emissions, as well as the role of emerging standards like the Software...

In this episode of Environment Variables , host Chris Adams welcomes Scott Chamberlin, co-founder of Neuralwatt and ex-Microsoft Software Engineer, to discuss energy transparency in large language models (LLMs). They explore the challenges of measuring AI emissions, the importance of data center transparency, and projects that work to enable flexible, carbon-aware use of AI. Scott shares insights...

Anne Currie is joined by Sean Varley, Chief Evangelist and VP of Business Development at Ampere Computing, a leader in building energy-efficient, cloud-native processors. They unpack the energy demands of AI, why power caps and utilization matter more than raw compute, and how to rethink metrics like performance-per-rack for a greener digital future. Sean also discusses Ampere’s role in the AI Pla...

Chris Adams is joined by Adrian Cockcroft, former VP of Cloud Architecture Strategy at AWS, a pioneer of microservices at Netflix, and contributor to the Green Software Foundation’s Real Time Cloud project. They explore the evolution of cloud sustainability—from monoliths to microservices to serverless—and what it really takes to track carbon emissions in real time. Adrian explains why GPUs offer...

In this Backstage episode of Environment Variables , podcast producer Chris Skipper highlights the Green Software Foundation’s Software Standards Working Group—chaired by Henry Richardson (WattTime) and Navveen Balani (Accenture). This group is central to shaping global benchmarks for sustainable software. Key initiatives discussed include the Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification, its ext...

It’s been three years of Environment Variables! What a landmark year for the Green Software Foundation. From launching behind-the-scenes Backstage episodes, to covering the explosive impact of AI on software emissions, to broadening our audience through beginner-friendly conversations; this retrospective showcases our mission to create a trusted ecosystem for sustainable software. Here’s to many m...

Chris Adams is joined by Thibaud Colas; product lead at Torchbox, president of the Django Software Foundation, and lead on Wagtail CMS. They explore the role of open source projects in tackling digital carbon emissions and discuss Wagtail's pioneering carbon footprint reporting, sustainable default settings, and grid-aware website features, all enabled through initiatives like Google Summer of Cod...

Environment Variables host Anne Currie welcomes Jamie Dobson, co-founder of Container Solutions and author of the upcoming book Visionaries, Rebels and Machines . Together, they explore the history and future of cloud computing through the lens of sustainability, efficiency, and resilience. Drawing on insights from their past work, including The Cloud Native Attitude and Building Green Software ,...

Host Chris Adams speaks with James Martin about how to communicate the environmental impact of software to a general audience. Drawing on his background in journalism and sustainability communications, James shares strategies for translating complex digital sustainability issues into accessible narratives, explains why AI's growing resource demands require scrutiny, and highlights France’s leaders...

Chris Adams is joined by Zachary Smith and My Truong both members of the Hardware Standards Working Group at the GSF. They dive into the challenges of improving hardware efficiency in data centers, the importance of standardization, and how emerging technologies like two-phase liquid cooling systems can reduce emissions, improve energy reuse, and even support power grid stability. They also discus...

Host Anne Currie is Joined by the esteemed Charles Humble, a figure in the world of sustainable technology. Charles Humble is a writer, podcaster, and former CTO with a decade’s experience helping technologists build better systems—both technically and ethically. Together, they discuss how developers and companies can make smarter, greener choices in the cloud, as well as the trade-offs that shoul...

In this special backstage episode of Environment Variables , producer Chris Skipper spotlights the Green AI Committee, an initiative of the Green Software Foundation launched in 2024. Guests Thomas Lewis and Sanjay Podder share the committee’s mission to reduce AI's environmental impact through strategic focus on measurement, policy influence, and lifecycle optimization. The episode explores the c...

Chris Adams sits down in-person with Max Schulze, founder of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance (SDIA), to explore the economics of AI, digital infrastructure, and green software. They unpack the EU's Energy Efficiency Directive and its implications for data centers, the importance of measuring and reporting digital resource use, and why current conversations around AI and cloud infra...

Host Chris Adams is joined by special guest Karl Rabe, founder of WoodenDataCenter and co-lead of the Open Compute Project’s Data Center Facilities group, to discuss sustainable data center design and operation. They explore how colocating data centers with renewable energy sources like wind farms can reduce carbon emissions, and how using novel materials like cross-laminated timber can significan...

Host Chris Adams sits down with James Hall, Head of GreenOps at Greenpixie, to explore the evolving discipline of GreenOps—applying operational practices to reduce the environmental impact of cloud computing. They discuss how Greenpixie helps organizations make informed sustainability decisions using certified carbon data, the challenges of scaling cloud carbon measurement, and why transparency an...

Host Anne Currie is joined by the seasoned Chris Liljenstolpe to talk about the latest trends shaping sustainable technology. They dive into the energy demands of AI-driven data centers and ask the big question around nuclear power in green computing. Discussing the trajectory of AI and data center technology, they take a look into the past of another great networking technology, the internet, to...