Environment Variables

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, they discuss how cloud-native principles can support the transition to renewable energy, the potential and pitfalls of AI, and why behavioral change, regulation, and smart incentives are key to a greener digital future.

Learn more about our people:

• Anne Currie: LinkedIn | Website
• Jamie Dobson: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:

• The Green Software Foundation Website 
• Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

Resources:

• The Cloud Native Attitude: Amazon.co.uk | Anne Currie, Jamie Dobson [01:21]
• Building Green Software: O'Riley | Anne Currie, Sarah Hsu, Sara Bergman [01:38]
• Visionaries, Rebels and Machines: Amazon.com | Jamie Dobson [03:28]
• Jevons paradox - Wikipedia [11:41]  

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!

Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Jamie Dobson: We're loaded up all these data centers, we're increasing data sets, but ultimately no matter how much compute and data you throw at an artificial neural network, I think it would never fully replace what a human does. 

Chris Adams: Hello, and welcome to Environment Variables, brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. In each episode, we discuss the latest news and events surrounding green software. On our show, you can expect candid conversations with top experts in their field who have a passion for how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of software.

I'm your host, Chris Adams. 

Anne Currie: Hello and welcome to Environment Variables Podcast, where we give you the latest news and updates from the world of sustainable software development. So this week I am your guest host Anne Currie. And you don't have the dulcet tones of Chris Adams, you're left with me this week. So we're gonna do something a little bit different this week.

I have got an old friend and colleague and co-author, Jamie Dobson in to talk about it. So Jamie is the co-founder and CEO of a company called Container Solutions. And he's the author of the soon to be released book; Visionaries, Rebels and Machines, which I've read, and that's what we'll be talking a lot about.

And he's also the, one of my co-authors of a book I wrote nearly 10 years ago called the Cloud Native Attitude, which is about the principles of moving into the cloud. And there's an awful lot in there about sustainability with that, there's a lot we need to talk about around that. And it was actually for me, the precursor to the book that I wrote which came out with O'Reilly last year, with co-authors Sarah Hsu and Sara Bergman, Building Green Software, which as I always say every week,

everybody listening to this podcast should read because you'll find it very interesting and it is couldn't be more germane. So today we're gonna talk about those three books, really, and the thematic links between them all, which are really about resource efficiency, building at scale without it costing a ridiculous amount of money or using a ridiculous amount of resources.

And also resilience, which is something we're gonna really have to focus on when it comes to running on renewable power. So, let me let Jamie introduce himself and maybe tell us a little bit about his new book, Visionaries, Rebels, I can never remember whether it's Rebels, visionaries and Machines.

It's Visionaries, Rebels and Machines. Go for it, Jamie.

Jamie Dobson: Visionaries, Rebels and Machines. That's correct. Hello Anne. Thanks for having me on the podcast. And hello to all your listeners. who tune in every week? Yeah. So my name is Jamie. I am indeed the co-founder of a company called Container Solutions. But it's no longer, I'm no longer, I should say, the chief exec,

'cause I handed that role over about a year ago, which is probably why, or, you know, it explains why I could find the time to finish writing this damn book. So Container Solutions is a company that specializes in cloud transformation, helping customers, you know, get off whatever infrastructure they're running on now and get onto, you know, efficient cloud infrastructure.

And if we do that right, then it's kind of green and sustainable infrastructure, but it's hard to get right, which I'm sure we're gonna discuss today. 

Anne Currie: Indeed. Yes. Yes. So, so you've got a book that's about to come out, which I have read, but it's not yet available in, the, in the stores, but it will be available on, in all good book bookstores, Visionaries, Rebels and Machines. And I, the reason why I asked you to come on is because I think there are a lot of ideas in there that would, that we need to be talking about and thinking about.

So, so tell us a little bit about Visionaries, Rebels and Machines, and then I'll tell you why I think it's interesting.

Jamie Dobson: Absolutely. Yeah. So, so Visionaries, Rebels and Machines, we have to start at a point in time. And that point in time is about four or five years ago. And I was asked the question, "what's the cloud?" It was, the person asking me, it was a junior colleague, new to Container Solutions. And, you know, I started to answer, or at least I opened my mouth,

and of course I can answer that question, but I can't answer it necessarily succinctly. So I was asked the question, I think probably around about June, so maybe about five years ago today actually. And over the summer period I was thinking, "God, how do you answer that question? What is the cloud?" And so I started to creep backwards in time.

Well, the cloud is, you know, there's a bunch of computers in a warehouse somewhere. But what'...

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 leadership in frugal AI policy and standards. From impact calculators to debunking greenwashing, this episode unpacks how informed storytelling can drive responsible tech choices.

Learn more about our people:

• Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website
• James Martin: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:

• The Green Software Foundation Website 
• Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

News:

• Environmental Footprint Calculator | Scaleway [14:19]
• AI on a diet: how to apply frugal AI standards? - Schneider Electric Blog [26:03] 
• Frugal AI Challenge | Hugging Face [33:33]
• Greening digital companies: Monitoring emissions and climate commitments 

Resources:

• Why Cloud Zombies Are Destroying the Planet | Holly Cummins [14:47]
• European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) [21:22]
• EcoLogits [21:54]
• Empire of AI - Wikipedia [29:49]
• Hype, Sustainability, and the Price of the Bigger-is-Better Paradigm in AI | Sasha Luccioni et al. [30:38] 
• Sam Altman (@sama) on X [31:58]
• Référentiel général d'écoconception de services numériques (RGESN) - 2024 [37:06] 
• Frugal AI 

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!

Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

James Martin: When I hear the term AI for Good, which we hear a lot of at the moment, I would say that I would challenge that and I would encourage people to challenge that too by saying "are sure this AI is for good? Are you sure this tech is for good? Are you sure that the good that it does, far outweighs the potential harm that it has?"

Because it's not always the case. A lot of the AI for good examples see at the moment are just, they can't be backed with scientific data at all.

And that comes back to another of my points. If you can't prove that it's for good, then it's not, and it's probably greenwashing.

Chris Adams: Hello, and welcome to Environment Variables, brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. In each episode, we discuss the latest news and events surrounding green software. On our show, you can expect candid conversations with top experts in their field who have a passion for how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of software.

I'm your host, Chris Adams. 

Welcome to Environment Variables, where we bring you the latest news and updates from the Board of Sustainable Software Development. I'm your host, Chris Adams. Our guest today is James Martin, a content and communications expert who has spent years translating complex text strategies into compelling narratives that drive change.

From leading communications with a special focus on sustainability at Scaleway, to founding BetterTech.blog, James has been at the forefront of making green tech more actionable and accessible. He's spoken at major climate and tech events, most recently ChangeNOW. He's written a comprehensive white paper on green IT, and played a key role in Gen AI Impact a French NGO working to measure the impact of AI. And also he's a Green Software Foundation champion.

So, James, thank you so much for joining the podcast. Really lovely to see you again after we last crossed paths in, I guess Paris, I think. Maybe I've tried to introduce you a little bit, but I figure there's maybe some things you might wanna talk about as well. So, can I give you the floor to just like introduce yourself and, talk a little bit about yourself?

James Martin: Yeah, thanks very much, Chris. First and foremost, I just wanted to say I'm really happy to, be on this podcast with you because, this podcast is one of the things that really got me excited, and it started me off on my green IT adventure. So, thanks to you and Anne for putting all, putting out all these amazing episodes.

Basically what I'm speaking today in the name of BetterTech, which is my blog, which I founded 2018. So I've been a, I've been a journalist for most of my career. And, so for about 15 years I was writing for a French cultural magazine. I had a page in that two weeks. And I started off writing out, "here's a new iPhone, here's a new console." And after that I got a bit bored of just saying the same thing every time. So I was drawn towards more responsible topics, like how do you reduce your screen time, how do you protect your data?

And also, of course, what is the impact of technology on the planet? So that started in that, in that magazine, and then I got so into it, i founded my own blog on the topic.

And then that was pretty much when an opportunity came up, in 2020, 2021 to work at Scaleway. I thought that sounds really interesting because, that is a European cloud provider, so not American. And also they were already very, communicating a lot about the sustainable aspect of what they do. So, yeah, I was very happy to join them and lead their communications from 2021 with this huge focus sustainability.

Chris Adams: Ah.

James Martin: Yeah, that's how, that's basically where it started. At that time, Scaleway had its centers and one of them called DC five, which is o...

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 discuss grid operation and the potential of software-hardware coordination to drastically cut infrastructure impact. 

Learn more about our people:

• Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website
• Zachary Smith: LinkedIn | Website
• My Truong: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:

• The Green Software Foundation Website 
• Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

Resources:

• Hardware Standards Working Group | GSF [06:19]
• SSIA / Open19 V2 Specification [12:56]
• Enabling 1 MW IT racks and liquid cooling at OCP EMEA Summit | Google Cloud Blog [19:14] 
• Project Mycelium Wiki | GSF [24:06]
• Green Software Foundation | Mycelium workshop 
• EcoViser | Weatherford International [43:04]
• Cooling Environments » Open Compute Project [43:58]
• Rack & Power » Open Compute Project 
• Sustainability » Open Compute Project 
• 7x24 Exchange [44:58]
• OpenBMC [45:25]

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
• Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Zachary Smith: We've successfully made data centers into cloud computing over the past 20 or 25 years, where most people who use and consume data centers never actually see them or touch them. And so it's out of sight, out of mind in terms of the impacts of the latest and greatest hardware or refresh. What happens to a 2-year-old Nvidia server when it goes to die? Does anybody really know Hello, and welcome to Environment Variables,

Chris Adams: brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. In each episode, we discuss the latest news and events surrounding green software. On our show, you can expect candid conversations with top experts in their field who have a passion for how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of software.

I'm your host, Chris Adams. 

Hello and welcome to Environment Variables, the podcast where we explore the latest in sustainable software development. I'm your host, Chris Adams. Since this podcast started in 2022, we've spoken a lot about green software, how to make code more efficient so it consumes fewer resources or runs on a wider range of hardware to avoid needless hardware upgrades, and so on.

We've also covered how to deploy services into data centers where energy is the cleanest, or even when energy is the cleanest, by timing compute jobs to coincide with an abundance of clean energy on the grid. However, for many of these interventions to work, they rely on the next layer down from software,

the hardware layer, to play along. And for that to work at scale, you really need standards. Earlier this year, the SSIA, the Sustainable and Scalable Infrastructure Alliance, joined the Green Software Foundation. So now there's a hardware standards working group for HSWG within the Green Software Foundation too.

Today we're joined by two leaders in the field who are shaping the future of sustainable software. So, oops, sustainable hardware. We've got Zachary Smith formerly of Packet and Equinix, and My Truong from ZutaCore. We'll be discussing hardware efficiency, how it fits into the bigger sustainability picture, the role of the Open19 standard, and the challenges and opportunities of making data centers greener.

So let's get started. So, Zachary Smith, you are alphabetically ahead of My Truong, Mr. Truong. So can I give you the floor first to introduce yourself and tell a little bit about yourself for the listeners?

Zachary Smith: Sure. Thanks so much, Chris. It's a pleasure being here and getting to work with My on this podcast. As you mentioned, my name's Zachary Smith. I've been an entrepreneur, primarily in cloud computing for, I guess it's about 25 years now. I went to Juilliard. I studied music and ended up figuring that wasn't gonna pay my rent here in New York City and in the early two thousands joined a Linux-based hosting company. That really gave me just this full stack view on having to put together hardware. We had to build our own computers, ran data center space, oftentimes helped build some of the data centers, connect them all with networks, travel all around the world, setting that up for our customers. And so I feel really fortunate because I got to touch kind of all layers of the stack. My career evolved touch further into hardware. It just became a true passion about where we could connect software and hardware together through automation, through accessible interfaces, and other kinds of standardized protocols, and led me to start a company called Packet, where we did that across different architectures, X86 and ARM, which was really coming to the data center in the 2014/15 timeframe. That business Equinix, one of the world's largest data center operators. And at that point we really had a different viewpoint on how we could impact scale, with the sustainability groups within Equinix as one of the largest green power purchasers in the world, and start thinking more fundamentally about how we use hardware within data centers, how data centers could speak more or be accessible to software users which as we'll, unpack in this conversation, are pretty disparate types of users and don't often get to communicate in good ways. So, I've had the pleasure of being at operating com...

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 should be considered. They discuss the road that led to the present state of generative AI, the effect it has had on the planet, as well as their hopes for a more sustainable future.

Learn more about our people:

• Anne Currie: LinkedIn | Website
• Charles Humble: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:

• The Green Software Foundation Website 
• Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

News:

• The Developer's Guide to Cloud Infrastructure, Efficiency and Sustainability | Charles Humble [01:13] 
• Charles Humble on O'Riley [01:50] 
• Building Green Software [Book] [02:09]
• Twofish Music [48:03]

Resources:

• User Interface Design For Programmers – Joel Spolsky [12:03] 
• Environment Variables Episode 100: TWiGS: Sustainable AI Progress w/ Holly Cummins [18:12] 
• Green Software Maturity Matrix [19:09] 
• Writing Greener Software Even When You Are Stuck On-Prem • Charles Humble • GOTO 2024 [23:42]
• Electricity Maps [23:57]
• Cloud Carbon Footprint [36:52] 
• Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification | GSF [37:06]
• ML.energy [38:31]
• Perseus (SOSP '24) - Zeus Project | Jae-Won Chung [41:26] 

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!

Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Charles Humble: In general, if you are working with vendors, whether they're AI vendors or whatever, it is entirely reasonable to go and say, "well, I want to know what your carbon story looks like." And if they won't tell you, go somewhere else. 

Chris Adams: Hello, and welcome to Environment Variables, brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. In each episode, we discuss the latest news and events surrounding green software. On our show, you can expect candid conversations with top experts in their field who have a passion for how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of software.

I'm your host, Chris Adams. 

Anne Currie: Hello and welcome to Environment Variables, where we bring you the latest news and updates from the world of sustainable software development. Today I'm your guest host Anne Currie, and we'll be zooming in on an increasingly important topic, cloud infrastructure, efficiency and sustainability.

Using the cloud well is about making some really clever choices, really difficult choices upfront. And they have an enormous, those choices an enormous impact on our carbon footprint, but we often just don't make them. So our guest today is someone who's thought very deeply about this.

So Charles Humble is a writer, podcaster, and former CTO who has spent the past decade helping technologists build better systems, both technically and ethically. He's the author of The Developer's Guide to Cloud Infrastructure, Efficiency and Sustainability, a book that breaks down how cloud choices intersects with environmental impacts and performance.

So before we go on, Charles, please introduce yourself.

Charles Humble: Thank you. Yes, so as you said, I'm Charles Humble. I work mainly as a consultant and also an author and a technologist. I have a, my own business is a company called Conissaunce, which I run. And I'm very excited to be here. I speak a lot at conferences, most recently, mainly about sustainability. I've written a bunch of stuff with O'Reilly, including a series of shortcut articles called Professional Skills for Software Engineers, and as you mentioned most recently, this ebook, which I think is why you've invited me on.

Anne Currie: It is indeed. Yes. So, to introduce myself, my name is Anne Currie. I've been in the tech industry for pretty a long time. Pretty much the same as Charles, about 30 years. And I am one of the authors of O'Reilly's new book, building Green Software, which is entirely and completely aimed at the folks who will be listening to this podcast today.

So if you haven't listened to it, if you haven't read it or listened to it because it is available in an audio version as well, then please do so, you'd enjoy it. So, let's get on with the questions that we want to ask about today. So, Charles, you've written this great ebook, which is also something everybody who's listening to the podcast should be reading.

And we'll link to it in the show notes below. In fact, everything we'll be talking about today will be linked to in the show notes below. But let's start with one of the key insights from your book, which is that choices matter. Things like VM choices matter, but they're often overlooked when it comes to planning your cloud infrastructure.

What did you learn about that? What do you feel about that, Charles? 

Charles Humble: it's such an interesting place to start. So I think, when I was thinking about this book and how I was putting it together, my kind of starting point was, I wanted like a really easy on-ramp for people. And that came from, you know, speaking a lot at conferences and through some of the consulting work I've done and having people come up to me and say, "well, I kind of want to do the right thing, but I'm not very clear what the right thing is." 

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 committee’s approach to defining and implementing “green AI,” its contributions to public policy and ISO standards, and collaborative efforts to build tools, best practices, and educational resources that promote sustainable AI development.

Learn more about our people:

• Chris Skipper: LinkedIn | Website
• Thomas Lewis: LinkedIn | Website
• Sanjay Podder: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:

• The Green Software Foundation Website 
• Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

Resources:

• Green AI Committee [00:00]
• Green AI Committee Manifesto [03:43]
• SCI for AI Workshop [05:28]
• Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification [05:34] 
• Green Software for Practitioners (LFC131) - Linux Foundation [13:54]

Events:

• Carbon-Aware IT: The New Standard for Sustainable Tech Infrastructure (May 5 at 6:00 pm CEST · Virtual) [15:53]
• Inside CO2.js - Measuring the Emissions of The Web (May 6 at 6:30 pm CEST · Hybrid · Karlsruhe, BW) [16:11]
• Monitoring for Software Environmental Sustainability (May 6 at 6:30 pm CEST · Virtual) [16:45]
• Green IO New York (May 14 - 15 · New York) [17:02]

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
• Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

​Chris Skipper: Welcome to Environment Variables, where we bring you the latest news from the world of sustainable software development. I'm the producer of this podcast, Chris Skipper, and today we are thrilled to bring you another episode of Backstage, where we dive into the stories, challenges, and triumphs of the people shaping the future of green software.

 In this episode, we're turning the spotlight on the Green AI Committee, a pivotal initiative approved by the Green Software Foundation in March, 2024. With the rapid rise of AI, this committee has been at the forefront of shaping how companies innovate sustainably while reducing AI's environmental impact . From driving policies and standards, to fostering collaborations and crafting new tools, the Green AI Committee is charting a path toward a more sustainable AI future. Joining us today are Thomas Lewis, the founder of the committee, along with co-chair Sanjay Podder.

Together, they'll share insights on the committee's goals, their strategies for tackling AI's carbon footprint, and the critical role this initiative plays in ensuring AI development supports global net zero ambitions. And as always, everything we discuss today will be linked in the show notes below. So without further ado, let's dive into our conversation about the Green AI Committee.

First, I'll let Thomas Lewis introduce himself.

Thomas Lewis: Hi, I'm Thomas Lewis. I'm a green software developer advocate at Microsoft, and excited to be here. I also work in artificial intelligence, spatial computing, and I've recently been involved in becoming a book nerd again.

Chris Skipper: My first question to Thomas was, what inspired the creation of the Green AI Committee and how does it aim to shape the GFS approach to ensuring AI innovation aligns with sustainability goals? 

Thomas Lewis: Yeah, so we noticed that we were getting a lot of inquiries. We were getting them from legislators and a lot of technologists. Everybody from, you know, people working at your, you know, typical enterprise to folks who were doing research at universities and learning institutions.

And they were reaching out to try to get a better understanding of how the green software principles that we talk about and those practices applied to this growing impact of AI. It was not unusual to see on social media a lot of interest in this kind of intersection of green software or sustainability with artificial intelligence.

And, you know, this kind of shaped the GSF's approach because in a way we take a slow, methodical approach to thinking about the challenges of green AI and we tend to bring in a lot of experts who have thought about this space from quite a few different viewpoints. And we don't just look at it in a binary way of good or bad.

And I think a lot of times, especially online, it can be like, well, you know, AI is, you know, burning the planet down. And you know, and that the resources needed to run these AIs are significant, which is not untrue. And that's the thing I appreciate with the GSF is that you know, we look at those elephants in the room.

But with acknowledging those challenges, we also look at AI to help support sustainability efforts by, again, looking at it from those different vectors and then thinking of a viewpoint and also backing it up with the appropriate tools, technologies, and education that may be needed.

Chris Skipper: The committee's manifesto emphasizes focusing on reducing the environmental impact of AI. Could you elaborate on why this focus was chosen rather than areas like AI for sustainability or responsible AI?

Thomas Lewis: That's a good question. We tend to look at things from a variety of vectors and don't necessarily limit ourselves if we think it is important to dig into these other areas. But one of the things I do like, about the GSF is that typically when we start ...

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 infrastructure often miss the mark without reliable data. Max also introduces the concept of "digital resources" as a clearer way to understand and allocate environmental impact in cloud computing. The conversation highlights the need for public, transparent reporting to drive better policy and purchasing decisions in digital sustainability. 

Learn more about our people:

• Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website
• Max Schulze: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:

• The Green Software Foundation Website 
• Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

Resources:

• Energy Efficiency Directive [02:02]
• German Datacenter Association [13:47] 
• Real Time Cloud | Green Software Foundation [22:10]
• Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance [33:04]
• Shaping a Responsible Digital Future | Leitmotiv [33:12]

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!

Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Max Schulze: The measurement piece is key. Having transparency and understanding always helps. What gets measured gets fixed. It's very simple, but the step that comes after that, I think we're currently jumping the gun on that because we haven't measured a lot of stuff. 

Chris Adams: Hello and welcome to Environment Variables, brought to you by the Green Software Foundation.

In each episode, we discuss the latest news and events surrounding green software. On our show, you can expect. Candid conversations with top experts in their field who have a passion for how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of software. I'm your host, Chris Adams. Hello and welcome to another edition of Environment Variables, where we bring you the latest news and updates from the world of sustainable software development.

I'm your host, Chris Adams. We're doing something a bit different today. Because a friend and frequent guest of the pod, Max Schulzer is actually turning up to Berlin in person where I'm recording today. So I figured it'd be nice to catch up with Max, see what he's up to, and yeah, just like catch up really.

So Max, we've been on this podcast a few times together, 

but not everyone has listened to every single word we've ever shared. So maybe if I give you some space to introduce yourself, 

I'll do it myself and then we'll move from there. Okay. Sounds good. All right then Max, so what brings you to this here?

Can you introduce yourself today? Yeah. 

Max Schulze: Yeah. I think the first question, why am I in Berlin? I think there's a lot of going on in Europe in terms of policies around tech. In the EU, there's the Cloud and AI Development Act. There's a lot of questions now about datacenters, and I think you and I can both be very grateful for the invention of AI because everything we ever talked about, now everybody's talking about 10x, which is quite nice.

Like everybody's thinking about it now. Yep. My general introduction, my name is Max. For everybody who doesn't know me, I'm the founder of the SDIA, the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance. And in the past we've done a lot of research on software, on datacenters, on energy use, on efficiency, on philosophical questions around sustainability.

I think the outcome that we generated that was probably the most well known is the Energy Efficiency Directive, which is forcing datacenters in Europe to be more transparent now. Unfortunately, the data will not be public, which is a loss. But at least a lot of digital infrastructure now needs to, Yeah,

be more transparent on their resource use. And the other thing that I think we got quite well known for is our explanation model. The way we think about the connection between infrastructure, digital resources, which is a term that we came up with and how that all interrelates to software. Because there's this conception too that we are building datacenters for the sake of datacenters.

But we are, of course, building them in response to software and software needs resources. And these resources need to be made somewhere. 

Chris Adams: Ah, I see. 

Max Schulze: And that's, I think what we were well known for. 

Chris Adams: Okay. Those two things I might jump into a little bit later on in a bit more detail.

So, if you're new to this podcast, my name is Chris Adams. I am the policy chair in the Green Software Foundation's Policy Working Group, and I'm also the director of technology and policy in the confusingly, but similarly named Green Web Foundation. Alright. Max, you spoke about two things that, if I can, I'd like to go dive into in a little bit more detail.

So, first of all, you spoke about this law called the Energy Efficiency Directive, which, as I understand it, essentially is intended to compel every datacenter above a certain size to start recording information, and in many ways it's like sustainability-adjacent information with the idea being that it should be published eventually.

Could we just talk a little bit about that first and maybe some of your role there, and then we'll talk a little bit about the digital resource thing that you mentioned. 

Max Schulze: Yeah. I think on the Energy Efficiency Directive, even one step up, europe has this ambition to conserve resources at any time and point.

Now, critical raw materials are also in that energy efficiency. Normally, actually, this law sets thresholds. Like it is supposed to say, "a building shall not consume more power than X." 

And with datacenters, what they realized, like, actually we can't set those threshol...

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 significantly cut the embodied carbon of data center infrastructure. Karl discusses replacing traditional diesel backup generators with cleaner alternatives like HVO, as well as designing modular, open-source hardware for increased sustainability and transparency. The conversation also covers the growing need for energy-integrated, community-friendly data centers to support the evolving demands of AI and the energy transition in a sustainable fashion.

Learn more about our people:

• Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website
• Karl Rabe: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:

• The Green Software Foundation Website 
• Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

Resources:

• Windcloud [02:31]
• Open Compute Project [03:36]
• Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification [35:47] 
• Sustainability » Open Compute Project [38:48]
• Swiss Data Center Association [39:07]
• Solar Microgrids for Data Centers [47:24]
• How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change | Allan Savory [53:39]
• Wooden DataCenter - YouTube [55:33] 

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!

Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Karl Rabe: That's a perfect analogy, having like a good neighbor approach saying, "look, we are here now, we look ugly, we always box, you know, but we help, you know, powering your homes, we reduce the cost of the energy transition, and we also heat your homes." 

Chris Adams: Hello, and welcome to Environment Variables, brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. In each episode, we discuss the latest news and events surrounding green software. On our show, you can expect candid conversations with top experts in their field who have a passion for how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of software.

I'm your host, Chris Adams. 

Hello, and welcome to another edition of Environment Variables, where we bring you the latest news and updates from the world of sustainable software development. I'm your host, Chris Adams. How do you green the bits of a computing system that you can't normally control with software? We've discussed before that one option that you can do might be to shift where you run computing jobs from one part of the world to another part of the world where the energy is greener.

And we've spoken about how this is essentially a way to run the same code, doing the same thing, but with a lower carbon footprint. But even if you have two data centers with the same efficiency on the same grid, one can still be greener than the other simply because of the energy gone into making the data center in the first place and the materials used. So does this make a meaningful difference though, and can it make a meaningful difference? I didn't know this. 

So I asked Karl Rabe the founder of Wooden Data Center and Windcloud, and now increasingly involved in the Open Compute Project, to come on and help me navigate these questions as he is the first person who turned me onto the idea that there are all these options available to green the shell, the stuff around the servers that we have that also has an impact on the software we run.

Karl, thank you so much for joining me. Can I just give you the floor to introduce yourself before we start?

Karl Rabe: Thanks, Chris. This is an absolute honor and I'll have to admit, you know, you're a big part on my carbon aware journey, and so I'm very glad that we finally get to speak. I'm Karl, based out of North Germany. We initially, I always say I had a one proper job. I'm a technical engineer by training,

and then I moved into the data. Then I fell into the data center business, we can touch on it a little later, which was Windcloud, which remains, which was data center thought from the energy perspective, which is a very important idea in 2025. But we pivoted about four years ago to Wooden Data Center, probably can touch upon those a little later, in also realizing there is this supply chain component to the data center.

And there are also tools to action against those. And I'm learning and supporting and providing, you know, as a co-lead in the data center facilities group of the OCP where we work, you know, with the biggest organizations directly in order to shape and define the latest trends in the data center

and especially navigating the AI buildout in somewhat of a, yeah, sustainable way.

Chris Adams: Okay, cool. And when you say OCP, you're referring to the Open Compute Project, the kind of project with Microsoft, Meta, various other companies, designing essentially open source server designs, right?

Karl Rabe: Correct. That is the, initially started by then Facebook now Meta, in order yeah, to create or to cut out waste on the server design. It meanwhile involves and grew into cooling environments, data center design, chiplet design. It's a whole range of initiatives.

Very interesting to look into. And, happy to talk about some of those projects. Yeah.

Chris Adams: All right, thanks Karl. So if you are new to this podcast, my name is Chris Adams. I am the director of technology and policy at the Green Web Foundation, a small Dutch non-profit focused on a fossil free internet by 2030. And I also work with the Green Software Foundation, the larger industry body, in their policy working group.

And we are gonna talk about various projects and we'll add as many all the show notes to all the links we can think of as we discuss. So if there's any particular things that caught your eye,...

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 and relevance are just as crucial as accuracy. They also discuss using financial cost as a proxy for carbon, the need for standardization through initiatives like FOCUS, and growing interest in water usage metrics.

Learn more about our people:

• Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website
• James Hall: LinkedIn 
• Greenpixie: Website

Find out more about the GSF:

• The Green Software Foundation Website 
• Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

News:

• The intersection of FinOps and cloud sustainability [16:01]
• What is FOCUS? Understand the FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification [22:15]
• April 2024 Summit: Google Cloud Next Recap, Multi-cloud Billing with FOCUS, FinOps X Updates [31:31]

Resources:

• Cloud Carbon Footprint [00:46]
• Greenops - Wikipedia [02:18]
• Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification [05:12]
• GHG Protocol [05:20]
• Energy Scores for AI Models | Hugging Face [44:30]
• What is GreenOps - Newsletter | Greenpixie [44:42]
• Making Cloud Sustainability Actionable with FinOps 
• Fueling Sustainability Goals at Mastercard in Every Stage of FinOps 

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
• Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

James Hall: We want get the carbon data in front of the right people so they can put climate impact as part of the decision making process. Because ultimately, data in and of itself is a catalyst for change. 

Chris Adams: Hello, and welcome to Environment Variables, brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. In each episode, we discuss the latest news and events surrounding green software. On our show, you can expect candid conversations with top experts in their field who have a passion for how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of software.

I'm your host, Chris Adams. 

Hello and welcome to Environment Variables where we explore the developing world of sustainable software development. We kicked off this podcast more than two years ago with a discussion about cloud carbon calculators and the open source tool, Cloud Carbon Footprint, and Amazon's cloud carbon calculator.

And since then, the term GreenOps has become a term of art in cloud computing circles when we talk about reducing the environmental impact of cloud computing. But what is GreenOps in the first place? With me today is James Hall, the head of GreenOps at Greenpixie, the cloud computing startup, cloud carbon computing startup,

to help me shed some light on what this term actually means and what it's like to use GreenOps in the trenches. James, we have spoken about this episode as a bit of a intro and I'm wondering if I can ask you a little bit about where this term came from in the first place and how you ended up as the def facto head of GreenOps in your current gig.

Because I've never spoken to a head of GreenOps before, so yeah, maybe I should ask you that.

James Hall: Yeah, well, I've been with Greenpixie right from the start, and we weren't really using the term GreenOps when we originally started. It was cloud sustainability. It was about, you know, changing regions to optimize cloud and right sizing. We didn't know about the FinOps industry either. When we first started, we just knew there was a cloud waste problem and we wanted to do something about it.

You know, luckily when it comes to cloud, there is a big overlap between what saves costs and what saves, what saves carbon. But I think the term GreenOps has existed before we started in the industry. I think it, yeah, actually originally, if you go to Wikipedia, GreenOps, it's actually to do with arthropods and Trilobites from a couple million years ago, funnily enough, I'm not sure when it started becoming, you know, green operations.

But, yeah, it originally had a connotation of like data centers and IT and devices and I think Cloud GreenOps, where Greenpixie specializes, is more of a recent thing because, you know, it used to be about, yeah, well it is about how do you get the right data in front of the right people so they can start making better decisions, ultimately.

And that's kind of what GreenOps means to me. So Greenpixie are a GreenOps data company. We're not here to make decisions for you. We are not a consultancy. 

We want get the carbon data in front of the right people so they can put climate impact as part of the decision making process. Because ultimately, data in and of itself is a catalyst for change.

You know, whether you use this data to reduce carbon or you choose to ignore it, you know, that's up to the organization. But it's all about being more informed, ignoring or, you know, changing your strategy around the carbon data.

Chris Adams: Cool. Thank you for that, James. You mentioning Wikipedia and Greenops being all about Trilobites and Arthropods, it makes me realize we definitely should add that to the show notes and that's the thing I'll quickly just do because I forgot to just do the usual intro folks. Yeah, my name's Chris Adams.

I am one of the policy director, technology and policy director at the Green Web Foundation, and I'm also the chair of the policy working group inside the Green Software Foundation. All the things that James and...

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 gain insights into the future of energy-efficient innovation in the tech industry.

Learn more about our people:

• Anne Currie: LinkedIn | Website
• Christopher Liljenstolpe: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:

• The Green Software Foundation Website 
• Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

Resources:

• AI’s Growing Energy Appetite – The Need for Transparency [05:24]
• How DeepSeek erased Silicon Valley's AI lead and wiped $1 trillion from U.S. markets | Fortune Asia [17:35]
• The SMR Gamble: Betting on Nuclear to Fuel the Data Center Boom [22:53]
• AI’s Growing Footprint: The Supply Chain Cost of Big Tech 

Events:

• Webinar: Data-driven grid decarbonization | Electricity Maps - March 19 at 5:00 PM CET, Virtual
• Cloud Optimization 2025 – FinOps, GreenOps & AI-Driven Efficiency - March 20 at 4:00 PM GMT, Amsterdam 
• Code Green London March Meetup (Community Organised Event) - March 20 at 6:30 PM GMT, London
• Green Software Ireland | Meetup - March 26 at 8:00 PM GMT, Virtual

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!

Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

TRNSCRIPT BELOW:

Christopher Liljenstolpe: The US grid's gonna be capped by 2031. We will be out of power in the United States by 2031. Europe will be out first. So something has to give, we have to become more efficient with the way we utilize these resources, the algorithms we build. 

Chris Adams: Hello, and welcome to Environment Variables, brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. In each episode, we discuss the latest news and events surrounding green software. On our show, you can expect candid conversations with top experts in their field who have a passion for how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of software.

I'm your host, Chris Adams. 

Anne Currie: Hello, and welcome to This Week in Software, where we bring you the latest news and insights from the world of sustainable software. This week I'm your guest host Anne Curry. As you know, I'm quite often your guest host, so you're not hearing the dult tones of the usual host, Chris Adams. today we'll be talking to Chris Liljenstolpe.

Christopher Liljenstolpe, a leading expert in data center architecture and sustainability at Cisco Networks. Christopher is also the father of Project Calico and co-founder of Tigera, and he's a super expert in cloud infrastructure in green computing. But before I introduce him, I'm going to make it clear I've known Chris for years because he, and he's worked very closely with my husband, so we know each other very well.

So that might explain why we seem like we know each other quite well. Who knows. What I do know from Chris is that it's impossible to say what we'll be talking about today. We will go all over the place. But Chris, do you wanna introduce yourself?

Christopher Liljenstolpe: We might even cover the topic at hand, although that is an unlikely outcome. But who knows? That might be a first. That would be a first, but it might be an outcome. 

Anne Currie: So introduce yourself. Introduce yourself.

Christopher Liljenstolpe: Sure. So, as Anne said, my name's Christopher Liljenstolpe. I am currently senior director for data Center Architecture, and sustainability here at Cisco, which means, once again, I failed to duck. So I'm the poor sod who's gotten the job of trying to square an interesting circle, which is, how do we build sustainable data centers, and what does a sustainable data center look like?

At the same time, dealing with this oncoming light at the end of the tunnel that is certainly not sunshine and blue birds, but is a locomotive called AI. And it's bringing with it gigawatt data centers. So, you know, put that in perspective. Mintel, two years ago we were talking about a high power data center

might be a 90 kilowatt rack data center, or a 100 kilowatt rack data center, or a 60 kilowatt rack data center. And about two years ago we went to, okay, it might be 150 kilowatt rack data center, and that was up from 30 kilowatts from years ago. Took a very long time to get to 30 kilowatts. That was good. From two years ago to nine months ago.

Nine months ago it went from 150 kilowatts to 250 kilowatts. So it took us decades to get from two kilowatts to 90 kilowatts to 150 kilowatts. And then in a year we went from 150 to 250, maybe 350. Jensen last week just took us to 600 kilowatts a rack. So yeah, that light at the end of the tunnel is not sunshine at the end of the tunnel.

So yeah, how do we do sustainable data centers when you've got racks that need nuclear power plants that need strapped into each and every rack? So, you know, I'm the one who gets to figure out, you know, what does a gigawatt data center look like and how do you make it sustainable? So that's my day job.

And then, and this really becomes a system of systems problem, which is usually what I end up doing throughout most of my career. Put the Lego blocks together, build system of systems, and then figure out what Lego blocks are missing and what we need to build. So, I did that with Anne's husband on a slightly different space, which was how do you build very scalable networks with millions of endpoints for Kubernetes?

And now I'm doing this for data center infrastructure. 

In this episode, Chris Skipper takes us backstage into the Green Software Patterns Project, an open-source initiative designed to help software practitioners reduce emissions by applying vendor-neutral best practices. Guests Franziska Warncke and Liya Mathew, project leads for the initiative, discuss how organizations like AVEVA and MasterCard have successfully integrated these patterns to enhance software sustainability. They also explore the rigorous review process for new patterns, upcoming advancements such as persona-based approaches, and how developers and researchers can contribute. 

Learn more about our people:

• Chris Skipper: LinkedIn | Website
• Franziska Warncke: LinkedIn
• Liya Mathew: LinkedIn

Find out more about the GSF:

• The Green Software Foundation Website 
• Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

Resources:

• Green Software Patterns | GSF [00:23]
• GitHub - Green Software Patterns | GSF [ 05:42] 

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!

Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Chris Skipper: Welcome to Environment Variables, where we bring you the latest news from the world of sustainable software development. I am the producer of the show, Chris Skipper, and today we're excited to bring you another episode of Backstage, where we uncover the stories, challenges, and innovations driving the future of green software.

In this episode, we're diving into the Green Software Patterns Project, an open source initiative designed to curate and share best practices for reducing software emissions.

The project provides a structured approach for software practitioners to discover, contribute, and apply vendor-neutral green software patterns that can make a tangible impact on sustainability. Joining us today are Franziska Warncke and Liya Mathew, the project leads for the Green Software Patterns Initiative.

They'll walk us through how the project works, its role in advancing sustainable software development, and what the future holds for the Green Software Patterns. Before we get started, a quick reminder that everything we discuss in this episode will be linked in the show notes below. So without further ado, let's dive into our first question about the Green Software Patterns project. My first question is for Liya. The project is designed to help software practitioners reduce emissions in their applications.

What are some real world examples of how these patterns have been successfully applied to lower carbon footprints?

Liya Mathew: Thanks for the question, and yes, I am pretty sure that there are a lot of organizations as well as individuals who have greatly benefited from this project. A key factor behind the success of this project is the impact that these small actions can have on longer runs. For example, AVEVA has been an excellent case of an organization that embraced these patterns.

They created their own scoring system based on Patterns which help them measure and improve their software sustainability. Similarly, MasterCard has also adopted and used these patterns effectively. What's truly inspiring is that both AVEVA and MasterCard were willing to share their learnings with the GSF and the open source community as well.

Their contributions will help others learn and benefit from their experiences, fostering a collaborative environment where everyone can work towards a more sustainable software.

Chris Skipper: Green software patterns must balance general applicability with technical specificity. How do you ensure that these patterns remain actionable and practical across different industries, technologies and software architectures?

Liya Mathew: One of the core and most useful features of patterns is the ability to correlate the software carbon intensity specification. Think of it as a bridge that connects learning and measurement. When we look through existing catalog of patterns, one essential thing that stands out is their adaptability.

Many of these patterns not only align with sustainability, but also coincide with security and reliability best practices. The beauty of this approach is that we don't need to completely rewrite our software architecture to make it more sustainable. Small actions like catching static data or providing a dark mode can make significant difference.

These are simple, yet effective steps that can lead us a long way towards sustainability. Also, we are nearing the graduation of Patterns V1. This milestone marks a significant achievement and we are already looking ahead to the next exciting phase: Patterns V2. In Patterns V2, we are focusing on persona-based and behavioral patterns, which will bring even more tailored and impactful solutions to our community.

These new patterns will help address specific needs and behaviors, making our tools even more adaptable and effective.

Chris Skipper: The review and approval process for new patterns involves multiple stages, including subject matter expert validation and team consensus. Could you walk us through the workflow for submitting and reviewing patterns?

Liya Mathew: Sure. The review and approval process for new patterns involve multiple stages, ensuring that each pattern meets a standard before integration. Initially, when a new pattern is submitted, it undergoes an initial review by our initial reviewers. During this stage, reviewers check if the pattern aligns with the GSF's mission of reducing software emissions, follows the GSF Pattern template, and adheres to proper formatting rules. They also ensure that there is enough detail for the subject matter expert to evaluate the pattern. If any issue arises, the reviewer provides clear and constructive feedback directly in the pull request, and the submitter updates a pattern accordingly.

Once the pattern passes the initial review, it is assigned to an appropriate SME for deeper technical review, which should take no more than a week, barring any lengthy feedback cycles. The SME checks for duplicate patterns validates the content as assesses efficiency and accuracy of the pattern in reducing software remission.

It also ensures that the pattern's level of depth is appropriate. If any areas are missing or incomplete, the SME provid...