The Impact of Green IT on the Way We Develop
Green IT is emerging as a crucial response to a digital sector responsible for 3 to 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions — a share that continues to grow with the expansion of cloud computing, AI, and digital services. In France, 70% of the digital carbon footprint comes from the manufacturing of equipment, but software development also plays a significant role in this impact.
In response to this reality, Green IT — or sustainable computing — aims to reduce the environmental impact of digital technologies. It calls for a transformation of development practices, from design to deployment and ongoing maintenance.
Developing Differently: The Pillars of Green IT
Software Eco-Design
Eco-design involves integrating environmental criteria from the earliest stages of software development. This includes:
Optimizing algorithms to reduce computational complexity.
Reducing media size (images, videos) to lower bandwidth consumption.
Eliminating unused features that bloat the code and consume unnecessary resources.
These practices result in lighter, faster, and more energy-efficient applications.
Green Coding
Green Coding is a development approach that focuses on writing more efficient, environmentally friendly code. Best practices include:
Using appropriate data structures to minimize memory usage.
Avoiding unnecessary loops and redundant calls.
Adapting application behavior based on the device’s power mode (battery or plugged-in).
Tools like performance analyzers can help identify the most energy-consuming parts of the code.
To learn more about our sustainable tech choices, check out our article: Docker, FastAPI, MongoDB: The Technologies We Use at Sud HT.
Technology and Infrastructure Choices
The choice of technologies has a direct impact on energy consumption:
Programming languages: some are more efficient and less resource-intensive (e.g., Rust, Go).
Frameworks: favor lightweight frameworks suited to the application’s actual needs.
Hosting: choose cloud providers committed to ecological practices and renewable energy sources.
Measure to Act Better
It is essential to measure the environmental impact of applications to identify areas for improvement. Various tools and indicators make it possible to:
Assess the energy consumption of an application in operation.
Analyze the life cycle of the hardware being used.
Calculate the carbon footprint associated with digital services.
These measurements help set reduction targets and track the progress achieved over time.
Use Case: The Impact of Green IT in Business
Some companies have already integrated Green IT into their development practices:
Optimizing applications to reduce server resource consumption.
Migrating to eco-friendly cloud infrastructures, thereby lowering carbon footprints.
Raising awareness among development teams about environmental challenges and providing training on best practices.
These initiatives have led to significant reductions in energy consumption and associated costs, while also improving application performance.
