Green IO

⚙️Cybersecurity and sustainability do share a complex relationship! The two approaches share commonalities, such as grappling with resistance from teams and executives and prioritizing resilience, but they also seem to split in notable ways such as constant updates in cybersecurity impacting bloatware and equipment obsolences. 
🎧In this episode Gaël Duez invited two experts on the field, Mary Prokhorova from InDevLab and Michael Oghia from Datacenter Changemakers, to discuss the nuances of cybersecurity and sustainability’s relationship.
🔎Some few takeaways from their conversation are:💡the critical role of IT infrastructure in modern business processes💡importance of protecting critical infrastructure to avoid environmental damage and societal impacts💡significance of investing in digital infrastructure to support the green revolution and highlighting the impact of climate risks on both physical and digital security
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Learn more about our guest and connect: 

• Mary’s LinkedIn
• Michael’s LinkedIn
• Gaël's website 
• Green IO website

📧 You can also send us an email at [email protected] to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   


Mary and Michael's sources and other references mentioned in this episode: 

• Reduce, Reuse, Refurbish: Dispelling Sustainability Myths with EmXcore
• Sustainability and Cybersecurity: The Unexpected Dynamic Duo of the Energy Transition 
• Ukraine’s top mobile internet company is down 
• Guidebook for a Cyber-Resilient Low-Emissions Energy Transition
• Europe is bolstering energy sector resilience. But cyber risk remains a major vulnerability
• Rising sea level and coastal infrastructure optic fiber at risk 
• The Impact of Rising Sea Level on Internet Infrastructure 
• Cybersecurity is an environmental, social and governance issue. Here's why 
• The Rising Role of Cybersecurity in ESG and How Companies Are Taking Action 
• Florida water treatment facility hack used a dormant remote access software, sheriff says

Transcript
Gaël Duez 00:00Hello everyone. Welcome to Green IO with Gaël Duez. That's me. Green IO is the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world one byte at a time. Every two Tuesdays, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools, and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. Because access and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript, will be in the show notes both on your podcast platform and on our website greenio.tech, cybersecurity and sustainability it has been a while since I decided to have a dedicated episode on the complex relationship between the two. On one hand, the two approaches share some common features, such as not always. Being an easy sell to teams or. Executives, or their common emphasis on resiliency. On the other end, there are some areas where they seem to go the opposite direction. Security requires regular updates, having an impact on both bloatware and equipment obsolescence, resident equipment increases the environmental footprint of infrastructure, and so on. Quite a lot to cover in this episode, so I wanted to bring two experts on board, Mary and Michael, with different angles of approach. Mary Prokhorova is the founder and CEO of InDevLab and also the co-founder of Servi5, which is specialized in cybersecurity products. She's based in Ukraine, where she can unfortunately experience firsthand and on a daily basis the vital importance of cybersecurity. Mary has a specialized education in software design and development and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in software and cybersecurity. So right on the spot with our topic. Michael Oghia is a consultant, editor, and ICT sustainability advocate working within the digital infrastructure, internet governance, and media development ecosystem, currently as a Partnerships Manager & Co-producer, at Datacenter Changemakers at Datacenter Forum. In a nutshell, he knows a lot about sustainability, infrastructure, and resiliency. And a fun fact, he was one of the first persons I connected to almost three years ago when I started my journey into sustainability. It was obvious to me that I wanted him on the show at some point and voilà. Better late than never. Welcome both of you to the show. Thanks a lot, Mary. Thanks a lot, Michael, for joining Green IO today.
Michael J. Oghia 02:40It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me, and indeed, it's been a long time coming, so I'm very grateful to finally be here with you.
Mary Prokhorova 02:52Yeah, thank you. Nice to meet you all.
Gaël Duez 02:55Okay, so to start maybe unwrapping all the different topics, Mary, what do you think about the parallel I draw between cybersecurity strategy and sustainability strategy not always being the top priority and the way teams will handle it? It's important, but it's obviously less important than delivering or providing new features or whatever. Can you comment on this? Do you agree? Because you've got a lot of experience with different companies, is it something that you've noticed also or not that much? 
Mary Prokhorova 03:29Of course, I agree. I think that cybersecurity will be a part of sustainability. The main focus will be on sustainability, sustainability for a working model, for general organization development, and general impact on this world. I mean, not only like ecological impact, I mean like something more that organization could bring to our people. Maybe it's also mind-changing. It's also focusing on more important things for our nature. But the general sustainability will also based on security tools. If we are talking about sustainability, for example, for critical infrastructure, if we are talking about electric station or about heatric electric station, we're also about talking about how it works with IT infrastructure. And do we have a risk if something breaks from IT infrastructure, this infrastructure still works and will have not any ecological strategy for nature. It's, for example, from my side, from my experience, I have situations when cybersecurity and it infrastructure have a very big impact on manufacturing. In this part of Europe. We have a lot of manufacturing that work, for example, with windows, with plastic, with different tips. And the station was next something went wrong in infrastructure. And all this manufacturing was stopped. I mean, logistics was stopped, and production was stopped. A lot of plastic was broken. And do you know how much plastic they need to utilisate more than one ton per day? So you understand how much trouble it is for nature and you don't know how to reduce this plastic. So it's also about how infrastructure could and cybersecurity could influence to general production and general ecological questions.
Michael J. Oghia 06:14I completely agree with Mary's point there, and I wanted to say something very similar in my remarks throughout this episode as well, that there are many different ways that we can kind of paint this argument. Where is the intersection between cybersecurity and sustainability? And one of them that Mary just mentioned is very prominent, which is that if you are a, whether it is a business or a factory if you are struck by an attack, depending on what you're doing or what you're making, you might be then left with a lot of waste or a lot of byproducts that you cannot then produce, you cannot use. So what do we do with that? So I think that's a very specific element that is kind of relevant to this intersection, but that is definitely one of them that I had thought of as well. And if you think about this from many different angles, if you think, okay, well, if you're a factory producing something, let's say, related to plastics, as Mary mentioned, that could be a source of waste. But everything that requires something to be fixed, anything that requires something to be addressed, that is additional carbon emissions, that is additional resources being used to fix a problem that didn't need to happen. It only happens because of often malicious actors, whether state or non-state. And thus it's just one more layer to our very complicated, complex world that we live in that I think is very relevant to this discussion.
Gaël Duez 08:00I fully agree. And actually, that was an angle I didn't pay attention to before. I was focusing a lot on resiliency and critical infrastructure, like Mary said, on electric power plants. But I never pay attention to it. Yes, actually, when you've got a cyber attack that could create a lot of waste and byproducts that you absolutely do not want. Okay, let's deep dive into this resiliency approach. Because I think sustainability and cybersecurity are very much related when it comes to resiliency. Mary, maybe you want to elaborate a bit on this one.
Mary Prokhorova 08:34Yeah, yeah, for sure. I also want to focus too that modern business having its part inside. And it's a very nice point to focus on because if we are talking about digital, business development, about business growing, we are also talking about IT infrastructure and IT systems development and growing for this business. And all our modern business is growing with their internal IT system. It doesn't matter whether is it an on-premise solution or a SaaS solution, is it Microsoft Office or your customized CRM system. So if you want to grow, you need to also to develop your IT part. And if you do not secure your IT part, you will not secure your business processes. These business processes are based on all these IT tools. I mean like CRM, like Riverside podcast recording, like email, like your personal data in social network, et cetera. So that's why it's very nice to understand for business how much part they have in these business processes. And what's the influence of this IT part on their modern IT process and for future IT processes? Why I also mentioned about future, because we are right now in era of artificial intelligence and the part of this artificial intelligence will be more bigger each day. And also we need to understand where we could use this tool for our business automatization, digitalization, et cetera. And where we need to protect our data from this big smart machine. What I want to say, is if we want to grow, if you want to make a sustainable business, you will use IT tools, IT instruments, IT platforms and sustainable IT infrastructure. If you want to build sustainable IT infrastructure, you will need to focus also on security questions. When we are talking about increasing security for each organization, first we are talking about hardware and about IT infrastructure, about cloud, about servers and about networks. So if we are talking about companies that have their own IT solution for the market, we're talking about software security. Also, we need to be sure that this software is also secured from internal and external attacks. So if we are talking about how to check this software, you need to provide a cybersecurity audit or penetration testing. Penetration testing is the method when you try to hack this software. And there are three methods like black box, gray box, and white box. And they depend on how much information about this system that you want to hack. How much information do you have? If you have low information, it's a white box. If you have nothing, it's a black box, a gray box. It's a mixed something.
Gaël Duez 12:39Have something, not the gray box, just Mary, sorry to interrupt you. Just to make sure to understand. Gray box is more the situation where you want to assess the exposure to an internal threat. Like an employee having access to some information, but not all information. When you use the gray box situation, is it this kind of situation that? Do you want to test?
Mary Prokhorova 13:02Yes, it's one of the cases. Only one, because Gray box was used also with employees that were in your company and that lived in one or two years and tried to hug you because they are not happy. It's a real case when your previous employers do have not good thoughts and they are not happy and they are connected with your enemies and trying to hug you and provide them corporate information about your general structure.
Gaël Duez 13:45And let's start with maybe one example, which is the bring your own device question. We know in sustainability that the more we mutualize, the better it is. But obviously, when you start with this first layer and actually this fifth layer that Mary described, using that much personal equipment might be good for the planet, might be good for the environment, but that causes some issues with cybersecurity. So we see this tension between cybersecurity and sustainability. Sometimes they're fully aligned and sometimes they're a bit opposite. What are your take on it?
Michael J. Oghia 14:18Okay, this is a good question because I don't see bringing your own device as it could be incompatible with sustainability, but it doesn't necessarily have to be. It doesn't mean that the company let's say, or whatever entity doesn't have any options, they can choose a partner like Fairphone or refurbish older devices that could work, for instance. I think I definitely understand that there is often perceived as a trade-off between sustainability and cybersecurity, but I don't think there necessarily has to be. There is a neutral way forward in some ways. But I think also recognizing that as something that Mary said, which I think is very important, too, that sustainability and cybersecurity go hand in hand. And they're very complementary in many ways, because the more you're investing in your own cybersecurity, the more you can also think about how you're making your organization sustainable and resilient. And so, yes, going back to the bring your own device question, that's a big question. And I can't say, aside from what I've already said, that I have a specific solution to that because I've never technically worked on that. I would say it really depends also on the needs of the company or of the entity in question. But I would also really suggest then that if let's say, a CTO is saying, no, there is no way that I'm allowing my employees to come in with their own devices, I would then say, okay, well, is there a way that we could provide refurbished devices? Is there a way that we could provide some kind of, maybe we can go and buy devices that are already manufactured or whatnot, so that we're essentially creating less demand for new products, something that's already been made? If you go get a phone, for instance, that was manufactured three years ago, even if that's new to me, that's less wasteful than being like, okay, we're going to provide you with the latest iPhone or whatever, or the latest Android. On the other hand, too, getting a refurbished device can also come with its own positives, such as a lot of times, older devices have a lot fewer bugs because those bugs have already been worked out. So perhaps there are already good security patches and whatnot. But then again, I also recognize that security is a constant cat-and-mouse game where just because you're on top of things, well, somebody is trying to get right ahead of you. So this is a complex question that I think each company or each organization needs to step back and think, well, what are our options?
Gaël Duez 17:24So it's interesting because what you're saying is obviously, if you need to invest in redundant equipment or if you cannot allow your employees to bring their own device, it will come with the cost, and you can mitigate this cost with refurbished equipment, et cetera. On the other hand, what you also say is in general and the devil is in the details, but in general, the older the better in terms of cybersecurity. So this kind of sentence that you hear all the time, how we need to update, we need to update, we need to upgrade. Because for cybersecurity reason I think it's not that obvious, isn't it?
Mary Prokhorova 18:06I was born in a family who have a small own business with computers. And with all this equipment I was growing between monitors, between hearts, like video cards, mother plates, et cetera. So my first toy was this hard storage. And my parents were very deeply involved in hardware. And they talk like news, not mention it like the better. And also they mentioned it like if you buy a new device, you will receive new bugs and new issues and you will not use this device a full power. Currently, I'm working in cybersecurity and its field and I could say that they were right. But if you come back to your question, the truth in the middle, you don't need to waste your time for ten or 20 years to renovate your equipment and software. But it does not make sense to run for the latest update. Because also if you are talking about hardware, for example, personal devices, we have artificial absolutions. If I could correct when we need to buy the new stylophone to the new droid, more new laptop, et cetera. But also we receive this hardware with new software that has a lot of bugs, and a lot of new issues. And it does not make your job, your work easy. You will meet a lot of these tips and very fucking bugs in each device. But also I have met in my practice, I couldn't say names because it's a government structure. When they still work in 2015 with equipment that was bought in 1990 years, all these computers and the light test version of the operation system was Windows 97. And they still work. It's not a zoo, it's a park of moments, really stone era.
Gaël Duez 21:15Interesting that you mentioned Windows because that's a big debate among cybersecurity, security, and sustainability communities about them stopping the maintenance of Windows 10 pretty soon for security reasons. And we're talking about millions, dozens of millions of equipment that might not be compatible anymore. So what you're both saying is that it's actually not the best way to enforce cybersecurity. We know that it's definitely not the best way to enforce a sustainable world. But it might also be a bit counterintuitive to say that it's not the best move to enforce better security for Windows users. Am I right about Windows eleven?
Mary Prokhorova 22:03Currently, I see a lot of mistakes in the current system, and my colleagues are also trying to work on this system, on their personal devices. And they have a lot of questions and a lot of proposals on how to fix it. And the biggest one is to drop down and stop Windows 10 and stop any updates from Microsoft for a half year. It's also about sustainability. Sustainability for your personal work because if you can't work with your laptop, with your operational system, and to provide any your digital products, it's not useful, it's not sustainable, maybe.
Gaël Duez 22:56Michael, so we talked about resiliency from one angle, which is the environmental impact of a cyber attack, for instance. But they are much more about resiliency than just this. Could you maybe explain a bit more? Why are you both a resiliency expert and a sustainability expert when it comes to its infrastructure? How do you mix the two in your professional life?
Michael J. Oghia 23:20This is a great question because I see resiliency as being one of the core ways that cybersecurity and sustainability interact. So how is that the case? One is that infrastructure security is really critical to, for instance, the energy transition. So this is one thing that we need to take into account. You're asking me kind of, how do I see this coming together? The Nord stream attacks in 2022 are a great example of what happens when there is a significant attack, whether it's cyber or physical, on infrastructure that leads to environmental damage, essentially a detrimental impact on the environment. So in this sense, critical infrastructure resiliency is absolutely important. And of course, cybersecurity, to me, includes physical security, and it includes the more technical, let's say software-based kind of security, where, okay, how do we protect our hardware, how do we protect ourselves from software-based attacks? But also, if somebody is trying to cut a submarine cable between two countries, that is also what I would consider a cyberattack. We can debate the semantics or the nomenclature as much as we want, but that, to me, is really relevant for a few reasons. One is because when infrastructure is damaged, alternatives have to be found. If energy infrastructure in particular is attacked, then that means that alternatives have to be found. So let's say a lot of solar is coming online. It is attacked via a cyberattack. In other words, let's say that solar provider is not investing in their cyber resilience, and cybersecurity, then that solar plant might go offline, which means what happens? We might have to start a coal plant. So, do you know what I'm trying to say? In other words, if we're not investing in making ourselves secure, then we have to find alternatives to meet demand. And because the energy companies are prime targets because they have a lot of.
Gaël Duez 26:07Money.
Michael J. Oghia 26:10Because they're so critical to society, ransomware gangs, for instance, have been targeting them a lot. And it just means, for instance, that we need to think about how our infrastructure fits into the larger place in society and how protecting them is really vital. Because it's not just about keeping a company online to protect its own stock price or things like that, which is fair enough, but it's also about, well, again, if we're not using solar energy because we can't access it for a week, that means that we're probably relying then on fossil fuels, which are easier to ramp up within an energy system or whatnot. These are the ways that I see cybersecurity as really interacting with or really intersecting with sustainability. Sustainability is the sustainability considerations, being the impact of cyberattacks, the lack of investment in cyber resiliency, and ultimately kind of creating instability that then leads to situations that have not necessarily been planned for or damage to the environment and damage to society.
Gaël Duez 27:29But that's super interesting. And as you say, there's a lot to unpack. But there is also another angle that I'm wondering how interesting it is, which is building resilient IT systems is also good in the face of climate risks. My point is, that good old SMS should be way more resilient sometimes than authentication via an apps, for instance, because it requires 3G, 4G, 5G, or whatever. And what about climate risk? Do you believe that climate risk is also something that will require us to build a more reliable, more resilient IT system or not?
Michael J. Oghia 28:17Well, yes, for many reasons. One is that we talk a lot about the green revolution. We talk a lot about the digital revolution. Digital and green revolutions go hand in hand, and you really can't have one without the other. Why? Because much of the green revolution is powered by, for instance, IoT devices. Internet of Things. The Internet of Things is notoriously insecure, which means that the more that we invest in the green revolution, the more we need to also invest in the digital revolution to make sure that they can stay on par with one another. So that's one way that I think there's a bit of a climate risk. Number two is obviously physical infrastructure, which, again, may not fall under a more traditional definition of cybersecurity, which tends to focus on, okay, but are our computer systems more resilient? Is the code less exploitable by malicious actors? That's a very tight definition, a very narrow definition of cybersecurity. But I consider cybersecurity also. Well, what is happening? What about the physical security of our infrastructure? So I remember a few years ago, I saw an article floating around about how a lot of the subsea landing stations on the coasts are at risk of being inundated by water with rising sea level because of rising sea levels. It just goes to show how the environment is very much obviously connected, very intricately connected to the digital and the cyber components. And so as we face more climate risk, as we face more sustainability challenges, it's going to impact the digital either at the physical security layer, such as with coastal or undersea infrastructure, or it's going to impact potentially, let's say, the digital layer, the cyber layer, or whatever you want to call it, the software layer because we're going to be relying on more and more devices to help us manage the increasingly complex system that we're using to deal with the 21st century. But yet that system might be deeply insecure because of the kinds of devices that we're relying on. So, again, that's why it's complex because a lot of these pieces fit together, but they're not always necessarily being given the same kind of weight.
Gaël Duez 31:13And, Mary, is it something that you agree with, having a broader definition of cybersecurity to incorporate also all the infrastructure and all these new risks?
Mary Prokhorova 31:23I could only support Michael. And if you are talking about also cybersecurity, we understand that cybersecurity protects all our know-how, all our digital assets, and tips. We need to focus on saving our products from different streets, not only from a human, but maybe from not special destroying, because it's also 100 of service computing people's minds and general coding, design, et cetera. So if we are talking about sustainability and resilience for people at all, we also need to secure their knowledge.
Michael J. Oghia 32:23I want to mention two things that I think are really relevant to this conversation. One is that we spoke about waste, but there is also something to say that we haven't focused that much on, which is that the lack of cyber resilience, the lack of real cybersecurity protection for especially critical infrastructure providers, is deeply important to the environment. Why? We already have examples where environmental pollution is either being caused or could be caused by either the hacking of something like a dam, a hydroelectric dam, I mean, or, for instance, in 2021, hackers infiltrated a water treatment plant in the US state of Florida, which allowed them to change the chemical levels of the water supply remotely. Thankfully, that was found and addressed before it could cause any damage. But these kinds of attacks on water and wastewater treatment plans are happening elsewhere in the US. It's happened in Australia, it's happened in Israel. And so
Michael J. Oghia 33:37there is precedence for this, not to mention other attacks that have happened in Iran and elsewhere. So that is seriously something to think about, that a facility could be compromised and that can lead to water, soil or air pollution and other, and not just pollution, but serious toxicity, toxic release, that could really seriously damage communities and its surrounding environments. So this is something to consider that this is a very real and present threat at the more macro level to the infrastructure in general. Now, something that I would like to say to also support some of the things that Mary has discussed from a company point of view, is that I think companies, in particular, must-see cyber resilience as closely connected to their environmental, social, and governance strategy. This is absolutely something that impacts their bottom line. It impacts the people who work at their organization as well as their clients, their customers, and their community in that way. And it really comes down to making sure too, that a company can speak to regulators, can speak to shareholders and say, look, we are taking this very seriously and we are protecting and preserving the value of our company and the stability of the society that we are contributing to by taking this seriously and by really protecting our data, protecting our systems and protecting, obviously, one of the most important things that they have, which is their customers trust in them as provider or as a vendor.
Gaël Duez 35:33So we're reaching the end of our episode, a very rich and complex episode. I think that the word complex must have been said at least two dozen times. But this is a reality of the world, and this is a reality of cybersecurity and sustainability. So before we stop, I would like to ask you my traditional question, which is, would you share a piece of positive good news about sustainability or maybe about cybersecurity, your choice?
Mary Prokhorova 36:05In the last year, I have seen a lot of startups with very interesting concepts that merge cybersecurity, sustainability, and green technologies. I mean, also new concepts for data centers, for computing centers where they have a close ecosystem, for cooler water heating, for citizen computing, and all this very interesting part for world data centers where they not only heat our environment, but they provide some new warm water for customers. I also say very interesting project about equipment utilization, I mean hardware storage utilization, because it's a very important point about data destruction when you want to destroy very high-level security data, you need to destroy equipment. And I saw a very interesting concept and working machine and working equipment where they destroy all this equipment in dust, like real dust. And it's very interesting and very nice for our environment also and for general reducing. So I saw that a lot of startups, and most of them are from Europe, are thinking about new nature and new communication between digital equipment and nature. And all these startup founders are very young generation people, up to 35. And also I see very interesting concepts from schoolers, from very young guys like 15, 18 years old. And it's very nice to see such smart minds who are thinking about sustainability not only for business processes but for more long-term periods. So as for me, it's nice news. It's nice news that we are working not only on the digital ecosystem, but we trying to connect our digital ecosystem of this equipment part with our physical world and to make this whole ecosystem much smarter, much more sustainable, and much more from an ecology angle safety.
Michael J. Oghia 38:51So two things I'll just very quickly reply to Mary, Gaël and then I'll reply to your question. But I have to say, Mary, I completely agree with you. I do agree as well that cyber risk and cyber resiliency are becoming more of a front-of-mind topic across the ecosystem. And I think it's really good that people are starting to recognize, or I can't say people are starting to recognize, but I'm glad that companies, especially governments, are saying, yes, this is really a priority and it's something that we're going to be putting resources toward. And I hope that continues to answer the question that you posed. Gaël, I have to say in general, especially on the sustainability side, I skew more toward the pessimistic than the optimistic when it comes to bright notes and whatnot. But there are a few. First, I would be remiss if I didn't say that there are a lot of really interesting things happening on both the security side and the sustainability side within the Nordics. I've been working on the Nordics for the past two years. The Nordic data center sector is growing exponentially and it's combining a lot of really good natural features, such as its cold climate, with really good people who are working on things like integrating data center heat waste into the district utility grids, who are working on a lot of innovation. So the Nordic data center sector is something that I think is really a bright spot for that intersection between sustainability and security. But then I think the second that is also a bit of a bright spot is the rollout of renewable energy and more serious conversations about nuclear energy as well, especially in Europe. I don't see renewables and nuclear as being opposed. I see them as complementary. And obviously one of the kinds of common denominators across the energy sector, whether it be renewables or nuclear, is security. Cybersecurity is physical security. So I think for me I hope that there will be continuous positive momentum. I would rather be pleasantly surprised and wrong versus correct than live with the impacts of my pessimism, which is a very much worse world to live in.
Gaël Duez 41:33Oh, thanks a lot, both of you. That's a very nice closing statement. Michael, thanks a lot. And thanks for joining Green IO. A lot of insights are being shared today on a topic that I'm not that familiar with. So I thank you for your time.
Michael J. Oghia 41:46Thank you for having us.
Mary Prokhorova 41:47Gaël, thank you for the invitation. 
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🎙️In our latest episode, Hannah Smith, the COO of the Green Web Foundation, and Ismael Velasco, the founder of the Adora Foundation, highlight the potential pitfalls of Carbon Aware Computing a strategy that aims to reduce carbon emissions by aligning software operations with the carbon intensity of the energy grid. While this approach has gained traction among the IT industry, including giants such as Apple, Microsoft, and Google, Hannah and Ismael discuss with our host Gaël Duez its complexities and limitations.

💻As they explored the nuances of Carbon Aware Computing, it gave us insights that while it holds promise as a tool for reducing emissions, it also poses challenges that must be carefully considered. The oversimplification of energy grid dynamics and the myriad factors that influence carbon intensity underscore the need for a more comprehensive understanding of sustainable computing practices.

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• Hannah’s Smith LinkedIn
• Ismaël Velasco LinkedIn 
• Gaël's website 
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📧 You can also send us an email at [email protected] to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   
  Hannah and Ismaël's sources and other references mentioned in this episode:  

• Adora Foundation
• CAT (Climate Action Tech)
• GSF (Green Software Foundation)
• Green Tech South West
• Apple device
• Google Cloud Platform
• MS surface
• Don’t follow the sun: Scheduling compute workloads to chase green energy can be counter-productive
• Bitcoin’s Impacts on Climate and the Environment
• Bitcoin Uses More Electricity Than Many Countries. How Is That Possible?
• How Much Energy Does Bitcoin Actually Consume?
• Carbon Aware Computing: Next Green Breakthrough or New Greenwashing?
• The problems with carbon-aware software that everyone’s ignoring
• How Texas’ power grid failed in 2021
• EU countries already hitting some of their sustainable energy targets for 2030 
• What Role Will Soluna Play in the Future of Computing? A Recap of the Water Tower Research Fireside Chat Series

Transcript  [00:00:00] Gaël Duez: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Green IO with Gaël Duez. That's me. Green IO is the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Twice a month, on a Tuesday, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. And because accessible and transparent information is in the DNA of Green IO, all the references mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript, will be in the show notes, both on your podcast platform and on our website, greenio.tech. Let me share with you a personal story. Last July, I was on a rooftop in Paris, sharing a drink with a friend who happens to be a former colleague of mine.
One of the most talented CTO I had the chance to work with. Loïc was asking about what I was doing in the green IT field and the quick wins I was advising to CTO willing to ramp up sustainability. I mentioned carbon computing as a no brainer and I was ready to move forward when he posed me and asked me what I was referring to, POP, do you hear that sound? Yes, another information bubble just exploded. I was so sure that almost every CTO knew the concept, I explained it, he was enthusiastic about it, and since then, it has been my magical key to onboard CTO and Cloud Ops, folks. It's easy to grab, pragmatic, and actionable. They love it. And they're not the only ones.
Almost all cloud providers launch some kind of carbon-aware program. And it's a pillar in the Green Software Foundation course, for instance, to get the Green Software for Practitioners certificate. But a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a remarkable series of articles written by Hannah Smith, based on initial research and insights by Ismael Velasco, about some serious pitfalls with Carbon Aware Computing. It might be another case of micro-optimizations not aligning with macro optimizations, like when someone thinks that it's a great idea to film a live show with a smartphone to get souvenirs, but actually, everyone does it and no one can see the stage anymore. I have been lucky to have already had both Ismael and Hannah on the show, so it was super easy to have them back for an in-depth discussion about Carbon Aware Computing.
[00:02:28] Gaël Duez: A quick reminder for the people who didn't have the chance to listen to Green IO episode 26 or episode 5 about Hannah and Ismael. Hannah Smith, based in the UK, is currently the Chief Operating Officer of the Green Web Foundation. She's also a pillar in the web WordPress sustainability community as well as a long-time volunteer for the climateaction.tech community and overall an amazing community builder. Hello Green Tech South West as well as a season green software practitioner. Ismael Velasco is also a member of the amazing community. He's based in Mexico and he's a true veteran in the software industry at large and green software in particular. You should check his API grateful degradation concept. His knowledge and commitment go far beyond Green IT with his involvement in the Adora Foundation, which fosters social innovation across the globe, and recently decided to focus more on the sustainability side of technology. So, welcome Hannah, and welcome Ismael, I'm so glad to have you back on the show.
[00:03:35] Hannah Smith: Thanks, Gaël. I knew it was a while ago that we recorded our episode. I didn't realize it was episode five. 
[00:03:44] Gaël Duez: Wow. Yeah, that was a while ago. I don't know why I've waited so long to bring some of my former guests back to the show, but I think I will do it more and more again. The pleasure of having you both here is great. So thanks a lot. And before we deep dive into both your approaches, maybe it's time to set the stage, I would say. And I would, I'd love to ask you, Hannah, the first question, which is not that easy maybe, what is Carbon Aware Computing? 
[00:04:12] Hannah Smith: Well, oh, I don't know. I think we can make it easy for people to understand. At its basic level, there are two ways that you can approach Carbon Aware Computing. We do talk about it in the article that we wrote together. There is the idea of time-shifting software, and there's the idea of location-shifting software. And you do both of those things based on the carbon intensity of the grid at any particular time. So what that implies is that maybe you've got an API that you can access that gives you data about what the carbon intensity of a grid is at any given time. 
For carbon intensity, if anyone's not sure what that means, that simply means how clean or dirty energy is. So you have a high carbon intensity if energy is dirty, e.g. is being produced a lot with fossil fuels, and you have a low carbon intensity if it's renewable produced energy, so it's not emitting as much carbon. So the idea of carbon awareness is looking at the carbon intensity of energy and then shifting your software around, either to run at different times of the day or to run in different physical geographical locations. I think in a nutshell, that's it. I know Ismael, you were involved in writing the, well, I think the very first post about Carbon Aware on, Hackernoon. So I wonder what else would you add to that description? 
[00:05:38] Ismaël Velasco: Yes, I think that is, there's not much to add really, because it is quite a simple concept. So simple and so kind of commonsensical. It was surprising for us to question it because it just made so much sense the grid is mixed, so when is it greener? It's greener. I run my computer there. Therefore, I'm greener that's a simple, principle, right? If the grid has more renewables, I time my computing to run when the green, grid is greener. And that should mean that my computer is reducing emissions because it's running on that green. And that is the common sense idea that's growing. And maybe just to give some examples, so people can. Envisage it more concretely. Apple released an update for their American US iPhone, where you keep it plugged in, and it only charges when the grid is particularly green in your area. So if the grid is mostly powered by carbon and fossil fuels. Your iPhone will not run electricity, but when the grid is particularly green, then it will charge your phone. And that way it's been greener. Microsoft has done the same for your Windows updates. So your computer will wait until the electricity is greener in your location. And if it knows that it's currently greener, then it will say, update my computer now, instead of doing it, when the electricity is dirty. So those are types of examples of how you might do that. And the theory of change is that by doing that, you are avoiding emissions, which is the theory of change that Hannah and I questioned.
[00:07:31] Gaël Duez: And the examples you provided, Ismael, are both time shifting, I reckon that quite a lot of time we hear also the expression chasing the sun or chasing the wind, so do you have also examples of location-based Carbon Aware Computing? 
[00:07:50] Ismaël Velasco: The people who have done this at the biggest scale are Google. So Google first implemented it internally, and now they offer it to all the users of their cloud. So they started computing, where all their data centers across the world were. And then they started finding out, in which location on the planet, the electricity was greenest. And then if they were to do say a backup and could run that backup from a server in any of 50 countries. They would choose a country that had the greenest energy at that particular time. So instead of just saying, I'm going to wait until it's the right time, like with the Apple phone, they would say, I want to do it right now, but I'm going to run it somewhere in the world where it is greenest. And now if you go, and you have your applications hosted in the Google Cloud you can see Which server is currently greenest and there's an API you can even see and say this one is greenest so you can say, okay, whenever you run a job in my application look in Google and find the location. Chase the sun, find the location where? There's a lower electricity and do it there. So we'll put all our jobs there and again, theory of changes. That way we're reducing emissions. 
[00:09:19] Gaël Duez: Do you know if the prices across the region vary accordingly I had a very interesting discussion with a cloud ops people who wanted to implement it with another big hyperscaler. Let's not name it. And they discovered that the bill would go up by like 30%. So when you see Google went full speed on this Google Cloud Platform, went to full speed on this solution, do you know if it costs, people to move from one place to another, or if you chase the sun or the wind, actually you don't see an increase or at least a significant increase in your bill?
[00:09:57] Hannah Smith: That's a great question. I didn't, I couldn't answer that confidently and say, I mean, generally, you know, the renewable energy, on the whole, is cheaper, but I don't know if that necessarily equates in the way that you're saying it, Gaël. That's a great question. An interesting one. 
[00:10:13] Ismaël Velasco: My understanding is that generally, it is cheaper because very often It's not always this is one of the assumptions that people kind of take for granted But it is very common that the times when the energy is greenest is also when demand is lower. So It can often be cheaper countries like the UK are beginning to roll out carbon pricing as well around electricity and this is something that's growing. So it varies from place to place there have been places where everybody piling on to green energy, so this happened in the US, for example, they started in Texas, among other places, but especially in Texas, some people install US miners in the electricity plants when the electricity was dirty and demand was high, they were paid not to run any compute. And when the demand was low, they were paid to run it. And it was when it was greenest. The result was the electricity prices for the city rose significantly because US used so much. So it's not an absolute rule, but in general and increasingly targeting the greener energy will often be slightly cheaper.
[00:11:34] Gaël Duez: I'll try to research that and put, the answer in the show notes before the episode is released. And I think we, we are good. Because it's a very straightforward concept. It is getting adopted very widely, with several examples from very big tech companies. So, problem solved, and we've got, a word record of the shortest, Green IO episode ever. So is the problem solved and that is the best possible tool to use, to reduce carbon emissions from the grid, or actually do we have a problem? What is actually the issue with Carbon Aware Computing? 
[00:12:15] Hannah Smith: Yeah, well, it's an interesting question because as Ismael said, right, you explain it in the way we've just explained it, and you're like, oh my god, this is the best solution ever. Of course, we should be doing this. This is like, amazing and so logical. So we were discussing this in climateaction.tech, which we're both, as you mentioned, Gaël, in the beginning, we're both members of, and we both hang around in the Slack group. And Ismael posted this thing saying, Hey, look, I've been kind of looking at this carbon-aware stuff. And when I look really deeply at this, and when I actually think about how the grid works in practice, Ismael was like, I'm concluding that this is maybe not the solution it seems. And Ismael in his fantastic way was really in-depth, loads of examples, kind of really kind of got into the problem. And, I happened to stumble upon it at the time that Ismael posted it. And I was like, Oh my word, I think he's got a bit of a point here. This is actually a little problematic. And it all comes down to this idea that carbon aware. Is looking at a very simplistic metric, which is the carbon intensity of energy, at a given location or at a given time, but it's doing that in isolation from how the grid actually works in practice, which is phenomenally complicated and has a lot of nuances around it. And what Ismael did was kind of present the issues and present some concerns here. So I was quite interested in that and sort of said to Ismael, Hey, let's work on this together. Let's tidy this up. Let's format it. And, let's really explain to people in, in as much depth as we need to go into why we think there's a problem here, but in a nutshell, grid aware.
Sorry, carbon aware is not thinking about the realities of managing the grid, of how supply and demand actually work in practice. And what happens when you suddenly just shift a load of stuff from one place to another. So yeah, I think there is a problem. But I think it's really important to say that it's not a problem where it means that the whole of this concept is nonsense and shouldn't be done. I think that that was something Ismael and I wanted to clarify upfront. There's a real benefit here. There's real potential for awesomeness but not in the way it's being done at the moment. So I think the way we turned to Ismael was we talked about these warning labels. We said, Hey, look, there's these warning labels that aren't being applied to these approaches at the moment.
There are these nuances that are just being conveniently overlooked and this approach is just a little bit too simplistic at this point in time. But you know, the awesome thing is, it can be matured, it can iterate, it can improve, and that's really what we're, well, what we set out to try and do with this work. And this proposal we came up with on Grid Aware.
[00:15:16] Gaël Duez: Ismael, could you enlighten us a bit on that, how the grid works? And then explain to us what are the, the pitfalls or the aspects of the Carbon Aware Computing concept, which are conveniently, overlooked, and Hannah just said. 
[00:15:34] Ismaël Velasco: Yes. And first I just wanna share one of the kind of subjective elements of this. I began super enthusiastic about this. I sort of worked with the Green Software Foundation to organize the first carbon aware hackathon and, sort of looked at their APIs. I love that. I evangelize, I move people, et cetera. It was great. Then as Hannah said, I've got some confusion here. And the biggest question is actually, again, really simple, which is what made me so suspicious of my own questions. If I run my software, if I consume energy when the grid is very green, am I taking away emissions from the planet? Now, that's weirdly enough the question that no one seems to actually have asked themselves at all. And the key concept is very logical, is that if we were running on 100 % or even 99 % green energy, that might work. But at the moment, the planet has a supply of 40 % of renewable energy, 43, and a demand of 100%. And in every country, maybe not Iceland. It's fractional, right? It's 40, it's 50, it's 20, it's 70. But the point is that every day and every year and every five years, there will be a 100 % amount of electricity used. And the emissions of that 100 % will not come from the green energy, they will come from the extra, right? That's logical. Now, the analogy that helped me clarify this is if you think of the electricity we use each day, each year, pick your timeline as a train with 10 carriages, each carriage takes 100 passengers and each passenger is an emission.
Four of those carriages are green, and six of those carriages are dirty. What is Carbon Aware Computing? Imagine those four carriages appearing randomly on the train. On the first day, they're all at the front, on the second day one is in the middle, but there are always four carriages out of ten. Now, most days, I come in at eight o'clock, I go to the train, and I go into the first carriage in front of me. It might be green, it might be dirty. But now I'm going to do carbon awareness. I'm going to make sure that every day I take the green carriage, no matter what, I will move to the place where the green carriage is. I will tie my arrival and I will always go on the green carriage that provides zero emissions. I'm going to come out of that green carriage feeling so clean. I've been clean all week. Every day I've been in a green carriage. My body is absolutely clean. Perfect. But what happens? That carriage is always full. So the day that I came into that green carriage, the person who always comes into that green carriage. Now can't get in because I'm already there and there's only room for 10 people. So she has to go into one of the dirty carriages In other words, you always have whenever I get on the plane or the train There will always be 400 people in dirty carriages. So I'm feeling very clean but the emissions. The total emissions of the train are the same regardless of when I run my computer I will always run it In that maximum 40 percent green period there are only a number of exceptions. How could you do this and actually reduce the number of passengers that come out of the dirty carriages?
One is if I don't go on the train. Right? If I reduce a person, I don't go on the train, now there are not 1, 000 passages, there are 999. I've reduced emissions. So if I can reduce the electricity that my computer uses, great. That has been great. The second one is if I use electricity that is going to be thrown away, it's called curtail energy. Imagine that the wind blows really hard in Scotland at 3 a.m. That's more energy than the grid can use. So they throw it away. If I run my job there. Then that's not going on the train, right? Those are people outside the train. I am reducing my emissions but the problem is that that is I've estimated between one and three percent of all global usage. So you'll never run at most you're increasing our green percentage to 46 % it's meaningful but time shifting still not really reducing emissions, and it's not straightforward 95 % of curtailment in Britain happens in Scotland. So we only have 5 percent of curtailed energy. In other words, it could be good if you can time it, but it's not enough to make a really big difference. 
[00:21:28] Gaël Duez: If I had to sum it up, it would be. That we have a limited amount of, low carbon electricity supply. And if you get some strategy to have access to it, no matter the time, no matter the day, like optimizing, like hell, if we don't manage to either increase the total amount of, I would say clean energy supply to follow your wording or that we don't manage to reduce the amount of demand that will by default might go to a high intensity, high carbon intensity energy. Then it's, yeah, it's a zero-sum game. 
[00:22:18] Ismaël Velasco: Brilliant. Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:22:21] Hannah Smith: I mean, I think one of the key things to think about here with this, something that really helped me is I really liked Ismael's carriage analysis. I found that really helpful. I also found it helpful to think about it like a balloon. The balloon is still the same size, and all you're doing is just squeezing air into different parts of it. You're not actually reducing the amount of air in the balloon, you're not actually making a meaningful difference to the emissions coming out. And that is down to the fact that the grid always has to balance supply and demand. And that's this element of grid management that isn't really taken into account with this approach, is those people managing the grid have to always keep supply and demand in balance. And as Ismael was saying, what they'll do is they'll use as much of the renewable energy as they can, but then they'll top it up with fossil fuels to meet that 100% of demand. And that's always happening, that's always the case. And they create that supply and demand equation through data, through looking at typically when there is a certain amount of demand, so you know that there's more demand during the day, there's less demand during the night, and they forecast that and schedule it and manage the outputs of all the different power plants in the grid to meet that demand. So you're coming along and making a sudden change doesn't actually make a difference to what those grid operators are doing, because it's unpredictable. They don't know it's going to happen, and it doesn't materially make an impact. And what Ishmael said, I'll just say this bit, because I think this is a useful bit to build on as well. What Ismael helped me realize, and what we talked about a lot within the article, was that, furthermore, shifting that demand unpredictably can actually ramp up the amount of fossil fuels going on the grid because the demand suddenly increases. All right? And look, at the moment, we're talking about fractions of percent. So it's not manifesting in a mad way. But one of the things that we were worried about is that if carbon aware is done at scale, what you actually find is grid operators are then bringing more fossil fuels online because they're the quick things to ramp up to meet the demand. So it doesn't really seem to make sense at the moment when you think about that reality of things going on.
[00:24:46] Ismaël Velasco: And that's a really important point because it means we have two dimensions to our argument, really. One is, don't assume it's helping. Right? That's the first one. And what you wrote is exactly what the White House report on crypto summarizes. Said the only two ways you reduce your emissions through computing is if you reduce your demand or you increase the green supply. Most carbon aware patterns don't do either, so they're not affecting it. So, one is, are you making a positive difference? The second point that Hannah just introduced is that there's also the question that no one seems to be asking, which is, are you making a negative difference? And what we found, Hannah and I, as we started looking at it, is that there are lots of scenarios where running carbon aware patterns at scale could not only not help, but it could actually create harm. And we've got some examples of this happening. In Iran, for example, bitcoin miners used electricity so much at the same time that the whole grid broke. The same in Venezuela. So you could imagine that if you happen to have the greenest energy at exactly this moment in a place with a creaky grid, like Texas or Azerbaijan also collapsed. And all of Google says green everybody and runs everything there. You could imagine that you might bring the grid down.
[00:26:35] Gaël Duez: But playing a bit of the devil's advocate here, I would have two other questions. The first one is, what about market incentivization? So, like, yes, at an instant time, you've got this demand and supply balance, which might lead to not generating a positive impact, even maybe a negative impact. But the adoption of more and more carbon aware computing practices will drive cloud providers, software providers, you name it, et cetera, energy providers, et cetera, to adopt greener practices more generally to supply more low carbon energy. I would say that will be my question number one. My question is number two, could it also be an incentive to avoid curtailment? And I would like, Ismael, if you could maybe explain a bit more curtailment and the example you took between Scotland, to England, for instance. Because what I understood, actually quite a fun fact, is something that we discussed, just the latest episode on open source software, about all to connect which we are building, at least in Europe, but in many other parts of the world, to connect the grids and to avoid curtailments, to avoid wasting the most precious thing that we've got today, which is low carbon electricity. Could it be an incentive also to make sure that we don't waste energy so we reduce dramatically curtailment? My two questions could be summarized as what about the market incentivization in the medium term, not even the long term? And what about the possibility of using in a better way wasted energy today, mostly curtailed energy?
[00:28:28] Ismaël Velasco: So I'll give my version of a very brief answer, but I also think because of time, that this is also a good opportunity for Hannah to introduce the idea that we're not just condemning carbon aware software, that we're saying, let's do it properly, let's do it well, that there are improvements and that this could be a really good solution. But we do need to ask those questions, so it's not all doom and gloom. So one of the positive arguments for carbon aware patterns is that one around incentivization, around culture. So, for instance, I got super excited by carbon aware software and it motivated me to dive into all kinds of other things. I eventually arrived at the conclusion that, oh, I think there's a problem here, Houston. We've got a problem like Hannah put it, but thank goodness that I got into it because it opened all kinds of other fields. So that's great. The other argument that is made in favor of it is that by investing and timing it to the green times, you are motivating the market to invest more in renewable energy. And I think that was true a while ago, but I think, weirdly enough, we won that argument a while ago. The market for renewable energy is now cheaper, so people are investing. The news came out today that there are about four or five countries in Europe that have hit their 2040 or 2030 target now, not because of incentives around carbon, our computer, it's just cheaper. But I think there is a cultural incentive around anything that we do intentionally for green issues, for transparency, for clarity, and evidence. So there are ways to do this. And you can say at the end of the day, I reduced my demand. I used new green energy, like curtailed energy. But you've demonstrated that you've asked yourself, and you've also asked yourself, is this having any perverse side effects? No. And I've said it. Google says it, and Microsoft says it. Right when they're doing this at scale, Apple says it. But when nobody says it, then the potential for greenwashing and perverse effect is huge, especially since this is one of the few areas where the big corporations and the really sincere green advocates like ourselves currently are on the same page. So it's very easy for everyone to go, yay. So we need to simply say, do it, but tell us how it's helping. One example of that, just to finish and answer your question, is curtailed energy, which is basically this idea of green energy that is happening, but it's being wasted because it's happening at the wrong time.
[00:31:24] Hannah Smith: So I think the question of curtailed energy is a really good one, and I think it's a really awesome incentive. And through the research, and there's this really deep level of thinking that we did on this, we kind of realized that using curtailed energy is one example where Grid, carbon aware kicks ass. It really is like awesome. And that's what we want to incentivize. It makes sense. And it seems to stack up. So when we were writing this post, as Ismael said, we didn't want this to be all doom and gloom. And we didn't want this to be a takedown because it's too easy to take down other people's work. And that's not really how we build sustainable solutions. We want to build each other up and, you know, work, work, work, work, work, work on each other's stuff. So what we did, we were like, okay, we need to come up with a kind of name and way of talking about. The Times When Carbon Aware Does Work. It's a working title, but we came up with the idea of talking about grid aware software instead. And so that really, the idea of that naming was to say kind of, hey look, this is more than just thinking about this simple metric of carbon intensity. This is actually thinking about the grid and all the complexities there. Because actually, that seems to then push you in a more nuanced direction with the solutions.
And so what we said was one of those examples, as I mentioned, is using curtailed energy. But not just curtailed energy in its simplistic form, but coming back to something Ismael was talking about earlier, it's using curtailed energy in stable grids in places which can actually absorb this additional demand coming in. And on top of that, I think it's also doing it in a way that is in harmony with the grid. So I think that long term, what we need to start seeing, is APIs and standards and conventions so that data centers can actually agree to use that data, and they can actually, sorry to use that energy. And there can actually be handshakes that, Hey, we've got curtailed energy. Hey, then data center over here. Now is your chance to be helpful to the grid, and to get some demand. You know, get some computer running here and make use of it. So rather than it being like a free for all pile on, I just, when Nishma was talking earlier, I had this like the image of American football where they all, or rugby, where they all just kind of pile on each other, and it all just goes disastrous, you know, and this, this horrible scrum, and it's all just gone tits up. Like, that's not what we want. We want it to be kind of done in a more organized, democratic fashion. Where the curtailed energy, like someone in the grid is saying, Hey, it would be really helpful if right now someone could come along and use that curtailed energy. And then we have these standards and processes in place that people can know that that's available and send their compute there. And that section's missing at the moment. So Gaël, you're right. This question about curtailed energy feels really central to this proposition of making this load better. 
[00:34:37] Gaël Duez: How operational today is a Grid Aware computing approach?
[00:34:42] Hannah Smith: I think there's work to be done here. So in sharing this work, it's popped up all sorts of interesting people discussing this. I mean, I can talk about the UK. That's where I'm based. It's probably the grid that I have the most hands-on knowledge about. Ismael already mentioned, that up in Scotland, we know that that's where the majority of curtailed energy is. Now, if anyone's not familiar with the geography of the UK, Scotland's right up in the North. It's quite sparsely populated. It's very rural up there. And that's where all the wind energy is. It's offshore farms and in some cases onshore, but actually, the vast majority of demand is based down in the South, down in London. So the energy that's being produced up there in Scotland. Needs to find its way down south. 
Now, the problem at the moment is that as far as I understand it, the national grid is not producing data that tells you where that curtailed energy is in more specific, more specificity. There aren't also ways to know which data center then would be in a good position to use that data. I think there's work happening on it. It's developing. But right now, if you were a developer, you couldn't just go along, pull out a load of data and make this happen. So there's work to be done here, in this field. And, you know, as I mentioned already, there's real potential in this field. To work on those things, this is what we wanted to propose as the next version of Carbon Aware, which we labeled as Grid Aware.
Let's get all these amazing minds working on this part of the problem, rather than getting stuck at the first gate, which was, ooh, acknowledging location time shifting is interesting and fun. We need to push this field forward, and we need to do more on this. 
[00:36:30] Gaël Duez: I was laughing a bit when you were explaining this because I had this image of what Sylvie Daumal recently shared on the episode with systemic design. And in systemic designs, I've got this hearsay that says that solutions of today are problems of tomorrow. And that's just so true here. Once again, this is us trying to jump on a very easy and technical solution and very appealing. And I was like 100% in for this solution and then suddenly posing and saying, in which environment are we truly evolving? In which system in which almost a biosphere, an electrical biosphere, I would say electrical sphere. Once again, systemic design is everything. When it comes to sustainability, I'm realizing that there is maybe something that might not have been 100% clear for some listeners if they're not that familiar with cloud operations and energy. Claim for hyperscalers that yes, almost all of them, except maybe one of them, explained that they run 100% on green energy. And I had this wording, so I would say low carbon energy, but that we really need to understand that when a Google, Amazon or Azure or Huawei data center operates, it is actually plugged into the grid, and it's using the energy that is being made available at this very moment. And when they say they produce 100% green energy, it does not perfectly match the energy they consume. So actually they pay. Ismail, am I correct? Do you want to elaborate a bit on what I said?
[00:38:22] Ismaël Velasco: Sure. And I actually want to focus sort of as we close the episode, on four things that every tech practitioner can actually do already to operationalize this well, and that is within our reach. So the first one is to monitor your own net electricity demand. That's the metric you really want to influence. So more than when is this compute job or this computing job running in the grid? The most impactful thing that I can do is use less energy tomorrow than I did today. If I can do that, I will win. If I can't do that because I'm a growing business, can I slow down the rate of my energy demand? So every year, I consume 3% more electricity. Now, I'm still growing, but I managed to grow only one and a half percent every year. Anything that reduces your demand, that's the biggest win of all. That's the thing that we need. So that's a very practical thing. Quantify, monitor, and improve that. 
The second thing is time shifting. And location shifting can work. If you want to find a metric for time-shifting and location-shifting privilege. Low demand, not grid carbon intensity. In other words, run your jobs when the demand is lowest, not when the grid is greenest. They will very often be the same, but not always. You might have the greenest grid at 12:00 in Brazil, but it's not your lowest demand. So adding a bunch of demand might not be good. In Scotland, yes, if the lowest demand is 03:00 a.m. It's probably the greenest. But if you're going to use an API instead of targeting, when is the carbon intensity the lowest target, low demand, then as a cherry on top. If you want, add carbon intensity. But if you target low demand, the chances that you're going to have a positive effect are higher and a negative effect lower. If you just target carbon intensity, it's very random and unlikely. So that's a simple operational right. If you are going to location shift, time-shift, and you're in a good grid like Britain, et cetera, you're not targeting Texas, you're not targeting Azerbaijan. You target good, strong connected grids, then target low demand first. If you do that, that's progress. We talked about lowering demand. I'm using less energy. Great. 
The third one is, how do I add more green energy? One is the curtailed energy, but that one is difficult, and small. In Scotland, the bottleneck is less for computing because you could put your machine there. But the problem in many grids is that, for example, that excess energy cannot travel to the south, where it's being used. So unless you're located there, it's going to break. So how could you add more green power? Which goes to your question. So, one way is generating your own power from your own solar panels, from your own wind turbines. The pattern that we have for electricity historically is hyper concentration on massive power plants. The pattern we've had for computing traditionally is hyper-concentration hyperscalers. But both are distributable. You have distributed electricity and distributed computing. And for the global south. The future is microgrids and distributed computing. And for resilience, they're investing in Texas, because then the whole thing doesn't break if you've got microgrids. So if you were able to power your computer from your microgrid or your solar panel, you are adding extra generation directly. That's brilliant. Has huge potential. And then comes the answer to your question, but what if I run it on Google? Aren't they 100% green? They have done very good things. But what you say is absolutely true. Their data centers are powered by the same grid as everybody else's, which is mixed all the time. So they cannot say my server is actually powered by the sun. They're being powered, but what they do is that they buy what they call additional electricity, which is good. The bad pattern of those things is you're generating green electricity. I'll buy you and I'll take the credit. But actually the demand hasn't changed. Instead, these people are paying someone to build a new wind farm to generate the same energy they will consume. So it's new, it's additional. They can say it is added, but it's not direct. That has also the risk of side effects. So it's not perfect, but it is okay. It's acceptable as long as you are going for additional energy. 
The fourth one is what you are doing. We need to talk about this. For me, the biggest shock in this process has not been the discoveries, but that I haven't found this conversation happening virtually at all. It's been quite shocking to me that there is no very clear point of reference. Even now, since I published the Hackernoon article, I've had talks with some of the very pioneers of these patterns and no one seemed to actually say, is this reducing emissions? Does this have side effects? And I also want to share that someone in one chat wrote, when this came through, I was going to make a post about my concerns with carbon aware software, but I was afraid to do so. There is a lot of commitment to this idea and a lot of investment in this idea, emotional and economic, from both environmentalists and companies. ET was interesting. That's one of the things that most excited me about working with Hannah was that I just thought, I'm nervous. How do I communicate in a way that is clear-cut enough that we can say there is a problem, but that also doesn't sound like I am hating on people? I've been a bit more direct on the hacker noon one because I think we need to be very direct. But basically, above all, I think we need to create a space where we are talking about this and writing about this. I would love to be proven wrong. That'd be even better. But above all, I think nobody should feel a hesitation to say this might be problematic. As I've been following this thread, I am beginning to question some of our carbon emission metrics for software that we've been using. So it's like a little threshold. We're also exploring with the Mayan people here in Mexico, some experiments with distributed energy generation and distributed compute. So we might be piloting those things. There are companies like Soluna in Morocco, there's a company in Paraguay who do exactly this. They go to power plants and they install servers. The servers help the power plants, and smaller plow plants manage their demand response and monetize it. And they're able to sell server space at a fraction of the hyperscalers. So there is some work going on, all of those things, but it's mostly invisible. So if we can agree to demand evidence from industry, just to demand evidence of impact and risk assessment, just those two things. And if we can explore grid aware software or whatever, or carbon aware software 2.0, but just talk about it, we're still on time, I think, for this not to get out of our hands, but it's a small window.
[00:47:10] Gaël Duez: Yeah, I agree. Thanks for mentioning the podcast. But actually, this is really what I'm trying to do here, is having nuanced conversations. And the main thing that we've been trying to achieve with this discussion is not throwing the baby with the bathwater. Usually, I ask my guests to close the podcast with positive news on sustainability, or even better, on green it or digital sustainability. And I think for the very first time, because this is a first, this is the first time I've got former guests coming back in the podcast over. The very first time.
I'm going to be the one answering my own question about how rude it is. But I think what I actually find very refreshing and energizing, and which brings me a lot of optimism, is that I strongly believe that three years ago, we would never have this kind of nuanced in our way to tackling its emissions and having the ability to say, okay, so we are doing things, and we are doing things at a large scale, enough to start to see that the pattern is not white or black and that we can really kick-start some continuous improvement process, which is actually how it works in every industry. You don't do things perfectly right from the start, and you've got this discussion, and even in the orange industry, you can think about all this ongoing discussion about software development practices, the agile methodology, you've got ongoing discussion over and over trying to fine-tune things, et cetera. And for me, starting to see this kind of discussion happening for green software and more generally green, it is very positive because it means that we're getting a scale where we can see the details, the nuances, and that goodwilling people can debate without any prejudice to each other and try to find what will be the best way. So that would be my closing words.
[00:49:18] Ismaël Velasco: I think carbon aware software done well. Time and location shifting are the future. I think that the more we depend on renewable energy, the more integrated will be time and location shifts in computing to what is called demand response. What Hannah was saying about how the grid has to constantly balance. And when you had fossil fuel only, it was very simple because you had complete control. You open the tap, you close the tap. You open the tap, you close the tap. The reason we have curtailed energy and the reason we have all kinds of risks is that we can't open the sun and close the sun, open the wind, and close the wind. So one of the challenges is when you move to 70% renewable energy, 70% of your energy is unpredictable, which means that we, and this is already happening in many places, will have computed and other forms of event-driven electricity consumption integrated into the grid. So every time the sun goes down, there's low demand, we will have more compute, et cetera. So this kind of. I do think that carbon aware time shifting, and location shifting are intrinsic to the future. And the good news is that the only thing where we're doing well in climate action is the energy transition. That's the only bit where we're ahead of the curve, where we're accelerating. So I think that has implications for us. And as long as we ask enough questions to do it responsibly, I think that all the work that's been done on this will prove to have been visionary and very long-lasting as part of the new societies that emerge.
[00:51:20] Gaël Duez: Okay. That was great to have you on the show, Hannah. I'm so happy that you've been back again. Let's make sure that we meet in London. No, that won't be the case, but in Paris for the Green IO Conference. Thanks a lot for joining. It was a pleasure as usual. 
[00:51:35] Hannah Smith: So thanks, thanks so much Gaël for having us on the show. It's amazing to be able to chat this through and it's really nice to speak it out loud because actually so far my involvement in this work has been written. So actually being here and verbalizing it is a really, really fun activity, and it's been really, really useful to do this. And I love the work you do, and I can't wait to meet you in Paris in December. It's a long time to go, but we will, we will catch up with each other then. 
[00:52:08] Gaël Duez: And thanks a lot Ismael also for joining the podcast with your energy, your refreshing perspective, and your humility you didn't come here saying, Hey, this is how it works. And this is the problem, but more, maybe we should ask questions. And this is what I found so far. And I will be so happy to be proven wrong, which is. I sincerely believe in the very basics of a scientific approach. So thanks a lot Ismael for, for, for joining in bringing us all these insights and, have a good day, in Mexico today because it, we call it still quite early for you, and hope to see you soon in the podcast.
[00:52:48] Gaël Duez: Bye bye. 
[00:52:49] Ismaël Velasco: Thank you. 
[00:52:50] Hannah Smith: I'll see you soon. 
[00:52:51] Gaël Duez: Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. If you enjoyed it, share it and give us five stars on Apple or Spotify. We are an independent media relying solely on you to get more listeners. Plus, it will give our little team, Jill, Meibel, Tani and I, a nice booster.
[00:53:10] Gaël Duez: Today, I had former guests coming back for the first time. And in our next episode, we will have another premiere with a member of the European Parliament among us, Kim Van Sparrentak will join us as well as Max Schulze, the founder of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance to talk about regulations in digital sustainability. What are they? What to expect? But also have they been built in the Bristol Maze? And yes, we will also discuss lobbying. And yes, it matters to people outside Europe because of the long arm of European regulations. By the way, Green IO is a podcast and much more. Visit greenio.tech to subscribe to our free monthly newsletter, read the latest articles on our blog, and check the conferences we organize across the globe. The next one is in Singapore on April 18, and you can get a free ticket using the voucher Green IO VIP. Lucky you. Looking forward to meeting you there to help you dear responsible technology purchase build a greener digital world one byte at a time.
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🔍How open source software slashes energy consumption, extends hardware lifespan, and drives sustainability?
🎙️In this episode, Gael Duez unravels the intricate relationship between open source software and IT sustainability together with Oliver Cronk, the host of Architect Tomorrow podcast and Sustainable Technology practice lead at Scott Logic (UK), alongside his software engineer colleague Katie Davis. 
💡Discover how open source software (OSS) and hardware (OSH) are not just benefiting companies, but also driving global sustainability efforts. With insights from a recent HBR study revealing OSS's monumental impact on reducing software development costs, the stage is set for a game-changing conversation. ⚙️
💻Katie breaks down the key to OSS success: transparency. Learn how freely available code empowers developers to make efficient, sustainable choices, while Oliver highlights the importance of common hardware standards and circularity to combat waste and inefficiency.
📊Dive into the battle for open-source data transparency with Katie, and explore Oliver's vision for the tech community's future direction. From reducing emissions with initiatives like the Tech Carbon Standard to innovative projects like the Open Compute Project, the episode is packed with actionable insights and inspiring solutions.
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• Katie’s LinkedIn
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Oliver and Katie's sources and other references mentioned in this episode:

• Scott Logic’s Technology Carbon Standard
• Harvard Business School Strategy Unit Working Paper No. 24-038 on Open Source Software
• Open Compute UK
• Tristan Nitot's talks about eroom
• GSF Carbon Hack
• Boavista Cloud Scanner
• Cloud Carbon Footprint
• EU Energy Efficiency Directive
• Climate Q&A
• Built and planned electricity Interconnect across Europe
• Viking Link: Interconnector from Denmark to Great Britain
• Reporting requirements on the energy performance and sustainability of data centres for the Energy Efficiency Directive
  
  

Transcript 
Gael 00:00Hello everyone. Welcome to Green IO, the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Every two Tuesdays, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools, and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. So today we're going to talk about a relationship, a deep, pivotal, and yet troubled relationship. Open source and IT sustainability every person I talk in our sustainability field takes it as a no-brainer. Open source is good for sustainability. But which open source are we talking about? And is this link? Is this correlation so strong? For instance, is open source software always more frugal or sustainable in the way it is designed? 
We don't know. Let's investigate it. But there is at least one certain thing. Open source software is big. A recent post made by Sasha Lucioni, one of my absolute favorite thought leaders in AI, caught my eye. A recent HBS study found that companies would have to spend 3.5 times more on their software development if open source were not around. And we're talking about an $8.8 billion estimated market. So open source is big. Let's see how it connects with sustainability. 
Today I am delighted to have two guests to talk about sustainability. Who has done open sources from the trenches? Oliver Cronk is a fellow YouTuber. Now I can say because, yes, Green IO launched its YouTube channel a week ago to offer a wider choice for accessing its content than traditional podcast platforms like Apple or Spotify. Anyway, Oliver is the Architect Tomorrow host, a channel for enterprise and platform architects with a soft spot for sustainability, among other topics. He's also a tech strategist at Scott Logic, a software and data consultancy based in the UK, and has a significant track record in both IT and energy. As an example, he built carbon calculators, air quality databases, and industrial emissions reporting systems, which made him experience firsthand the issue of accessing open, transparent, and reliable data. Katie is a software engineer with a Math’s Degree, so not easy to mess with her when it comes to data and statistics, and she is a driving force in this sustainable technology practice at Scott Logic, especially involved in the recent release of the technology carbon standard at open UK several weeks ago. A standard under the Creative Commons license, of course. By the way, they will present it at Green IO London on September 19 this year, but that's a different story. Welcome, Oliver. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today. So, are you on your bike or more comfortably sitting at your desk?
Oliver 03:02No, today I'm stationary. I'm at my desk.
Katie 03:04Thanks for having us.
Gael 03:06You're welcome. That's nice to have you on the show. And welcome, Katie. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today as well. That's vegetable time, not food time. I guess because you love to garden and to grow your own food. That's a very nice angle for sustainability. Katie, maybe the first question will be for you, with your academic track record. When we talk about open source, it can actually cover a lot of different angles. Could you give us your definition or your way of approaching what is open source?
Katie 03:40Of course. So when I think about open source, I always think about open source software. So this is software whose source code is freely available to modify, to distribute, deploy, and even extend it into their own projects. So I think one of the key parts of open source is that it's transparent. You can view the methodology behind the code. There are also types of open source, which I think maybe Oliver could expand on.
Oliver 04:08Yeah, no, happy to. So I think you've touched on open data, which is an important one. But then open hardware is really interesting as well when it comes to sustainability. So at the open UK conference, you mentioned, Gail, there was a great presentation about open compute, the open hardware sort of initiatives to ensure that there are sort of standards for hardware. And there are companies now taking the used hardware out of the big hyperscaler data centers and reusing it because it still has a life. Right? The big hyperscalers no longer want it, but you can easily get additional life out of it by hosting it in another data center and getting other people to run workloads on it. So there's a whole host of different strands of the open source kind of ecosystem, really. Software, hardware, data, significant ones.
Gael 04:48I think that would be a good way to define these pillars of data, software, and hardware. So, Oliver, you started with hardware, not maybe the most obvious when we are in the IT world. What are the progress today that you've seen in open source hardware?
Oliver 05:05Yeah, I'd love to throw to Katie to talk about the sort of data that's available, hopefully in the future, in more of an open form about hardware. But in terms of hardware itself, I think there are some really interesting developments. Like I talked about, the open compute project, they have a whole sustainability division that's looking at the circularity of the hardware. I think having open standards when it comes to hardware is important because otherwise, it's the compatibility challenge. Right. If everyone is inventing their hardware to kind of be unique and proprietary, it just means we have a whole lot of potentially wasted components that won't work with other systems and we're producing lots of different types of components that only work with one particular platform. So I'm a really big proponent of the open compute project also because they're looking at things like can we increase the ambient temperature of data centers, for example, to reduce their cooling requirements and things like that. So they're doing some really clever stuff in that area. But I think also open hardware is interesting when you look at the sort of hardware hacker sort of culture that's created as well. Right? What can you run on an embedded device like a Raspberry Pi? How can we extract every last efficiency out of a couple of watts that a Raspberry Pi runs on? So I think there's some really interesting sort of things that come out, the constraints that you impose when you look at sort of consumer grade hardware and the open source movements around that.
Gael 06:20Yeah. And just to not close, but to comment on the hardware topic, it really resonates with the new battle of my good friend Tristanito, who's one of the founders actually, of Modzia Europe. So he's been in the game for quite a while and he's got his amazing talk now that he's given several conferences already about Moore's law is dead now it's eroom. So that's kind of reversing the Moore name. The idea is every year you don't double the size of your computing power, every year you divide by two the size of your code. So every year you can run your code on lighter and lighter machines, which means older and older machines, which means saving potentially millions, avoiding building new computers that actually don't need. But anyway, Katie, you wanted to elaborate a bit more on the data side. I think this is one of your main battles, isn't it?
Katie 07:18Yeah. So especially with the sort of manufacturers of hardware, the data they provide themselves, often the figures they're given, these, it's not clear on how they actually calculate them. So for example, if you wanted to find out the typical energy consumption, they might provide this figure, but it's hard to find out where they're getting this from. How long are they running the device to arrive at this figure? Additionally, there's another sort of documentation that these manufacturers provide, like product carbon footprint, which gives the emissions from each use stage of the lifecycle. So manufacture transportation usage, end of life. But again, it's just not clear how they get these figures. So the benefit of open source is having that methodology transparent to everyone to see how these figures are arrived at.
Gael 08:06Yeah, the big issue if you've got quite diverse hardware estate is that we might add apple and orange because the way one manufacturer would calculate things is not the same as the others. And eventually, these numbers don't make sense at all. What do you see as a potential path to overcome this very big difficulty in data sustainability?
Katie 08:34I think open source is key, just having a sort of level playing field for the methodology that we use to calculate these things. So I mean, I think we'll probably discuss it later, but like tools like Cloud Carbon Footprint, sort of having that methodology that you can use across cloud providers, so it's more comparable, easier to track your improvements across the estate. And I mean, that's just one part of the standard.
Oliver 08:59Katie touched on a really important point there, which is at the moment because the manufacturers can essentially almost makeup, I'm exaggerating a little bit to make a point, but because they can almost make up their methodology, their numbers, it almost becomes a marketing exercise to make it look like their product consumes less energy. And it's a bit of a game, right? So if you come up with a really creative way of measuring the power consumption of your device, I mean, we've seen servers, for example, with different sort of load ratings and energy consumption, different load ratings, and each manufacturer seems to sort of measure at different loads. So some are at 20%, some are 80, some are 100. It's like, okay, well, you can make yourself look cleaner by just presenting the characteristic that your model of hardware tends to perform best at. And of course, then you don't really know whether you're making an improvement or you've just bought better marketing when you change suppliers. So I think that's why what Kate is saying is really important. This apples-for-apples comparison is super important because we already have the same with the cloud. Like you run AWS's cloud carbon tooling versus Azure's versus Google's, they all have different methodologies, and so they're not comparable.
Gael 10:04And that's a point with carbon footprint. And I'm very happy you raised both of you, actually, you raised the point. Is that true? It's a very powerful tool. Cameron was on the show last year. I'm a big advocate of CCF, among other open source tools, but at the end of the day, they have to recalculate things that should be provided by hyperscalers. And I think here we've got two very serious issues. The first one is the methodology. Tools like open source tools like Boa Vista cloud scanner or CCF, obviously the methodology is transparent, so at least we know how they manipulate the data. But then there is the issue of the data itself. I mean, do we have the granularity to calculate things in a wise enough way? And I'm not always sure, because for cloud. But Katie, I will let you elaborate on it. For cloud, it's always a question of transforming financial data almost all the time, financial data, into sustainability data. And some data would be more, I would say, accurate, like starting with CPU usage or GPU usage or whatever. But what's your thought on it, Katie?
Katie 11:17So with regard to cloud, one of the key issues is that each cloud provider has their own tooling, but the methodology is not the same. So I think one of the main challenges is to do with sort of greenhouse gas scopes. So I think AWS, especially, doesn't include scope three. I think that one of the benefits of the cloud carbon footprint tool is that it provides a way to at least try and estimate that proportion allocated to scope three and sort of compare on the same level with those from Google as you are. I think Google does provide data on scope three emissions. So I think it's sort of just picking the right methodology for your estate. So, for example, if you just had Google Cloud, maybe you just go with their tool, since it's probably more up-to-date and includes scope three. Whereas, if you had multi-cloud or AWS, you might want to look at a tool like Cloud Carbon Footprint.
Oliver 12:14But I think the point, Gael, around using financial numbers to come up with sustainability metrics is an interesting one. Clearly, it'd be great if we could trust the native tool, like Katie said, to use the Google tool, the AWS tool, because they have access to the underlying data that allows them to more accurately calculate the emissions. The trouble is, there's a trust thing there, isn't there? I think it's how transparent are they being and how much we trust them to kind of calculate this fairly, rather than just putting forward a polished view of their emissions, a managed kind of view of their emissions rather than reality. And so this is where I think the open approaches really would help because if they were open and transparent about what went into providing the service that you pay for, you would be able to make a more informed decision. And I think the calculations would be far more robust than basing them just on billing data. Ideally, you find situations where you save money, and you save carbon, but those two aren't necessarily going to go hand in hand in all cases.
Gael 13:12Yeah, absolutely. I had an issue with a client very recently when we made the calculation that the bill would go up by 20%. And then you have also the question of how do you calculate a clean energy region. Because I don't know if you've seen this beautiful post from Mark Butcher migrating from Scotland to Ireland, where almost a time six difference in the carbon intensity of the electricity grid. If you do very basic math, you will still double your carbon footprint. Still, I would like to go back to it. Okay, so we claim that open source and open data because we are 100% on this open data subpart of open source here should be there, but the question is why not? One of the pushbacks I've heard from Isposkella representatives is like the business secrets and that they don't want to share because it's sensitive data. But what's your thought on it? And do you believe there are other obstacles, I would say on the road toward mods transparency, at least from the data perspective?
Katie 14:18I think that sort of garden data for a commercial reason, especially with regards to sustainability, is just not really the way forward. I think to sort of make sustainable software key and forefront, we really need to be transparent, so people can build on methodology. It's not really any good sort of reinventing the wheel when there are already so many good established, like data point methodologies out there. I think as well, open source projects, have such a large user base, especially compared to some enterprise software, especially internal sort of company software, not always, but sometimes. So I think any efficiency gains that we make to open source software can have a real downstream impact.
Oliver 15:05Yeah, Casey's kind of moved on to one of the other key kind of conversation points we have around open source. Right. But before we go there, my take on what you're saying, I think the commercial pushback is an interesting one, and I'm not convinced it's as simple as if we just reveal some more data, and all of a sudden the cat is out of the bag and everyone will know how we're running our data center. I think the reality is running a modern data center, certainly for a hyperscaler, is super, super complex. Right? And they're even using AI to optimize. Google and Meta, for example, have used AI to optimize their cooling and stuff like that. So I think to think that if you just release some data about your energy consumption and the high-level waste footprint and water footprint and all that sort of stuff, that that's going to be commercially dismantitious if you release that information, maybe to a point, because it will reveal perhaps to your competitors how efficiently you're running things. But yeah, I think it's just an excuse that they're hiding behind, quite frankly. And I think what will happen if they continue to drag their feet is the EU will regulate. And I think the EU is already regulating. Right. If you look at the data center regulation that's coming out, if you're running a data center over a certain power consumption now or in the near future, you will have to start reporting on more data. So I think that the reality is if companies continue to drag their hills on being transparent, regulation will follow. And it's probably better to kind of get ahead of that.
Gael 16:27Yeah, you're mentioning the energy efficiency directive, and actually I will put the link in the show notes as everything that we've discussed so far. But is it the only way forward? Is it okay to regulate? I'm a big advocate of better norms and more transparency, but do you believe this is the only trigger that will force big actors to become more transparent? Is there any other way?
Oliver 16:51I think Google has shown that this can be a competitive edge. Right. I am pretty sure that Google is still the only ones that give you near real-time carbon intensity information of the different regions that they operate in. Why is Google doing that? In my view, they're doing that because they are probably still number three in terms of enterprise cloud adoption. Like it's AWS and Azure, depending on which stats you look at, are the leading two. Right? Google is still trying to compete. So in order to compete, I think they are offering more transparency. They're offering more options around sustainability than the other two are, arguably. And so I think this can be a competitive edge. I do wonder whether if Google went a bit further in the near future, the EU companies might all of a sudden go, do you know what? We're just going to adopt Google Cloud because they just give us the data we need for regulatory compliance, for example. So I think the regulatory lever can be really powerful. But you're right, it probably can be too big a stick at times when actually industries can get ahead of that by just saying, do you know what? We'll just be a bit more transparent, a bit more open, a bit more sensible and pragmatic about how we operate, and then that way the regulators won't have to force this out of us.
Gael 17:58I think it's pretty obvious that the European Union has a... I don't remember who coined the word, but I really love it. The long arm of EU regulations that you also see in California, etc. That is when the EU regulation actually doesn't stop at the European border, and it goes pretty much everywhere in the world, as we've seen with the privacy laws. First, the European Union is not as powerful economically speaking as it is today, even still a very, very big market, obviously. But what about the UK? Because you're both based in the UK. The UK is not a European Union member anymore. But on this specific aspect, do you think that whenever the European Union regulates, somehow it will lead the UK to adopt a similar pattern? Or is it a different way of doing things in the UK now?
Oliver 18:48So I think the reality is, as much as the UK thinks it's left the European Union, the reality is we still live in Europe and Europe is one of our biggest trading partners. And so, therefore, whatever Europe does, we'll almost certainly have to follow in some regard. So I think we haven't abandoned GDPR, for example. We still have that in our law, a very similar law to that. And I think it's a matter of how much we want to sort of stay in harmony with our biggest trading partner or not. And I think we've got political changes probably happening in the next few months for the UK, and it will be interesting to see quite what happens there.
Gael 19:23Regarding the link that you made between kind of transparency, a competition I would say on one hand, and regulation on the other, I think it's a very interesting point that one will lead the other. Do you believe that, except maybe for Google, there are other cases where transparency could become a competitive advantage?
Oliver 19:42I definitely think hardware, like the end user hardware. I honestly think if there are organizations that are far more transparent about the supply chain and the kind of full lifecycle analysis of their products, and they do that in a way that you don't have to fight free PDFs and extract information from data sheets, but actually, they perhaps provide an API or an open standard or something where you can just get that information. I think that fairly soon will be a competitive advantage. And so I think the first organizations that do that will win. I also look at companies like Fairphone that are more modular and repairable with the right to Repair Act that the EU has also just put out. I honestly think that there is scope for innovation in repairability, and it will be really interesting to see, for example, how Apple responds to that regulation. Do they do it to the minimum or do they go beyond and be more transparent about the supply chain and so on at the same time, I think that would be amazing if someone chooses to innovate on that angle? And I think they would find a lot of success in that space, in honesty.
Gael 20:45We'll see. I think it's some kind of pattern. Usually with Apple, it's like they pour tens of millions of dollars in lobbying against, then they drag their feet a bit, and then when everyone starts to follow, they put tens and millions of dollars on moving forward and then claiming they're the best. And I simply don't understand why they don't skip the two first parts of the dance. But that's a different story. So we talked a lot about hardware, data transparency, methodology, and transparency. But Katie, you mentioned before the correlation, not that obvious correlation, between open source software and sustainability. And please could you elaborate a bit on it?
Katie 21:25Yeah, of course. So as I was saying, open source projects can often be adopted widely by many organizations and can also be extended or used in their own projects. So I think due to this scale, sort of any efficiency gains or sustainability improvements that are made to the code can have a real impact downstream. So like a ripple effect. What might seem like quite a small optimization, like in the core code base, can have massive impacts downstream on the community. So sort of reduce the environmental impact across the ecosystem. So sort of reduce the environmental impact across the ecosystem, baking in these sustainable practices into the actual open source code. In the same way, sorting other nonfunctional requirements like security have already been, would be hugely beneficial, something that we're missing at the moment.
Gael 22:19Do you have some examples of maybe communities, open source communities on a dedicated software starting to pay attention to that? Or is it way too early stage? At the moment, I think it's pretty early.
Oliver 22:32Right. But the comparison I would make to this is a bit like when you buy your laptop, what power profile does it ship with? Right? Does it ship with the high-performance profile enabled by default or the power-saving profile enabled by default? And I would encourage all open source software contributors and maintainers to think about that same sort of thing. When someone downloads your software or includes their library in their software, what mode is it running in by default? And does someone have to specifically go and tune it for either efficiency performance or security? Because for security now it's pretty frowned upon, right? If you ship your open source software in a way that's unsecure by default, I would say that Katie was encouraging us to think about our open source projects and making them run efficiently by default. And maybe if you really need to crank the performance out of it, then, yeah, you go and tune, and you go and make optimizations. But that is something I think that could have a massive impact. And Katie's right, the scale at which open source libraries and software are deployed means that any savings that we make there are going to massively outweigh perhaps any optimizations we might make on our enterprise code. So we do a lot of work with big government and big financial services customers, but even still internal applications for them are hundreds of users, maybe thousands of users. They're not the millions of users that open source projects have. So where do you focus your optimization efforts as an open source developer? Do you optimize your own code that's running on your company systems, or do you optimize open source? So I would say as far as coding efficiency goes, think about what code you're optimizing.
Gael 24:08And especially knowing that we have only to target like 5% of open source developers because it's like 5% contribute to almost 90 to 99% of the code base. So we can target very active developers. My question would be, is it a bit different as an end user, obviously a developer, but downloading some kind of libraries, whatever, et cetera, do I have today all the information? And honestly, the answer is no. So I'm kind of self-answering my question, but what would it require being able to understand, okay, this is kind of a frugal design or low carbon open source code. There is nothing in I'm pressure like 99.99% of the MD in GitHub or any other repository that doesn't mention the carbon footprint at all or any kind of environmental approach. There is this project, I'm kind of thinking out loud at the moment, but is the impact framework provided by the Green Software Foundation the right approach? Or any other tools that could be used or leveraged to access this information. What do you think about this?
Oliver 25:20I think the impact framework shows potential to have a standardized way of calculating things. It's very early and we're excited. We're going to be part of carbon hack this year and that's all about the impact engine framework. And we're going to be, for example, probably looking at how you measure S3, the impact of S3, the Amazon S3 service using impact framework. I think what we need though is more of a standard, and you've perhaps given me a bit of an idea here of where the carbon standard that we launched recently could go, right? I mean, we've primarily designed it as a way of navigating the technology space and working out where your emissions live in the upstream operational and downstream sort of categories that we have sort of touched on throughout this episode. But actually I do wonder whether there is almost a metric that you should be looking for in each of those. And I think we're signposting open source tools and standards. But I do wonder if ultimately that might be where we lead. Is giving people an easy, almost like an eco label for software or a bit like the calorie counting you get on food, right? We need something as simple as that for someone to go red, amber, green on a library or a piece of software. We're not there yet, but I hope we get there.
Gael 26:29Yeah, I think that was the idea behind the API green score, main french companies. It's an open source approach as well, but it's more like a best practices checklist. Like, okay, is my API management clean? Do I provide information on carbon, et cetera? And then you've got a score. I kind of like this approach. It's very straightforward still, it requires pretty transparent methodology and data to be sure that we compare Apple with Apple. Once again, I'm really about fruit salad. Katie, as a developer, because you are, what would you like to have when you use open source code to make sure that you're using a very efficient one?
Katie 27:12I think the idea that you discussed, Oliver, was really quite a good one about sort of the comparisons to calorie counter. I think having that sort of metric, just so when you're looking and researching what you actually want to use in your code, you don't really have to dig in too much. That would be really useful if you could just see high level. What sort of sustainability level has this library got, for example? And for a developer, you want to be looking at how you can code. So I think learning from how upstream dependencies, open sourced libraries have been coded efficiently is a really good way to learn.
Oliver 27:49I think that exemplar approach is really interesting. It would be nice to see those sort of standards sort of applied. I think in most cases you could argue they are right, because lots of open source libraries have been optimized for performance, which means they should be fairly efficient. But that's necessarily, that's a big assumption. Right? And so I think what we're talking about here is something that validates that and ensures that there isn't excessive memory usage or excessive CPU consumption, perhaps polling anti patterns. I think maybe we aren't that far away from maybe being able to take some of the Green Software foundation principles and standards and patterns and maybe running some tests because that's the other part of this. We talk a lot about coding, but the testing is really important as well. And so we're equally looking at other software development lifecycle roles, like testing to say, should there be a test suite for efficiency, for energy consumption of code? So part of your pipeline, your builds break if energy consumption is over a certain level or efficiency is not hitting the bar. So this is the sort of bigger picture software development lifecycle thinking we're also doing beyond just sort of classifying emissions into their different buckets. It's also thinking about how does each role play its part when it comes to building more sustainable software.
Gael 29:07I'm very enthusiastic about what you describe, and actually I know that there are a few projects in CI CD pipeline trying to automate it. So, full disclosure, I've launched a project with my good friend Benoît Petit at the Boavizta association, but that's not public yet. But we've released the version zero of our repository of green it tools because we want to increase the transparency in the landscape. So the idea is not to assess if the tool is good or bad, but just to assess how transparent is the methodology, the data used, and all the information that will help people choose the right tool. And that's something that I will at Green IO Singapore and in forthcoming podcasts. It's really a transparency battle, it's not an assessment quality assessment battle, and a good practical exercise to close the podcast. How would you launch this open source initiative if you launch it?
Oliver 29:59Well, we'd certainly come back on the podcast if you have us. Katie, what are your thoughts? You're more in the development world than I am these days, I think in.
Katie 30:09The sort of same way as projects like Green Software Foundation, I think sort of co-pilot tool. It's the same sort of thing. So the way that Green Software foundation have sort of promoted their principles and their green coding patterns sort of promote the tool in the same way.
Gael 30:28But when you launch an open source, mean you have an idea you want to launch. Obviously you will create a GitHub repository and the license, blah blah blah. But hey, you're still two or three of you. I don't know how many people actually, how many people will join from Scott logic for that kind of project? Will it be only the two of you, or are you?
Oliver 30:53We have a team of about ten people working in this space at the moment, but people have rotated in and rotated out as we're a consultancy, right? So when we have client projects, people will go on to client work. So it very much depends on what client projects are going on at any one time as to how many people are involved in our R & D initiatives. But ultimately we're rolling out sustainable software thinking across the whole of the company and that's 500 people in total, about 450 or so consultants. Not all of those are developers, of course, but this mindset and these best practices are being pushed out across the organization because we don't want this to be a bolt on, we want this to be how we just work by default back to the sensible defaults thing. So I think yeah, for launching it we'd almost certainly launch it internally, we'd alpha test it ourselves and then I think we would look to kind of work with friendly clients and then kind of use open source ecosystems. We're part of like Linux foundation and Finos. So shout out to Finos that we do a lot of work with. They're a great organization for financial services, open source adoption. So I think yeah, it's kind of use the community, right? I think would be the straightforward answer to that one because that's the beauty of the open source effort, right, is it's always community driven. So kind of embrace that community approach.
Gael 32:06And does it respond well, the community, to that kind of project?
Oliver 32:10Well, it's interesting, right? My presentation at OpenUK, I would have hoped for a slightly larger audience, but I was competing with AI. There's a lot of AI talks and everyone, I think if you put an AI talk on everyone wants to go to that talk right now because it's just so hot. It's kind of ironic that everyone wants to go and listen to the really power hungry, hardware hungry topic of the day rather than talk about how we can tread more lightly. I do fear there is a culture war, Gael, happening like some of the tech meetups I've been going to recently there's almost two camps, there's people that are almost falling for the techno optimist manifesto from Marc Andreessen Horowitz and just think, growth and energy consumption and increasing energy consumption isn't a problem. Why is it problem? And there are others who are more aware of the issues that we have around. We don't have endless power sources that are renewable.
Gael 32:58Sadly though, the trick, and I will do it in London again, is that my keynote speaker for closing the day was Théo Alves da Costa and he's the co-founder of data for good, and he's the one who trained the ChatGPT for climate. I think it's climate Q&A, but they didn't use the ChatGPT tool, the model they use. Another one, I think it was. I don't remember which one it is. S hungry energy hungry model. But anyway. And the idea, know if you train a chatbot on IPCC, report only usually the answer to the question is pretty good. So that's a good usage. And so I managed to get some people in there because it was artificial intelligence and sustainability. So we will do it in London again, don't worry. But anyway, Katie, some thought on what we've just discussed.
Katie 33:54I think what you've just been discussing there about the sort of war between AI consuming so much energy and sustainability. It's really interesting because I think they're both so forefront at the minute, not so invested as I am in sustainability. For example, I think that my sort of passion for sustainability has really grown last few months, especially just even coming to terms with the terminology and the language of it. It's a whole world really, that I'd never really thought about. It's really shifted my thinking, especially not just within development, but everyday life.
Oliver 34:30I'm living a Jekyll and Hyde personality day by day at the moment. Right, Gail? Because I am spending almost equal amounts of time on AI R&D and sustainability R&D. So at some point the two streams will cross, and it's interesting to hear about Climate Q&A. That's great. I didn't know that existed. So thank you. And almost, yeah, what we'd love to do is almost to create a climate Q&A for technologists. So that the bit like we were just talking about earlier, the know, that's the sort of ultimate goals we have at AI for good. But yeah, I do struggle with this. And in fact, I've got a blog in drafts that I'm not sure I'll publish. But it's sort of talking about this conflict I have between technological progress using AI and on the other hand, all the power consumption and the sustainability impacts that that will have. So I do have this sort of schisms in should we be embracing this thing or should we be being more cautious? It's a really fascinating time, I think, to be a technologist right now, like the different challenges and opportunities that we have in front of us, it's incredible. Yeah.
Gael 35:32And I fully agree with you. And I think actually it's also a good thing not to be made in one piece of wood, I would say. And because our world is complex, it requires subtility. And even if it's not very comfortable coming up with subtle approaches to the big questions that we have, and not having one single answer for every question. I think it's a good approach, whether it's AI or. I don't know how to say it, but yeah, kill the tech or whatever approach, or go back to the stone edge, I don't know. I don't want to use it as a caricature. But you see my point. We're thinking complex, and it's very uncomfortable because I think we are more and more aware of how complex is the world we live in. And that's just us adapting to the reality of our world. So quite a lot has been covered here. To close the podcast, as usual, I would love both of you to share one piece of good news. Sustainably related, even green it related, but sustainably at large is cool. Something that makes you happy about our path towards a more sustainable world, I would say.
Katie 36:44I think for me because I'm quite new to the tech space, especially the technology sustainability space. I think just seeing the community growing, it's really positive. Seeing all the initiatives that are out there, whether they're open source. I think just like seeing the work that our team's been doing as well, the tech carbon standard, I think it's all really positive. It's going in the right direction.
Oliver 37:08I'm going to choose something that's not tech, but it's energy. So I'm probably as much an energy nerd as I am a technology nerd. And the thing that really excited me the other day was the announcement of quite a big electricity interconnect between Denmark and the UK. Right? And I hadn't heard about this, but a huge investment, like we're talking billions of pounds or euros investment to create this undersea link between Denmark and the UK. And it makes a lot of sense because both Denmark and the UK have a lot of wind power, and because of the time difference between Denmark and the UK, our peak electricity demands are at a different time. So there's a lot of sense in this interconnect, because when it's windy in Denmark and there's lots of demand in the UK, they can send their wind power to the UK and vice versa. And so I didn't know this thing was even being built. And it's gone live literally in the last couple of weeks. And it's significant, I think it's like at least a gigawatt of interconnect. So a serious DC power interconnect between the two countries. And that just made my day, because I knew we've been rolling back on various sorts of environmental policies, but this has just gone live and I didn't even know they were building it.
Gael 38:09And that's really, that's actually, that's so fun because I stumbled on a map of all these new connects being built across Europe, both for sustainability reasons, also for security reasons, after the Russian aggression against Ukraine and all the energy issue that it raised. And that was mind-blowing that there is already a lot of being built and even more being planned. And as you say, that's just perfect. It's sharing energy and low-carbon energy as much as you can. So I really love it. I think I will try to find the map and put it in. That'd be great. Thanks for sharing it. That made my day as well. Super cool. So it was great. I will put all the references in the show notes as usual. And what is also super cool, is that there is like a very good deal of chance that we will meet in London in September. So thanks for joining. Talk to you soon. Keep up this amazing work with a very open source technology, carbon standard but sustainable pilot idea. I love it. So let's stay in touch. Thanks a lot for joining and have a very nice and sustainable day.
Katie 39:17Thank you.
Oliver 39:18Thanks for having us.


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How can we make systemic design operational for sustainable design?

🔧Systemic design is dedicated to handling complex systems, complex questions, and complex issues. 

Sounds familiar with Sustainability? But if things are so complex how digital product people willing to design sustainably can embrace them? 

In this episode, we dive deep into the world of systemic design and how it can help us increase digital sustainability. Don't miss out on insights from Sylvie Daumal (acclaimed author of 'Design d'expérience utilisateur' ) and Thorsten Jonas (founder of the SUX Network), as Gaël Duez discusses the operationality of systemic design in Tech.

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📣 Green IO next Conference is in Singapore on April 18th (use the voucher GREENIOVIP to get a free ticket)  Learn more about our guest and connect: 

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Sylvie and Thorsten's sources and other references mentioned in this episode:

• SUX network and its SUX podcast
• Design d'expérience utilisateur - 3e édition: Principes et méthodes UX
• Apple’s Mother Earth video
• Future Wheel
• The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
• Systems Archetypes
• Sahel : le recul du désert
• Sécheresse, désertification et reverdissement au Sahel 
• Pour une Hydrologie Régénérative
• Can rock dams combat climate change?
• Structured dialogic design
• Dialogic Design Science

 Transcript 
Gaël (00:17.)Hello everyone. Welcome to Green IO, the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Every two Tuesdays, our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability.
You know, when I discuss with fellow digital sustainability enthusiasts about sustainable design, I often hear these statements. It's systemic. We need to see the big picture beyond our own company, our own clients. We need to fundamentally change the way we think about design, if we want to design for a better future. We must move from human centered to planet centered design. I couldn't agree more. But I also recall a conversation I had some months ago with a researcher in economics. We were talking about Donella Meadows’ book, « Thinking in Systems », and her position was, well, let's say abrupt. It's a good idea on paper, but it's not operational. You cannot modelize it. So, I was wondering, how operational is it for us working in the digital sector? How do we transform into actions the statements which I listed previously? And to answer these questions, I'm glad to be joined today by two experts in systemic design: Sylvie Daumal and Thorsten Jonas. Sylvie is based in Paris and she is somehow a rockstar in France when it comes to systemic design, a field she has been invested in since the early 2000s. She wrote a book last year, « 58 tools for systemic design », a very technical book, which has been acclaimed in the French design community. And on a more personal note, I'm so happy that we managed to record this episode, which has been rescheduled four times, I think -  record broken.
Gaël (02:20) Thorsten is based in Hamburg. He has been in UX design for almost 20 years, if not more than 20 years, and he founded Sustainable UX Network two years ago. A community who has gathered an impressive momentum with more than 2000 very active members across Europe, and all over the world. We share quite a lot with Thorsten, who is a fellow podcaster, a fellow speaker, a fellow community builder, and whom I see the name popping up on every cool event I'd like to join. And yet, we didn't manage to meet until today, despite me spending quite a lot of time in Hamburg when I was working with my former colleagues. So, welcome Sylvie, welcome Thorsten. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO here today. 
Thorsten (03.01)Thank you very much for having me. 
Sylvie (03:04)Thank you, Gaël. 
Gaël (03:07) So, the big, big question I stated in the introduction: how can we make systemic design operational? And maybe, before jumping on the question, maybe we should remind ourselves, what is systemic design and why is it useful? Sylvie, do you want to start maybe with some kind of a definition?
Sylvie (03:32)Systemic design is dedicated to handling complex systems, complex questions, complex issues. It is used mostly when you have questions about any kind of subject that involves many people, that involves many bots. The fact is that systemic thinkers are people who have a special angle to see things. The system is not really existing on its own, it's just the way that you see things. And what is the big characteristic of the system, is the fact that to identify many, many parts in a situation and all the parts are in interaction, one with the other. That's the reason why it is most of the time very complex, because it creates what we call causal loops. It means that one cause can have a consequence. A consequence will have a cause on another part of the system and so on.
So... at the very end, you can see that every action, every interaction has a consequence on the whole system. So, it's a way to really envision the whole situation. But most of the time, all the problems are complex. 
Gaël (05:11) Which makes it useful also for digital design, digital services. Thorsten, I think that's something that you've advocated again and again and again in your public speaking these last years, that we need to embrace systemic thinking also when we design digital services. Could you maybe elaborate a bit on this? Thorsten (05:36)Sure. I think one of the key things of UX design is that we focus on the user, right? We want to build great experiences, great products for our users. And that's what we advocate for. And that's what we try to make other stakeholders understand, that it's valuable to focus on the user and to fulfill the user's needs. And we have been doing this for many years. The problem is, by focusing so much on the user, we totally forget about all the other actors that are somehow influenced by the product, by the experience that we build. So all the tools we use in UX are not taking into account the systemic context of the product, of the experience that we build.
And another actor could be a human being could also be the planet, the environment, whatever, everything that is influenced by what we build. And I think this is a really big problem, because very often someone or something else pays the price for the good user experience that we build for our users. Let's say I build a nice service and a nice app for ordering my groceries from home. There are several big services out there that do this, and their advertising is pretty aggressive. 
You could say, it's a good user experience and it's very convenient for the user. I'm just sitting on my couch. I can order my groceries via app and then maybe 30 minutes later, someone shows up at my door and the only thing I have to do is walk up to my door and pick up the stuff. But who pays the price? Well, it's the delivery riders that are not paid well, that for a long time are even not employed, but so-called ‘self-employed’. These services have a very aggressive pricing policy, so it cannot be matched by the small grocery stores we have here in our big cities, etc. So, for the convenience and for the great user experience, someone or something else pays the price. And that is something I think we in UX for too long have not taken into account. And as I said in the beginning, it's not part of our tool set, and we need to enhance our tools and maybe create new tools to put this into our work, in the first place, to understand the systemic context, to understand the consequences, and maybe the unintended consequences of what we build, in order to be able to do it better, do a better job there and in the end do less harm. 
Gaël (08:36) And how would you do that? Do you have some tools that you like to use? And I know we could drop it later, but let's drop it earlier because it makes some impact, I would say, in the design world, with Apple in its last conference using, I think, at that scale for the very first time, a non-human persona there with ‘Mother Earth’. And I'm not going to comment on the message itself, but more than the way they conveyed the message, which was using a non-human persona. Is it a tool that you've been using some time, Thorsten or do you think about other kinds of tools? 
Thorsten (09:23) This is one of the tools. Because the great thing about non-human personas is that we use a tool we are very used to, from our daily work, and just reframe it a little bit to give other actors in our system, let's say, a voice. And it's always easier to use an existing tool and to enhance it, than introducing a totally new tool. It's easier for all of our processes. It's easier for our work with stakeholders. As you said, there were so many wrong things about this, but still it was very helpful for people like us because now people like us can go to clients or wherever and say, hey, what about non -human or non-user personas? And maybe in the past people laughed at us when we said, hey, let's make a persona for mother nature or for the environment or for trees or the river. Now we can say, hey, yeah, but that's what Apple did and nobody's laughing anymore. So, I still see a big advantage that Apple does this. 
But this is just, just one tool. And something that's very helpful for me is, when starting working on a product or on an experience, we are focusing so much on the user and user needs. And then maybe we try to align this with the business needs that someone else finds very important. And so, this is what we do. And I think we need to add here, what are the unintended, or maybe even known consequences of these things. So what are the negative impacts of these certain user needs? So this is a tool I use pretty often and, and actually a framework I was, and I still am, working on, to be able to see the user needs, and the business needs and then the same framework or in the same canvas, see, okay, but what are the negative consequences on a societal, on an ecological and also on a single human level? Because very often, we also build great user experiences, which are in the end harmful for ourselves. Looking at endless scrolling, looking at TikTok, YouTube, etc, trying to keep us inside of the platform as long as possible and stealing our time. So, this is a very helpful tool for me, mapping our user and business needs to the negative consequences of them. And the third tool I use very often is, and that's what I use before building the non -human personas, actually, it's also very simple mapping. Think about putting your product or your experience in the middle, and then think about all the actors, direct or indirect, that are influenced by the product that is built. So, it's a very simple exercise, but it creates a lot of transparency and visibility. And this is, from my experience, very important to do in the very beginning of the design process, because it helps open up our minds that are so focused on the users and so helps us to understand that there is so much more that we need to understand.And one last tool that is very helpful is to use the user journey. We use this a lot in UX, and also adding additional layers. So, for example, which actors are influenced at this step in the user journey? What is the environmental impact at this step of the user journey? It breaks the very high level view from the beginning, down to certain steps in the user journey, which helps us to work on certain ideas to identify where we can do things better.
Gaël (13.39) So, if I wrap up the four tools you've listed, there is obviously the non-human persona. You would say that the first one you use is this kind of actor mapping, like full scale actors, both, direct and indirect, being impacted by the service.
Thorsten (13.58)Yeah. 
Gaël (13.59) Okay. And then you have this mapping and this is that's quite hard to explain. 
Thorsten (14.04)I call it unintended consequence mapping. 
Gaël (14.07) Okay. This is what you, you go from the business need and the user needs and you go to the environmental and societal impact. 
Thorsten (14.17)Yeah. You can, you can do this in two steps. You can also map the unintended consequences without the user needs and business needs. So this also works. But then the next step that is very helpful is to try to find connections to these metrics that we use every day. The user needs and the business needs. So that's why I put this in there, but you can do this in two steps. But yeah, it's unintended consequence mapping. And then the second step, map these to user needs and business needs or connect.
Gaël Duez (14:50) Sylvie, do these tools resonate a bit or do you tend to use other tools? I know that you've got 58 tools at your disposal, so you've got quite a lot. But does it ring a bell? Or are there different tools that you use? For the listeners, what I didn't say in the introduction, is that, of course, you know digital design quite well, but you're also an expert in the brick and mortar world, I would say. 
Sylvie (15:20)Firstly, there are much more than the 58 that I described in the book. I had to do a selection, so I could easily add probably 40 more. The second point is that my question is a bit different from Thorsten’s question. My main concern is about the fact that in 2015, all the parties met in Paris for the COP21. And they all decided to sign what is now called the Paris Agreement. And according to this agreement, we now have six years to divide our greenhouse gas by two. It means that for me, any project that you can have now in a country, in a company, and could be any kind of territory, in school, wherever you work, must be in this trajectory. There is no way to think about the fact that everything that we are doing must help us to divide our emissions by two. My question is much more about how do we guarantee the fact that every project helps us to attain this goal? My question is very different from does it hurt someone. My question is, are we sure that we are going to a place where everyone can live? 
Gaël Duez (17:31)You work as a consultant with many companies. So how do you manage these very important goals to be taken into account, and how systemic design tools help? 
Sylvie (17:55)The fact is that you start with carbon assessment. I cannot tell for Europe, but in France it's mandatory. That's your starting point. And you check, from this document, that is most of the time a public document, where are the sources of emissions, and you work with all the people who are involved in this emission. It can be producers, it can be providers, it can be the company itself, it can come from many, many parts and you start asking the question, how can I do better? How can I remove things? Yes, the starting point. Also, most of the companies today are facing a lack in many things. We all know that all the raw materials, their prices have been increasing incredibly during the last few years. The question is, how can we still produce what we are producing if the prices are still increasing in the next months or in the next years? And the last point is, how can we be compliant with all the new rules and the new laws that are arriving, and that are also putting a big pressure on the companies? And for the tools that you use, you have many tools that have been created by a guy called Hasan Ozbekhan, when he was working with Alexander Christakis. These tools are called Structure Dialogic Design. They are based on the fact that you need to gather all the people who are concerned and make them talk and really discuss and make them imagine the solutions. And yes, that's the kind of tools that you can easily use when you're working on such issues. 
Gaël Duez (20:18)And among them, could you give us one example of a tool you used, just to grasp it, because it might sound a bit blurry for people not being familiar with a systemic design. And I know that for you, it's extremely concrete. 
Sylvie (20:37)Okay. Like in UX, Design, systemic design starts with research. So a long time researching, exploring the issue and from this research you create what is called a ‘white book’. And a ‘white book’ is a kind of synthesis of the problem, of the situation, of the context. This tool is given to all the people that participate in a workshop. This is a very simple tool. You can create it in, I could say, almost any kind of design project. But the fact is, that it gives to all the participants pieces of information that most of the time they do not have, because they have their own expertise, but they do not know everything about the subject. It helps to align all the participants of the workshop to have the same level of information. That's a very easy and simple tool that any designer can create. 
Gaël Duez (21:51)Thorsten, the emphasis that Sylvie has put on people talking to each other, is it also an issue you've experienced? Or is the flow of exchanges more natural within tech companies? 
Thorsten (22:20)It's a very good question because, well, let's start with how do people work together on digital products. And that's a whole topic on its own. And as long as I do my job or my work, I see these problems everywhere. How do people work together and how good and how do people try to understand other stakeholders in the project, etc. So this is still a big problem space. And what I find very interesting about this question, finally we are talking much more about it. We have these fundamental environmental and societal problems that we need to solve, and we need to create or make sure us and even more so the next generations, that we have a future. So how can we better work together on these problems?In an ecosystem, like a company, where we already sometimes have problems working together efficiently, or let's say in a good way. That is a huge challenge, I think. How can we bring people together? And that means not only people from one profession, like the designers, but all the people, in my case, that are somehow involved in the digital product. And so one thing that I found is that we need to find ways and tools where we can gather people around.One example from my work, I named it before, is the user journey. The user journey is a tool UX designers use every time. It's a very good tool to bring in other people from other professions, because it's very easy to understand. If you have set up a user journey already, you can easily use it to discuss, like I said before, the negative consequences, the impacts of certain steps of the user journey, with all kinds of stakeholders. And that's, I think for us, as designers, that's an important role that we have. I think we can be the connectors. We can help bring people together, and work together on these problems, because we have the tools that help to make things accessible and understandable for all kinds of different stakeholders.
Gaël Duez (24:55)We have the tools, both Sylvie and you have listed some, with different flavors and colors, which is very interesting. But do we have the mindset? Don't we still have very often today a pushback, that everything that we do in a sustainable way is more expensive, is more complex, is more efficient, is more sexy, whatever. Isn't it that we are facing an issue with a narrative around sustainable design, and beyond sustainability at large?
Thorsten (25:32)We definitely do. And that is a huge problem. We need a mindset shift in, well, first, as I explained in the beginning, for us as designers, how do we see our digital design? How do we see user experience? So that's a personal mindset shift for us. But we also need a mindset shift. I mean, that's one of the big, I would say, societal questions. What is value in our society? And this is, this is a huge economical, huge topic we could talk about for hours, but I don't want to make it too big an issue here. But the thing is, as we said, the big problem is that especially from the business side, there is the strong narrative that acting sustainable is a good thing, but it's expensive and that it's not necessarily good for business. And well, the thing is, this is in fact not true. Sustainability is good for business. See Patagonia, for example. And what I also often say is, that especially in the EU, where regulations are coming, it's essential for your business to act sustainable, because otherwise you will get huge problems with regulations. And what I often do is I tell people, or ask people, hey, you might have heard about the regulations about accessibility, about web accessibility. And everyone knows about these challenges. And the same thing will happen with web sustainability, for example, or with digital sustainability. And then people will understand the need of doing these things. I think it's important for us to work actively on changing these narratives on helping people to understand, on stepping in, and countering wrong narratives, because there are many wrong narratives, such as sustainability is just expensive and nothing else. And this is also an important part, not only for designers, but for all of us. To step out of our comfort zone, to step out of our standard daily work. And I sometimes say it's not about designing the next product or the next experience. We need to use our gift, our tools, our knowledge, to design the world around us. And we design things with stories. We are all storytellers, and there are so many wrong stories out in the world nowadays. And I think we need to use our gift to tell the true stories, and to change narratives for good actually. And this is a huge challenge I think we all face (not only designers), but one where we as designers also can play an important role. 
Gaël (28:38)Staying with this mindset idea, something stuck in my mind - it was something that we discussed also previously before this recording - is we need to reduce everything, we put something in production, so we should get rid of something else. And this is a very counter-intuitive narrative compared to, I would say the gross culture that is still the majority approach, in almost all companies and even public services. So how do you manage to change a bit the perspective, to change a bit the mindset that, hey, when you release something, you should also consider getting rid of the equivalent, if not more? Because as you said previously, the Paris Agreement, minus 50 % carbon emissions, on top of many other environmental impacts to be reduced, so how do you help people having this slow painful change of mindset? 
Sylvie (29 :45)I wouldn't say that is a painful change of mindset. The point is, as I said, companies are facing many, many new constraints. The first one is, as I said, the shortage of raw materials and the fact that the price of energy is increasing incredibly. So the point is for the same amount of production they pay more, and they cannot have the price of their product increase in the same way. So most of the time the people that I meet are already aware of the fact that they need to change the way their business is run today. They know that they are facing shortages, they are facing many other different issues, like the fact that the European Union decided to have a plan called the FIT 55, which means that they decided that our emissions must be reduced by 55% in 2030 - it's in six years, it means there will probably be many, many new European rules, and companies know that they will need to be compliant with these new rules. So to me, they already know that they need to be much more sober than they used to be, and they also need to find a way to keep their business flourishing in a very difficult context. To me it's not a big deal, because people in companies are aware of all this. So the questions they are asking today are how can we have energy bills that are cheaper? How can we save energy? How can we do things better? And also they need to recruit people and it's very difficult to recruit young talent today if you're not engaged in a very social and environmental policy. So yes, it's also very good for their, what we call the, the brand of the company. Gaël (32:29)So that's interesting, because both of you, you've listed external pressures such as legal, recruitment issues, supplier prices, as triggers for action. And eventually it's not a question of how aware am I that climate change or biodiversity collapse is a threat to the survival of humankind, but it's, hey, it's already on us, so we have to do something. But to do something, we need to embrace a new way of thinking and re-incorporating those external constraints in a way to design things, products, and services. Am I right to draw this parallel between what you've said to both of you? 
Sylvie (33:18)Exactly the point. It's not about a moral point of view. It's much more about the business concern. 
Thorsten (33:27)One problem that I see very often is, and I agree with you Sylvie, that there is the awareness of let's say the big problem of the climate catastrophe, for example. What I see very often is a missing awareness on the level of, okay, but what's my part in this in detail? Change, unfortunately, is still too often driven by economic pressure. That's the way we all need to use to push business leaders and decision makers. But I would also love to have this discussion about, okay, what can be the additional values to the existing ones or to the existing big value of growth that we have? And how can we align them with these? And I have no answer to these, but I think that's a core question we should work on, or have to work on. 
Gaël (34:26)And there is also the question of the timing of this value. My point being what we value today, like making energy affordable for the entire humankind was a very core value of the development policy in the UN. And we realize now, and I think this is something that Sylvie, you told me before, that very often, systemic design today's problems are the consequences of yesterday's solutions, and the same goes as you carry on into the future. My point about affordable energy for everyone, which in itself, is a goal that I would fully support, is that it created a massive boom in energy extraction, and energy consumption was even an indicator of economic and societal progress. So when we value something today, how do we make sure, or how do we at least start thinking that it might not be what we value tomorrow? And it could be one of my final questions. How can some systemic design tool help us answer this question of the ‘future versus present’ assessment of what is valuable? 
Sylvie (35:58)I would say that probably we must not think about tools, we must think about processes. Actually, the point is not only about tools, it's about the fact that you succeed in gathering all the people around the table. It means that when you are organizing a workshop, and there are many, many tools that you can use in a workshop, the big point of systemic design is you need to have people that represent all the parts that are involved in the problem, and you need to have them discuss and exchange, not only fight you know, but exchange, because the main point is, you need to have in your workshop the people that will implement the solutions that they are thinking about. That's the main point. It means that it's not a top-down process where you have tools, and you think about anything, and you design on your own as a designer. The point is that your work is to make people work together, exchange and imagine different solutions. And from this work, they will implement and give themselves the solution that can work. And that's the main difference, because in systemic design, you are not designing anything. You are just designing intervention in a system. And your work is to have people concerned. Osbekhan said something, that it is not ethical to intervene in a social, technical system without the permission of the participants, of the parties, of the stakeholders, and without their active participation. And that's the main process that we follow. And we have many tools that we can use in workshops. It can be a causal loop, where you show people how things are all connected. It can be leverage points, inspired by the work of Donella Meadows, where you can identify the places that are crucial to change the system. It can be many different kinds of workshop tools, as designers are used to having, because most of the time we have many, many tools.But the main point is how can we gather people that are representing all the parts of the system. And our job is mainly a facilitator. We reformulate, we synthesize, we plan, we organize, but we are not designing a system.
Gaël (39:12)So a designer in systemic design, doesn't design, but structures the discussion about the system. 
Sylvie (39:20)Yes. And the intervention into the system. 
Gaël (39:25)And I really love the question about bringing everyone around the table, which leads me to something super connected, which is: who's representing the future generations? And that might sound a bit crazy, but actually I know that in Wales, for instance, you've got a Commissioner for Future Generations, which means that there is someone whose job is to speak on the behalf of the people who are not yet there. So is it something that you played with a bit, because you mentioned it's very similar to what Sylvia described, but it was at the very beginning of the episode when you mentioned mapping all the actors, et cetera. Did you ever happen to map someone from the future? 
Thorsten (40:14)Not yet, but I love the idea. Because I think it's a different level. And the first thing I wanted to say was, there are so many people looking from a UX perspective and looking from, we are focusing on the users so much, there are so many actors that are underrepresented or not represented in all the work we do as UX designers. So there is so much work to do to give them a voice. 
Gaël (40:48)So, you know, for both of you, my idea might sound a bit crazy, but you could actually leverage it as an overtone window move, which is where you arrive at the workshop and you say, oh by the way, we need to gather everyone, including everyone from the future. And you've got this big reaction, what, what, what, what !? Ah, okay, okay, okay, I got it! So not everyone from the future, but at least everyone from the present. Okay, okay, that's good enough. That's good enough. And suddenly, boom, you've got a big win.Anyway, Sylvie, you know, in your book, there is this chapter, system archetype chapter, which I love so much, because it's so useful to model big interactions etc. But my question is, did you ever manage to use it to go back to, for example, some executive committee, a mayor, a city council, whoever, and say, okay, you know, the issue you're facing at the moment is a tragedy of the commons, is the winner wins all? How actionable are these systemic archetypes? 
Sylvie (42:04)We exchanged with Peter Senge, the writer of a book called the Fifth Discipline, who identified, I would say, patterns, because there are patterns in systems that are not working, these are patterns of dysfunctional systems. One of them is called the tragedy of the commons. And most of the time, it's something that you can meet when you have a common good for people, and everyone is using it and at the very end there is no more left for other people. It can be water, it can be whatever. What is interesting in Peter Senge’s work is that for each pattern we call the archetype of this dysfunctional system, he also identifies strategies. So, the ways that you can intervene in such a dysfunctional system. Most of the time we as the systemic designer know them, but we do not necessarily put them on the table with the clients, because sometimes they are very complex, and the clients are not able to handle it. It's not an easy tool that you can use in a workshop. So, most of the time we, as designers, have this pattern in our mind. And it helps us also to identify the good strategy. But it's not necessarily a tool that we share with all the people around the table, which is different from, I would say, a persona, or a customer journey, that most of the time are very publicly edited and publicly displayed.
Thorsten (44:13)So, my first thought actually was that, taking the user journey or something else is something that is highly manipulated by many people and we want many people 12around the table, I still think from my very personal experience in doing many workshops, that as a good workshop facilitator, you are moderating, but you're also leading the workshop. And there are quite often situations where, as Sylvie also said, we don't say anything, or everything that we know, but try to give the context that is helpful, without throwing everything on to the table. And I think we do this as well. Also, if we work on the user journey, we want to bring all the stakeholders to the table, and we use this tool as a common ground to work on. I still think we, as the designer, we are not giving up all of the control of the situation. So therefore, my thought was, that it's maybe not so different because if we would give up full control of the tools that we use, and let everybody do whatever they want to do, it won't work. Maybe it's not so different. I don't know if this is a good answer, but that's my thoughts. 
Gaël (46:07)This is definitely a good answer. I think we can close our very deep discussions on all these tools, and actually the focus should be a bit less on the tools and a bit more on the mindsets and on the way we gather people together rather than just focusing on the tool because if you gather just two people in the room with the most beautiful tool, I think we will miss the point with the systemic design approach. So thanks a lot, both of you.
But before you leave, I'd like to ask the traditional closing question, which is, would you like to share with the listeners one positive piece of news that you have heard or come across recently to create a more sustainable world? It doesn't necessarily have to be digital related, but of course, if it's digital related, it's always good. Who would like to start? 
Sylvie (47:09)I can start. I have two ideas in my mind. The first one is an article from the UN that I read recently, about the fact that the Sahel is re-greening, for many reasons. The first one is that they have more rain there. And the second one is because they change the way they grow plants. So yes, for me it's very good news. And the other one is about regenerative hydrology, which is a subject I explored recently. And there are many very interesting experiments. So yes, it's very encouraging. 
Thorsten (48:03)One thing that immediately came into my mind and which is not directly connected to ecological questions is, you might know that here in Germany, we have a huge issue with an extreme right-wing party. And there was this research recently, about a meeting, and how horrible things have been discussed there. And what gives me a lot of hope is seeing how many people were going out on the streets last weekend, the weekend before, and so 100,000 people going out there. So, the majority of the people have the right mindset. And maybe we all have different ways of doing things in detail, but we have the right mindset. And it's about how we can activate people. How can we make people understand, okay, here's a problem, we need to tackle this. And seeing that so many people are understanding that there is a huge problem, and this is a dramatic problem, we need to act now. And then people leave their comfort zone and go out to the streets. So, similar to what we have seen with the Fridays for Futures some years ago. Seeing this power of the people gives me a lot of hope, and it gives me a lot of hope to see we have to find ways to activate people for these major problems that we have, but it is possible. 
Gaël (46:07)Yeah. And because they're minorities, they tend to be more vocal than the majority, but yeah, the majority of people are just good folks, especially when it's about surviving or making a species survive. 
Okay, so thanks a lot. Both of you. It was very interesting to have you on the show. I think I'm going to reread your book, Sylvie, with a new angle and re-listen to some of your talks, Thorsten, with the same approach. I think the overall approach and the. mindset with which we should embrace this complexity of understanding things in a systemic way rather than in a narrow silo way. Yeah, that was enlightening. So thanks a lot, both of you, for being on the show, and as usual, all the references to the books, the articles you've mentioned, etc., will be put in the show notes. And now it's time to say goodbye. So thanks a lot. 
Thorsten (51 :03)Thank you, Gaël. Thank you, Sylvie. Really enlightening for me as well. 
Thorsten (51 :07)Thank you very much, Gaël. And thank you Thorsten. It was nice.

Gaël (51:12)Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. In the next episode, we will talk about norms and standards. This is what everyone is asking for in the Green IT community. We want clarity on norms, clarity on standards, clarity on what is truly required. And I realized that, hey, not sure what is actually a standard or a norm. So I will be joined by Audrey Himmer, who's a former lead at AFNOR, the French representative of the ISO network, to talk about what are the norms and the standards which could be applied in the digital sustainability area. But most importantly, How do you build a norm? How do you build standards? Who are the stakeholders? How does it all work? And why do we have different standards, different norms? What are the different approaches? So it is a very unusual episode, but one that will bring light on a much needed topic, as a lot of us are required to boost digital sustainability.
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How do we tackle the Green IT blind spot? 
 🏞️ In many big corporations, IT is never number one, number two, even number three for GHG emission sources (and other environmental factors). But everyone working in the digital sustainability sector knows that, actually, little streams make big rivers with the digital sector accouting for around 4% of global emissions. 
📏 In this episode we explore a very concrete case of measuring IT footprint in a massive corporation: ABB Motion with Thomas Mosser (ABB) and Fiona Leibundgut (SparkIT Consulting). How to kick start, how to leverage the Resilio tool which they chose, how to scale, etc. And the insights shared can be used in smaller organisations as well!

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Fiona's and Thomas’ sources and other references mentioned in this episode:

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Transcript 
Gaël  (00:08)Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO, the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the Tech sector, and beyond, to boost digital sustainability. 
Today we're going to talk about a curse, the Green IT curse. Sorry, it sounds a bit dramatic, but that's actually the point, that IT especially, in large corporations, is very often a blind spot. And this is due to the fact that we are never number one. We don't pollute, we don't emit enough greenhouse gasses. Such a bad thing. But everyone working in the green IT sector and overall in the digital sustainability sector knows that, actually, little streams make big rivers. And I would say actually little streams of greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution make massive rivers of greenhouse gas emissions. It is widely acknowledged that the environmental footprint or the greenhouse share of emissions by the IT sector overall, including devices, obviously, is around 4% of global emissions. This is as much as the global road freight.
Gaël (01:31)But as you can imagine, not every company owns big lorries or trucks, and not a single person has, except for a few exceptions, a delivery van in his or her garage, which is actually the case with IT. So this is why, actually, for the same weight, when it comes to a sector like IT, it's much, much harder to tackle its environmental footprint than road transport, for instance. Hence, my very dramatic approach talking about the green IT curse.And to fight this curse today, I wanted to get my feet back on the ground. We had a wonderful episode with Max Blondeau in December 2023, where we explored technology and cosmology. Then last month, again, I explored digital marketing, which is a topic that I'm not familiar with. 
Gaël (02:19)But today, I really wanted to talk about green IT, and how you deploy and start measuring how to reduce the environmental footprint of an IT system, but in a big corporation, where actually it will never be the number one, the number two, even the number three for emission sources, yet still has a lot of impact because of this ’little streams make great river approach’. To stay with the dramatic tone, I looked for, I would say, two vampire hunters, or at least two very experienced people in the IT sectors with a soft spot for sustainability.I was also looking for a very tangible, very concrete case, and I managed to find both Fiona and Thomas, who worked on the measurement of the IT footprint of a massive industrial corporation called ABB. What is funny here is that we have quite a lot in common with both Thomas and Fiona. Thomas, he actually studied at the same time as me in the same city of Lyon, and now he works in Switzerland. He's a very experienced IT guy, a senior IT manager who leads operational effectiveness, compliance, etc at ABB. And Fiona has the same background as an IT manager. And that's very interesting to see all these common paths, I would say, towards sustainability, where you gather some experiences and knowledge in IT, and at some point you say, wait, I want to do something positive with sustainability. And Thomas obviously is the lead of this big, big project of IT footprint assessment at ABB. And Fiona, basically, she quit her previous functions and now, like me, focuses 100% on IT sustainability, which is really great. I love this approach that once you've gained enough experience you try and do something good in your own industry where you can have the most important leverage. So let's welcome Fiona Leibongut and Thomas Mosser to this very hands-on Green.io episode. 
Thomas (04:11)Thank you, I'm glad to be with you today.
Fiona (04:15)Happy to be here. Thanks for having us. 
Gaël (04:16)It's a pleasure. Before we deep dive on why, how, all the feedback you can provide to anyone working in a pretty big corporation and trying to implement some measurements or some evaluation, sorry, the Boa Vista folks, about your IT footprint, maybe Thomas, what is ABB and it's not a rock band? 
Thomas (04:39) Yeah, thank you, Gaël, for asking it. A very good question. Well, ABB is most of all an industrial company. So we are actually technology leaders in electrification and automation. This is the credo. We do manufacture industrial products in the electric domain. So it goes from the motor, I think medium sized motors to a very large sized motor that would be wider than the room you're probably sitting in. We do manufacture robots as well. We do process automation, enabling factory end-to-end processes in some of our businesses. So we're having a broad range of electrification and automation related services. And I think beyond that, we're also trying to do this in a very sustainable way, and enable mostly business-to-business partners and customers. The business I'm operating in is actually Motion Business Area. So we have four business areas as part of ABB, and Motion is the one manufacturing motor and drive. This is where the whole Green IT story started. 
Gaël (05:47) So you're a wonderful guest because I've got my transition all cooked up already by you. Why did you start focusing on Green IT strategy, the Green IT journey? I don't know the word you use at ABB…
Thomas (06:02) Well, we started with humility. So we started by calling it IT sustainability assessments. I think we need to spread a project beyond. And the why, well, it's a bit of a long story, because you don't get into it like in a snap. It actually takes some time, takes some change management understanding of the issue beyond. There's a couple of dimensions I'd like to touch on. One, obviously, is the broader organizational targets. ABB does have some sustainability targets for 2030, and that makes it very tangible at the group level, that we need to reduce the CO₂ footprint on the Scope 1 and 2, on the Scope 3 as well. So we have a broader mandate given by the organization targets, but I think it really takes a couple of passionate people and a broader understanding on the IT side on how sustainability is actually becoming crucial to make the needle move. 
So this is what really got us into this green IT or sustainable IT journey. And it didn't start from one day to another. It really took a couple of years, actually, to get there. The very inception from my standpoint started with the Climate Fresk. So we started with a colleague deploying and promoting the Climate Fresk internally in 2020 at ABB. And what started from a very small climate-fresk call out in France, I think, then expanded, broadened, and really got into a very structured type of workshop event we called ‘Greener in Motion’ that has been deployed in many countries, in India, South America, US, Europe as well. And that really helped while educating people on climate change and the consequences, obviously. But from an IT standpoint, I've been facilitating a couple of sessions. And this helped me to identify some allies, some people actually concerned with the topic: ‘Oh, we're learning about something, but what can we do to improve the overall IT footprint?’. So this helped us to create a tipping point with a couple of people feeling involved, getting ready and creating a momentum to initiate the green IT journey. 
Gaël (08:14) So the Climate Fresk triggered a sense of awareness or a sense of actions within the IT department, is it what you said? Because did they feel a bit left alone? Like, you know, most of the sustainability is obviously all about the manufacturing process and everything you buy from your suppliers. How did they connect the dots between ‘hey, we receive all this information about climate change’, and on the other end, ‘we're in the IT department, so we're not where the main battle is at fault’. 
Thomas (8:48) People actually go to a climate-based workshop and they take three, four hours to really understand the climate change mechanism and the impact on human life on the planet. So it's a very tough understanding and process. And once you come out of it, you don't necessarily make a clear connection between what's the big problem and what you can do at your own level in IT. Some people make the connection, but the challenge being you don't necessarily identify what's the big impact. What can you do? What are the most meaningful activities you need to start doing? So the Climate Fresk helps us to create a common understanding at the IT level for a couple of people to raise awareness. And we saw the people coming. Some people had a passion, some genuine interest in the topic. And they came to us because we facilitated the Climate Fresk. And by doing so, you get some people along and you start building a sort of momentum, a sort of a team; you create energy as well and some dynamic in the organization. So we translated this into what we call a community of practice, having once per month or once every few weeks, a regular alignment call, and try to understand, okay, what do you do in your organization? Because ABB is a massive organization. We have 100,000 employees. We have more than 2,000 on the IS side. Their colleagues might be doing some initiatives on the end user device, on the sourcing side, on training and so forth. So the intention was to build this community of practice and start to understand, okay, what is happening in a not so visible way already, but is starting to happen. And by putting this small river together, you understand there's more energy, a team ready to work and do something. And the next step, well, you quickly realize that we've got so many people interested in the topic, ready to do something about it, but do we have a clear baseline? Do we know where we are? Do we have clear priorities?  No, we don't. And that's really what got us into this need to start measuring. So let's go and measure something. Do we need to measure the 100,000 employees? Maybe not at once, it's too big, but let's start by taking a pilot country, and we took Switzerland, and captured the footprint, trying to understand what the big rocks are, and what we can do to start moving them. 
So we had a bottom-up approach. We also had top-down ABB framework targets, sustainability targets. And at some point, we needed to get management buy-in and approval to move ahead on this one. So this is where Motion and especially the Motion CRO - I'd like to thank her in this process because he's been extremely supportive of the process - he was convinced. He's been playing the Fresk at some point, she was also ready to support us and get the baseline. If you look around, there's actually a few either passionate people or people who trust about the value of data. And this is where you can find the best management to buy in. Say, ‘Hey, we have a sustainability target at the group level. We have some people ready to do something about it. Where do we start?’.  So rather than going in too many directions, let's prioritize and be clear on the big topics. Let's measure the footprint we have currently. 
Gaël (12:01)Fiona, you've worked with several projects and not only with ABB. Is this kind of approach where you've got kind of step one, raising awareness, some kind of a bottom-up momentum with people saying, hey, now that I'm aware, now that I understand better, we need to do things and self-organize and connect the dots with top management, and getting some support, including financial. Is it kind of the three steps project that you often see or is it very specific to ABB? 
Fiona (12:36)I think it would depend on the industry, and especially for a company, like ABB which is heavy in industry, and you said this very well in your introduction that it's not the first, second or third priority for whoever is in charge of sustainability. Where this movement comes from is something I really empathize with, where in your personal life, you really care about sustainability, you start to practice sustainability in your personal life, and then you start looking at your professional life,  and you don't see how you can make the connection and you're struggling a little bit with this disassociation of ‘I have my personal values, I have my job, and how am I bringing sustainability into my job?’. I'm sure hundreds of your listeners feel the same thing. And I'm guessing this is where Thomas's inspiration came from as well, to start looking around ABB, what it is that he can do, in the remit of his position, to bring more sustainable thinking, especially to IT. And this disassociation is something I saw also in my early conversations with the Motion CIO, which you mentioned Thomas, and what was great, is that he was able to see the proposal laid out by Thomas, and say, okay, here's a practical approach. We're not going out and hugging trees, but we've got a really practical view of what it is we need to do. It aligns with our corporate strategies, so it aligns with my position. And I have somebody in my team who is passionate about it, who is knowledgeable about it, and knows how to find the resources that will help them, and become that mobilizer and influencer within the organization. 
Gaël (14:18)Yes, it resonates with some situations. At some point, if you don't have this buy-in or even limited support from C-level, things start to get a bit complicated and you hit this glass ceiling where people believe that they can change everything. They're like, I cannot go that  (far) up. So, Fiona, how did you get involved? Let's talk about this assessment project in detail. But first of all, how did you get involved in this project? Why did they need to bring you in? 

Fiona (14:50)So I've been having conversations with ABB I think my entire career, even before I was working in sustainability. I was working with ABB, pretty much for the last eight years, I'd say. So when I started my own company, Spark IT, I naturally started to continue these conversations with my contacts and who I knew. At the same time, I was partnering with Resilio because we have a similar vision. And for me, for my own personal company strategy, I didn't want to build another tool that could do measurements. I know there are tools out there that do it really well. And my personal skill set lies much more in change management and company dynamics, organizational structures, governance, in that direction. So there was a great resonance between the skills of Resilio and what I was able to bring on top of my experience of ABB and understanding the immense complexity of this organization, which is not an easy one to navigate. Correct me if I'm wrong, Thomas. 
Thomas (14:58)I'm fully with you, Fiona. I think what really makes it valuable for us was the good combination of a solid technical platform. I think we're relying on the existing norms, regulation, providing a life cycle analysis and simple to use on the residual side. And your skills on the change management and engagement level. I think having someone able to translate the results into something that we can actually have the organization on the people side actually makes a lot of sense. And we're struggling to see these things on the market really. When I look around I can see a lot of good robust solutions available to get the baseline, to get the numbers out, CO₂, water, mineral resources, so even on the different planetary limits and impact. But translating this into tangible findings and projects that people can use to turn the findings into reality is not so easy today. And that's probably a big step forward; the large organizations such as us have to be, have to do in terms of maturity to understand where are we and start planning in concrete terms where do we reduce and where we start.
Gaël (17:12)So talking about this kind of the second step of the project, but at the very beginning, so you've picked Resilio to start this assessment. What did you do concretely? How did you crunch the data? What kind of indicators did you choose to follow? And yeah, we might talk about the pitfalls a bit later. How did it start concretely?
Thomas (17:41)It’s interesting process I must say, 
Gaël (17:45)Interesting because the European way or the American way?
Thomas (17:49)I think both ways actually you'll see that there's a lot of positive benefits but challenges by the way as well. So we started the project so we started with a budget and an RFQ (request for quotation) to understand what's on the market. What is the right tool we can pick and to help us in this overall green IT sustainable IT journey at ABB in order to do a first evaluation. So on the scope, the scope was defined from the beginning. It was clear for us that doing it at the entire group level was too ambitious. And picking a country, a location, where we know the service could be representative of the rest of the group landscape, was much more agile and simple to start with. So limited scope, 1,500 users. It's 2% of overall ABB, but again, similar usage. And then trying to find a supplier. Finding suppliers was actually not so easy. There's a lot of interest today on the market for sustainability solutions. So we had a lot of different partner suppliers coming to us and offering solutions. We felt the value was not so much in buying the skills and competence, but actually embedding this into the ABB DNA, into the IS ways of working.
If you really want to make that sustainability journey sustainable, and to last for more years, because I mean, we're only at the beginning now. We need it for the next 10, 20 years to keep going. And getting the skills internally was quite crucial. So we privileged the technical solution, a robust technical solution platform, and again, reasonable pricing overall. And that's how we got into Resilio. There were a few good candidates on the table. Once we found this platform and signed the contract, well, you actually get into the data collection phase. And the data collection is also interesting in both ways, meaning it's not so simple. If you have a high quality CMDB, you know your assets, you know your server, you know your screens, you know the network, you know the data center you're using, fine. But in reality, there's often some gaps. Typically, the accessories registration was a bit of a gap for us, even though Switzerland was doing it in a rather proactive manner. And the granularity also matters very much. So one, the data you have, the overall comprehensiveness of the data, and second, the granularity of the data. How deep down can you go? And for this assessment, again, we wanted to keep things small and simple enough. We didn't look at 100% data quality or granularity. We felt if we capture the big rocks, the big items, this is enough for us to take the next steps. And then we can reiterate and go more granular, refine the data as we go. So we looked at the big portion. Data center, typically. We have five different vendors globally, with a lot of different locations, server closets in the factories, and a local data center in Switzerland, global hyper-scaler and partner. So we took an overall average on the data center side because we felt that was good enough to start the journey. 
Gaël (21:09)So you provided to Resilio a comprehensive list of all the servers you've been using on-premise or was it an average? I didn't fully understand this kind of average data centers that you talked about.
Thomas (21:23)It's a hybrid if you want. If you look at the landscape in Switzerland, we have offices, we have factories, we have R&D centers. So depending on where you look, you have different types of setup. I think the closer you get to the manufacturing process, the more local servers you might find. So we have a couple of local servers being locally managed. And then we have a large data center provider. What we found out is that the larger the data center and the more external, I think, externally provided it was, the more incentive there was to actually make it really sustainable from the beginning. So economies of scale, overall sustainability measure, and commitment from the vendor. The large data centers were actually not doing too bad in comparison to the local ones. So what we did, we took the server from the local server inventory, the data center inventory, the virtual machines we're using, and so forth.  We collected them all in a file, and then we calculated an average impact. So we looked at the key machines, the key configuration, and said, oh, configuration one, we have three of them in the cloud and 10 of them locally. Or configuration two, we have 50 of them in the cloud and two of them locally. And we made an overall average, knowing that this was the first iteration. So I think the very intention behind it is to make this process iterative.
Gaël (22:52)This is your idea of a sustainable digital strategy. You create a process, it's not just a one-shot of measuring things. Am I right? 
Thomas (23:03)Exactly. 
Gaël (23:05)Fiona? 
Fiona (23:06)I think it's important to mention that when you're measuring, it's important to know why you're measuring and to focus on that. It's very easy to get lost in the details and want to be as accurate as possible. And it is important to be accurate, but is it important to know for every single server the exact footprint. In this scenario, maybe not. And there's something one of your previous guests has said, which really stuck with me, which is that a lot of it is logic, when it comes to green IT. More servers means more energy consumption means less green. In this case, it was important to get a set of data that was informative and gave a view of priorities, of what can be changed and what can be impacted. It wasn't a preparation for an audit, for example, where you would need that extreme precision. 
Gaël (24:01)That's why you've chosen to get some, I would say, standard configurations across the different use cases, so that you can go back to the people and say, okay, we know that you are in the R&D department. Your standard configuration is a bit like this, a bit like that. You use a bit of AWS, a bit of GCP, and you might have some on-premise machine or whatever. So this is kind of your persona, I would say. And this is a footprint, and this is what you can start working on.
Fiona (24:35)Exactly. And it's also important to bear in mind that this is the first time that we've gone through this exercise with ABB. And of course, there's going to be data gaps, because nowhere before has this level of granularity been needed in terms of reporting information for the organization. So this learning from the first time of what are the challenges, what are the gaps, what are the inconsistencies, there's already a higher data quality now than there was before. And next time, it will be even more. So even data gaps of, well, we don't have all the information we maybe need from our vendors.That's something that we now know there's a data gap there and we can work on that to make sure that information is starting to be provided.
Gaël (25:22)And how did you identify, track and remediate this data gap? 
Thomas (25:29)That took a bit of a project management type of organization. So to really make this assessment happen, the timeline is we started back the RFQ in February 2023. We did the vendor selection from March to June, and we signed the contract in July. We then started a data collection. So data collection took us two good months. So that was August and September, with regular data check and data review. So every two weeks, we were sitting with the team. It's been a team effort, not an individual effort. So for data, you need a data center specialist. Network, you need a network specialist. And user devices, I think it's the same story. There was a team of a few people meeting every two weeks and saying, ‘okay, where are we today on the data collection process?’ Initially the very first review was very much driven by the structure, do we have the right structure in the tool to capture, to have the right configuration? Do we have the right assets being reflected to capture the usage we're having today in ABB? And I think the further we go, the more we get into the precise data. So no, it wasn't only about the structure, but what data? So do we have the right number of servers? How do we make the count? How do we make the average? There's some debate on how to do this, it's not easy because there's a lot of sustainability claims on the market as well. So how do you account for software as a service, for example? Do you take the vendor commitment and copy/paste that into your assessment or ? Because we're still missing, I think, a solid regulatory landscape to provide reliability of the data. Do you reassess that and factor it in a different manner? So this debate happened through the data collection process. 
Gaël (27:22)Yeah, I can imagine. I had eight NGO talking about that in Green IO, Paris, and they were like, we need to have something, but it's a long road ahead of us. But coming back to this data, and how you structure it…Goodness, I have thousands of questions,  but lets pick out three for clarity for our listeners. Did you only measure carbon emissions, or greenhouse gas emissions? Or did you start with other environmental indicators, like water, material use, pollution etc?
Thomas (27:59)I think this is one of the great values of the Resilio solution, which is to provide an overall life cycle analysis, and not only carbon, but also planetary limits related measurement criteria. So it's really going beyond the CO₂ impact. I mean, CO₂ climate change is happening now. We need to do something about it. That's where most of the metrics take us to. But there's a lot of different other impacts on the raw materials, on the water usage. And, yeah, this must be coming into the picture because there's a lot of education to be done about that.
Gaël (28:37)And did you spot pollution transfer or any kind of mis-actions that could have been triggered if you had only focused on carbon? Or, overall, everything you do to reduce your carbon emissions, both during the use phase and the embedded carbon, is kind of aligned with water consumption and other environmental impacts?
Thomas (29:02)As Fiona put it just before, I think there's a natural way of looking at it, a rather logical way of looking at it. The less you use, the less devices, the less data center capacity, the less impact you have. And that's true for the carbon impact, but also for the rest. So if you use less devices, or use devices for a longer time span, you actually have a lesser footprint in terms of CO₂ and raw material and water. Because one of the big learning aspects we had was very much about the life cycle stage. Most of the impact, 80% of the device impact, comes from a manufacturing process. So manufacturing is really the big item. You can use it (a device) and the longer you use it, the better it is, because you can depreciate this overall manufacturing impact over a long life span. 
Fiona (29.53)And I think, just bear in mind, that for a lot of people, it's the first time they're seeing data around this. And the measurements for CO₂ as individuals, we're starting to get familiar with it. We start to understand what a carbon footprint is. But when you see a measurement for toxicity or water usage and you don't even know what the unit is, and there's some configuration on the slide that says it's bad, it's very important for this data to be put into context. So you say it's X amount of this bad stuff which compares to something else, you're able to put it into context and understand the gravity of it. Because otherwise this data is useless. And I think we saw a lot of that when going through the data together with ABB and Resilio. If you don't understand what's on that slide, are you really motivated then to make that change that we need to make? So we spend a lot of time focusing on how we are communicating the data.
Gaël (30.56)So do you talk in swimming pools? A lot of the time, when you want people to understand water consumption, you need to translate it into something they can picture, because nobody really knows what four tons of water is. I do it a lot, but I'm not the only one at all. For example, how many swimming pools do you use per day, per month, just to build a chip, for instance, or build servers or whatever? How did you make, for instance, regarding water consumption, things intelligible for people?
Fiona (31.27)It's exactly that; for every metric we put it into context. 
Thomas (31.33)Regarding water we talked, we didn't talk about swimming pools but we actually talked in terms of family usage. So if you take a family of three in a given country, an average western country, it's close to 100 cubic meters per year. And if you realize that your average yearly consumption of water for ABB IS services in Switzerland is already 200 cubic meters, two households of three people could actually live a full year with the same amount of water. I think this is already starting to provide a bit of impact and to put the number into perspective.
Gaël (32.09)I would have loved you to start doing the math with Geneva Lake. But you have amazing leverage, and if you have a global contract, is the plan to change the procurement policy right now, or is the plan to do the assessment, scale the assessment, and then change the procurement policy, to be able to better measure any savings? How do you plan to do this?
Thomas (32:34)If you are asking me personally, I would like to do both. Why? Because measuring is not an end in itself. Why do we measure? We measure to reduce. We measure to understand what we have and where we need to start reducing, to calibrate the ambitions. But we really need to focus on the active reductions, so touching back on the previous questions, scalability, yes, we need to scale. In terms of contract or procurement, this is also the number two finding. A lot of the sustainability impact depends on the supplier. So, engaging with the vendor, with the supplier in an active discussion relationship to, one, get sustainability commitments and criteria in the contract. And two, getting meaningful discussion on the potential solutions we can jointly put in place is really something we need to do. That must be on the roadmap. 
Gaël (33:35)And Fiona, from a change management perspective, scaling from 2%, I know it's not like 2% to 100%, but, how would you plan for such a big step in such a big organization? 
Fiona (33:49)So now we've said it a couple of times, but the question of why we are measuring and scaling the measurement is super, super key. And what Thomas has described in terms of scaling the scope of measurement is looking at what it is that we need to be informed about. They're not trying to measure every single IS component of ABB, because that's not the purpose of the exercise. The purpose is to understand what we've seen in Switzerland, is that still relevant globally? Are our assumptions of this extrapolation correct? What are the other areas that we may have missed that are relevant to other countries, but not to Switzerland? And in the meantime, the findings that we have, let's get started on those. And what we talk a lot about in terms of change management is two levels on which we're addressing it. There's one which is implemented change and the other is mindset change. And they have two very different approaches. The implemented change is very much based on the data. What are the gaps? What is it that we need; engaging with the suppliers. And starting to embed steps in our governance and our processes that take sustainability into consideration, and take these data points into consideration. The mindset change is much harder to get at. And it's something that a lot of these awareness platforms are really good at. And what we look at for mindset is how are we communicating the findings? How are we getting people engaged in that as well, in their day-to-day job? How are we inspiring them? And doing all of this with consistency. It's not just sending out a slide deck and saying ’look what we found, have a good day’, but really building up the knowledge of employees. And I don't just mean IT employees, but anyone who's engaging with technology (which is typically everyone); building up their knowledge of what it means when they get a new phone every three years or every four years, or why should it not be three years and why should it be four years. And working together with the leadership across the organization that will set the tone in terms of this communication. 

Gaël (36:08)And did you already  see some pitfalls or some issues ? Yeah, how do you communicate? Because you say like, it's not about just sending the decks and say, hey, here are the findings, do something about it. So, what is the typical way for you to communicate with other countries, for instance, or another department.
Fiona (36:28)I think the biggest challenge is that this is an initiative that has really been driven bottom up so far. And if you're sitting and you're doing your job and someone comes from the left side and says, look, I did some research and I got some really good data, I think you should change what you're doing and how you're doing it. You're going to look at them and say, well, my job as per my boss and my contract says ‘no’. So it's really much more about how the leadership is living the change or living the data, and believing it themselves, and communicating it to the teams. So, you might come across detractors who, maybe, even in their personal life, they don't really believe in sustainability or there's this also, I don't know if you've both of you've come across this as well? There's a bit of fatigue around sustainability. People are like, oh yeah, okay, fine. Someone else who wants to talk about sustainability, good on you. Let me get on with my job. But it is really more about the channels of how it's communicated, that it's not a personal project that Thomas and the team are doing, but this is really part of ABB strategy, part of ABB IT strategy and beyond. So it should be present in everybody's day job. 
Gaël (37:46)And so how do you tackle this sustainability fatigue, as you said, and do so in a concrete manner?
Fiona (37:55)Yeah, me personally, I do it with pragmatism. I think a lot of people associate sustainability with a sort of blue sky thinking, or big ambition, or we should stop oil today, but a lot more what needs to be done, what's pragmatic, what's realistic, a lot of empathy. And Thomas has a lot of this mindset as well, which is really great, where especially with the conversation about extending the life cycle of devices, there's a lot of resistance to that, because there's no other real reason to do it other than, well, it's sustainable.  But looking at what's practical, you know, starting with when is the next contract renewal date? 
Gaël (38:40)It's like a big ambition. Oh, we've got vendor lock for the next five years. 
Fiona (38:45)Exactly. You know, we don't want to come in and say, stop everything you're doing and, and now start being sustainable. That's not at all how people work. That's not how organizations work. It's more, what are we doing today and how can we start changing it?’And then what are the big milestones where we can do something a little bit more transformational? So, we're keeping ambition levels high, but also not sort of bowling in this, this change that will not be accepted. 
Thomas (39:11)And a good way of doing so, what we're actually going for after the results have been shared and to the project team, we're actually engaging, so that there's the specific team with the highest impact. So if you think, for example, of the end user device management . This really came up as one of the top-run findings in the report,  the highest impact. And probably one of the quickest wins if we really manage to change and adjust to prolong the lease period. So we'll be having a dedicated session with the people who manage the end user device across the group, with different colleagues, and we'll dive into this result. So we'll spend two hours and a half that Fiona and the Resilio team will be facilitating, to look at, okay, this is the data we have, the precise one. Let's sit down together and discuss what would be the next potential solution. What's realistic in the current landscape? There are probably a few bridging solutions we can put in place now, maybe extend or prolong by one year. That can be easy, but maybe it's more about communicating, but there should also be some bigger shots we need to look at. At repairability. A typical example is we actually need modular laptops, we need modular devices, which we can easily repair or change, add RAM, change the battery etc., as we go forward. I think the framework laptop or the Fairphone mobile, we need more of this on the market. So again, it goes back to raising the change, doing something internally, but also finding a broader fix and a strategy with the vendor and partnering with the broader ecosystem to put something in place that can fix it.
Gaël (40:47)That's a good point. And actually, what do you think about the green IT ecosystem at the moment? You mentioned two brands that are quite famous within this niche, of green IT devices. But you're part of a very large group, Thomas and Fiona, you've both worked across Europe and even beyond. So are we a victim of the information bubble symptom or is this ecosystem growing?  And what are the positive aspects of it and what are the pitfalls at the moment for this green IT ecosystem?
Thomas (41:28)I can try from an ABB standpoint. I'm sure that Fiona  would be happy to complement me from a broader perspective. But what I see, if I take Fairphone, if I take Framework, I think they're designing an excellent product, going for modularity, going for sustainability. So they're really setting the way where we all need to go. Can we scale this up and bring it in at 100,000 company level on a global worldwide operation? This is where we need the broader ecosystem to actually inject this criteria into their manufacturing process as well. 
Gaël (42:04)Is it an option on the table?  I'm not talking about like ‘give me the number’ because obviously that's confidential, but is it an option on the table to say, well, in 2025, 100% of our laptops or 100% of smartphones should be provided by Fairphone, because at the moment they're pretty much the only one doing truly repairable and as sustainable as it can be smartphones, or is it just non-scalable for the moment?
Thomas (42:30)I'd like it to be an option. I don't see it as scalable. Probably we can try, at different levels, pilot it and see how modular it can become and use it to pass that mindset change also, to raise awareness on the modularity of the device, what we can do. And I hope that Fairphone and Framework can actually scale up, or that other vendors and suppliers can scale up and bring modularity in their devices.
Gaël (42:53)But why cannot they scale up today? I mean, they cannot supply you with, I don't know, 1000 or 2000 smartphones at once? The issue is the geographical coverage? Is it that they're not fit to work with big corporations, and request for proposals? What are the pain points?Thomas (43:12)Well, to be honest, we haven't gone the full way of going for an RFQ and evaluating how we can do that. We have just finished the assessment now. So regarding looking at the device scenario, it is on the table. That's something we need to investigate further in 2024. And yes, I think this should be part of the discussion. This type of partner should definitely be involved in the scenario and perspective. Will they be able to meet the ABB standard and support us globally? I don't know. I think it will be difficult for them. It will be a bit of a stretch, but it's also maybe setting the path towards a more greener IT landscape. 
Gaël (43:53)It's a kind of a virtuous cycle. I mean, I've seen it countless times. The moment you start having one or two big brands, whether it's B2B or B2C on any kind of product, it's kind of, okay, I'm not the first one trying it. So, if ABB has bought 10K framework laptops, I can do the same, even if I'm a big company. No one will fire me, because I've picked a small supplier. But anyway, I'm not kind of promoting for these two brands. It's just that the two more iconic, I would say. Fiona, what's your thought on it? 
Fiona (42:25)So, I think the topic of green IT is booming. If I compare where we are today to where I saw the topic a year ago, there's a lot more conversation publicly from organizations, from companies talking about what they're working on. There's a lot more conversation at conferences. There's a boom in technology around it. There's a boom in companies setting up services around it. If I look at classic consulting companies, they're all starting to look at this, what is this green IT topic and should we have an offering around it? So there is a boom. I think it's going to continue what's lacking and it's sort of the typical change curve where you have the first peak and then a trough. There's a lot of ambition, and there's going to come a point where it's going to collapse, and we're going to start looking at things like, great, we have all of these ideas and ambitions and NGOs and companies doing all these things. But realistically, how are we going to do this? So there's going to be this more pragmatic upwards curve again, of whatever companies are working on there will be different things floating to the top and the ones that can't keep up will sort of get absorbed. That movement will come with the regulation, or that movement will drive the regulation. That consistency - and a lot of the topics that were discussed at the Green IO conference in Paris, where there are all of these ideas and thoughts and happenings worldwide - but how are we bringing that into consistency in the industry, even a simple terminology agreement? That is going to start to have to come, I hope, next year, and the year after.
Gaël (46:13)And before we close the podcast, I have one question I want to ask you. And I'm not sure you will, you will agree, but, can you share some numbers? Just to give a sense of proportion, not super accurate numbers, it could be a range, for example ,  2% of the ABB information system when it comes to water use, greenhouse gas, et cetera. What is it? 
Thomas (46:37)Yeah. Keeping in mind that it's a first iteration again, so not, not the most granular detail, but overall, for the 1,400 users we've seen, I think we're above 500 tons of CO₂ per year, which translates to 365 kilos of CO₂ per user, and 200 cubic meters of water. This is really the number coming off the top of my head. I think there's more below on the material usage, for example. This is equivalent to five to six smartphones being used and thrown out every day, every year by users. So impact. If you look in terms of the Paris agreement of two tons target per individual in 2050, for example, that's a significant piece. I think it's about 20% of the whole 2050 target. So there should be a real incentive to reduce. 
Gaël (47:32)So that was very insightful and thanks for being that honest with the numbers, the granularity challenge, the definition of the scope, and Fiona, I got it, your favorite word is pragmatism. So I think you can print it on your t-shirt, or whatever, a dress or a piece of equipment you want to use. But I kind of like it as well, because otherwise big expectations fall very fast and very short of doing anything, and changing anything. So I would like both of you to share another piece of good news, because Fiona already mentioned the Green IO Conference. Thanks a lot for this and thanks a lot for attending by the way, with low carbon transport. So both congratulations two times over. But could you share one piece of good news which made you optimistic recently about a path toward a more sustainable world? 
Thomas (48:34)It's not that fun, but I think the regulatory landscape for me is actually bringing some positive news. I see regulation coming into play, for example the European CSRD, and I think there's some French regulation as well, which are really setting precise criteria and ways to measure the IT footprint.So in my view, this will really help us to gain a lot in terms of maturity and reliability of the numbers we see around us. 
Gaël (49:01)Thomas, you know, I'm trying very hard here not to jump on a cliché, by having a cool conversation between a French and a Swiss person, but honestly, you don't help me with this one. It is definitely not the most sexy news that you can share. Like regulations and law and norms. But it is so Swiss, and actually it is so true. And this is why there are so many great NGOs and norms happening in Switzerland, because yes, obviously this is great news. But yeah, not everyone will have the kind of bottom up approach with a green light from top management that you have experiences at ABB, or other companies. So sorry about the cliche. And Fiona, you want to share maybe one piece of good news?
Fiona (49:50)Sure. So as much as I love regulation as the next person or as Thomas does. 
Gaël (49.58) Regulate me. I think we should maybe change the jingle of the podcast. You know, use Regulate by Warren! 
Fiona (50:09)So I'm not going to pick regulation for my good news, even though I do see it as becoming very important. What I love to see is these movements of people, and how natural leaders form out of ideas. And what I'm really enjoying seeing is the growth of the topic of green IT outside of the French speaking world. So, seeing it bleed into the German speaking part of Switzerland, where I work, but also across Europe. And just seeing the passion that has stemmed a lot of, you know, a lot of the good work has been led by the French speaking world. Seeing that overflow now, across, is much more exciting for me than the regulations. 
Gaël (50.58) You need that at some point. I mean, if you've got 1 million passionate foot soldiers willing to tackle a military objective, that could be an option to provide them with some tanks. And sorry about the military image here. And obviously, regulation is like a kind of tank. That's great to have millions of people starting to get really into these green IT topics, but with a bit of help and better weaponry. I would say it will not be a luxury. 
Thanks a lot both of you for joining. I think it was a very in-depth episode, and thanks for being that honest about what you managed, but also what you didn't do yet, the processes, which are even more interesting than the actual results, despite the fact that you've shared them. Thanks a lot for that. I hope it will inspire a lot of people working in big corporations where green IT is not considered, it’s not figuring amongst the top three environmental impacts. Let's talk about it next year, to actually have good tools and good examples to start moving right now and not the next year. So thanks a lot to both of you for joining. 
Fiona (52.05) Thanks, Gaël. It was nice. 
Thomas (52.05) Thank you, Gaël. It was nice to have this podcast.


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0.9g of CO2e. It’s pretty ridiculous when you think about it. According, the French SRI association this is the carbon footprint for a 10K prints digital campaign with a 200k image. So not a big deal? 
Not that simple because we’re talking about volumes in trillions per day here. So maybe it’s a good idea to dive a little deeper on the environmental impact of digital marketing after all. 
Hence we brought 2 experts in AdTech with a soft spot for Sustainability: Diarmuid Gill is Criteo’s CTO since 2019 and has been in Digital Advertising for more than 15 years. Audrey Danthony has also a long career in AdTech, she started her first company, Oxeva, during the dot-com boom when she was still a student at engineering school. And 2 years ago she pivoted and founded with 2 partners Impact+ with the aim of reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions in digital advertising. 


Learn more about our guests and connect: 

• Audrey's LinkedIn
• Giarmuid's LinkedIn
• Gaël's website 
• Green IO website 

📧 You can also send us an email at [email protected] to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics. 


Audrey's and Giarmuid's sources and other references mentioned in this episode:

• IAB Europe  
• NegaOctet database
• Criteo
• Impact+ 
• MCJ’s episode with Netflix CSR Emma Stewart
• 55' study on the carbon footprint of media campaign
• Dimpact
• Scope3
• Solitaire Townsend’s TED talk: Are ad agencies, PR firms and lobbyists destroying the climate?
  
  

Transcript 
[00:00:00] Gaël: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Green IO, the podcast for responsible technologists, building a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. And before we start, I would like to thank the hundreds of Green IO listeners who joined the first Green IO conference in Paris on December the 8th.

[00:00:29] Gaël: It was great to see so many of you and the discussions covered a wide range of topics, as well as the feedback shared. Get ready for more conferences in 2024 because we will come back to Paris in December, but we will also launch our first Green IO London conference September 17th and 18th, and we might have one in Singapore as well if we have enough traction there. Ping me if you're interested to talk or to partner in any of these three conferences.

[00:00:58] Gaël: 0. 9 grams of CO2 equivalent. It's pretty ridiculous when you think about it, and that was a result I got after playing with a calculator based on the French SRI association methodology for a 10k prints digital campaign with a 200k image. 0.8 actually with a French energy mix which is quite low carbon, so not a big deal, I guess?

[00:01:24] Gaël: But not that simple. Because we're talking about volumes in trillions per day here. Moreover, in the past couple of years, several solutions have appeared on the market to tackle greenhouse gas emissions from digital media companies, like Scope 3, the Dimpact framework, and Impact Plus solution, to name just a few.

[00:01:46] Gaël: And the potential savings in GHG emissions they promote are significant. So maybe it's a good idea after all, to dive a little deeper on the environmental impact of digital marketing. Hence, I decided to bring two experts in from tech with a soft spot for sustainability to enlighten us. Diarmuid Gill is Criteo's CTO since 2019 and has been in digital advertising for more than fifteen years. He even worked at AOL, remember?! And today at Criteo, he is in charge of serving more than, I guess, five billion, so quite a tech stack behind it and some carbon emissions involved.

[00:02:30] Gaël: Audrey also has a long career in IT. She started her first company Oxeva during the dot.com boom when she was still a student at engineering school. And two years ago she piloted and founded, with two partners, Impact +, with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions of digital advertising. They already have several global brands as clients, starting with L’Oréal or Heineken.

[00:02:54] Gaël: And for the record, Audrey used to live in the Reunion Island where we met, and we have had multiple occasions of discussing life cycle analysis, the subtlety of brand campaign versus reach campaign and so much more. So welcome Audrey and Diarmuid, thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.

[00:03:12] Audrey: Thank you, pleasure to meet Diarmuid and Gaël today.

[00:03:15] Diarmuid: Thank you very much Gaël, pleasure to be on [the show].

[00:03:18] Diarmuid: The pleasure is mine. So, before we deep dive in how to measure, how to reduce, what is the momentum in our digital marketing industry, how can carbon emissions be measured from digital advertising, and why does it matter? Maybe Audrey you want to share some thoughts on it?

[00:03:39] Audrey: Yes, with pleasure. So as with any product and service, it's perhaps more convenient to speak about evaluation than measurements, because everything we evaluate about these impacts are based on models, and most of them are based on the principle of life cycle assessments methodologies. So when it comes to evaluating the impacts of digital services, the idea is to take into account three tiers. The first one is about the servers which are used to deliver an ad. The second tier is the devices, the end user devices, used by the end user, the client itself who will see the ad. And the third tier are the networks which are used to deliver the ad through the servers to the end user.

[00:04:36] Audrey: A lot of digital services tend to focus on only the impact of the servers themselves, but it's really important to take in account these end user devices because according to a Green IT report, more than 40 of these impacts are due to the mining, the manufacturing, the transportation of the servers, the routers, but also the end user devices.

[00:05:00] Audrey: So that's a very huge part of this. But when it comes to evaluating all these impacts, we take in account not only this life cycle part, meaning the manufacturing of the devices, but also the carbon emissions due to the electricity used by the servers, networks, and end user devices. The idea is to evaluate this electricity consumption and combine this with what is named the carbon intensity of electricity.

[00:05:32] Audrey: It's how much emissions are due to the production of one kilowatt of electricity. And this can depend on the electricity grid of a single country meaning that in France, it's low because of the nuclear plants that are used in our country, but in other countries that could be much higher, because, for example, in Asia, a big part of the electricity can be produced with coal plants.

[00:05:58] Gaël: And what about digital advertising itself? Can you share with us an order of magnitude? How many tons are we talking about?

[00:06:07] Audrey: So, what you must take into account and what you have already mentioned is that it's a question of volumes. The global digital ad spends is a market of about 700 billion dollars per year.

[00:06:23] Audrey: This represents trillions of ads delivered every day. This also represents something like 70 percent of the total advertising investment in the world. Digital advertising has been evaluated as much as 60 million round trips from London to New York by plane. And that's the total, the same total emissions of a country like Ireland. So that's a huge volume of emissions.

[00:06:57] Gaël: And just to keep on understanding the landscape Iwould say, before deep diving on more concrete solutions, who are you talking to ? Diarmuid, same question for you. Actually, maybe Diarmuid first, because I’m very happy to have a CTO around the table to discuss this, but I had a conception, which is maybe a misconception, that this topic was mostly followed by chief marketing officer or chief sustainability officer, and that was not that much a tech or product led topic. So, who are you folks mostly talking to when you're discussing this carbon footprint of digital advertising?

[00:07:43] Diarmuid: Okay, well starting from the point of view of Criteo and from my perspective, I've been CTO since 2020, and people who I talk to most about sustainability are actually employees.

[00:07:57] Diarmuid: We have our ESG groups internally known as Criteo Cares and one of our communities is the green community. It's all about reducing the impact of our business on the environment and really, you know, with some internal colleagues who have been really putting this to the forefront. They're a very intelligent, very well-educated workforce, and they're very aware of some of the negative impacts of advertising and digital marketing on the ecosystem. And so that's primarily the first kind of cohort, I would say, you know, people who are very, very concerned, and they do this in their daily lives and they want to make sure their professional lives follow the same kind of set of values.

[00:08:45] Diarmuid: Secondly, it would be the leadership in general. This is something that's very important for a company like ours that we're seen to be doing the right thing and that we are actually doing the right thing. And it's part of our global CSR report. We've been reporting on these metrics every year. The last one was April of this year. So, showing exactly where we are and giving details on what steps we're taking to improve. The board of the company as well is something [important], they ask quite a lot about this and are very interested in our hosting strategy and what we're doing to reduce the impact.

[00:09:21] Diarmuid: And then externally, more and more, we're starting to see our clients who are asking, as part of your RFP process, to want to know that we're doing, you know, what efforts we're doing on this, as well as our partners, all of our ecosystem supply chain partners and so on. And this is something that I haven't actually measured, but you can see year over year, the number of people who ask us what we're doing in this area is increasing both internally and externally.

[00:09:52] Gaël: So, you're kind of blessed, because you've got the beautiful alignment of all the planets. Usually, when I meet colleagues, clients, etc., you don't have this strong alignment from the colleagues to the board, but maybe it's due to the very nature of your activity. And Audrey for instance, the people you interact with, when we discussed, obviously you put on the table and you did a bit of name-dropping. That's a fair game to play, talking about L'Oréal or Heineken, but are they representative of your clients? And who is investing time and energy to decarbonize digital marketing? Is it mostly pushed by big brands, big corporations, or actually is it another misconception of mine? And you've got also, you, medium sized companies, even small PR agencies.

[00:10:40] Audrey: Yeah, I would say that it's not dependent on the size of the company at all. We work at Impact + with a lot of different types of companies that could be very small and local and network or at tech that would be global companies, such as the ones you mentioned previously.

[00:10:59] Audrey: Actually, a recent report by the IAB Europe, said that sustainability is one of the top three challenges for digital advertising, and that includes advertisers, agencies, technology providers, high tech, and so on. I think that now everyone, every company, is concerned about this, basically because of the consumer themselves.

[00:11:28] Audrey: Another report mentioned that 77 percent of people globally say that in five years, they will only want to be spending money with brands who practise green and sustainable advertising. So that's huge. And that's driven by the consumer itself first, but companies are also under pressures from their investors, and from regulation.

[00:11:54] Diarmuid: We've seen more and more companies who invest in companies like Criteo. So Criteo is a publicly listed company for 10 years. And there are a lot of funds which now have a policy that they will only invest in sustainable funds, companies who meet certain criteria. It's really important, for us, in terms of ensuring that we're looking after our shareholders as well, that we make ourselves eligible for those.

[00:12:22] Diarmuid: And that's actually, you know, one of my team, Guillaume, had made me aware of this years ago, where he talked about from his own perspective, every time he has some money to invest, he always makes sure he only ever invests in sustainable funds. And so you get something where you get the nice synergy between something that is good for the environment that looks good, but that actually is good.

[00:12:47] Diarmuid: And so it's really encouraging good behavior, from the perspective of the company. Then it gets back to the point you raised, which is, you know, how do you qualify for this? And so how do you make sure that you're able to do all of them, you know, kind of hit the right targets. It goes back to some of the points that Audrey raised about, kind of measuring your exact impact on the environment.

[00:13:13] Gaël: Well, it's a deep dive in one or two concrete case studies. Let's imagine that I'm a CMO, a chief marketing officer, and I'm getting really concerned about greenhouse gases. What can I expect? Let's start maybe with Impact+,what can I expect? Why should I knock at your door and what will be the step-by-step project that I should follow to get the answers I'm looking for?

[00:13:45] Audrey: So first, what you can put in place is to evaluate a baseline of your total greenhouse gas emissions due to digital advertising. The idea is to evaluate as many campaigns that you can in order to know what your current status is about greenhouse gas emissions. And then you can put in place very simple levers to begin very rapidly to reduce this impact.

[00:14:17] Audrey: Basically, you can work on your creatives, perhaps limit the duration of the video that you will transfer and that you will deliver to users. You can work with your creative agencies to optimize the images that would be shown to use the users, that's on a creative part. You can decide to deliver more ads on smaller screens to reduce the electricity consumption due to the delivery of the ad on TVs, for example.

[00:14:51] Audrey: And you can begin to test. So, maybe test it on your campaigns, verify that these reduction levers have no impact on your media KPIs, because as a marketer, that's your main KPIs. So efficiency, like the video viewed by the user, the viewability, the click-through rates, the transformation rates every, advertising, KPIs that you normally have a look at when you deliver it.

[00:15:21] Audrey: And then after having validated that these levers have no impact on your media efficiency, you can then put in place a plan to deploy these actions on every single campaign that you deliver. And this process, we put this in place with many advertisers, and so now, from the first step that they did, starting in France, they began to evaluate one or two campaigns And now they are deploying this reduction lever at scale in more than 20 countries. And perhaps in more than 40 countries next year. The idea is to set a baseline, test, learn, and deploy at scale. That would be the steps that I would recommend to any marketer.

[00:16:08] Gaël: So those three steps beautifully explained :create the baseline, test and then deploy scale, for all your campaigns. Maybe we should unpack the three steps one by one . So the baseline - how do you calculate the baseline? What are both the ingredients but also the hypothesis ? For instance, do you account for embedded carbon? If so for servers, for digital devices. What are the assumptions regarding energy consumption? Are you only focusing on carbon? Could you tell us a bit more? And do we have in this area a commonly agreed methodology so far to measure a digital advertising footprint?

[00:16:57] Audrey: No, not yet. About the methodology, there is a methodology and standards framework actually, that has been built by the IAB France and SRI, so the Alliance Digital and SRI in France. A few years ago now, I think that the first version has been launched in 2021, and this is currently in evaluation and validation from a lot of other sustainability groups in our industry, meaning IAB Europe; the WFA said the organizations that represent the global advertisers are also evaluating and comparing many methodologies these days. So for the moment, there is no global evaluation framework that has been deployed at scale, but we hope that this will happen.

[00:17:56] Audrey: Our recommendation to marketers and that tech is not to wait for this () because the first discussions have begun in 2020 it's now three years ago) to begin to act. We need to act rapidly and there are some proxy information KPI s that could be used to reduce the impacts , that could limit the volume of data which are transferred, it could be using greener electricity for your servers, it could be planning your campaigns in a different way so that you use greener electricity, actually, depending on the day of the week or the hour in the day. There are multiple things that you can do without waiting for a global framework to be adopted at scale.

[00:19:00] Diarmuid: Yeah, it's actually very bewildering the amount of different ways to measure and the different approaches that you can take. And so my hope would be at some point that some standards body like the ISO or maybe pushed by the W3C will be able to come up with a standard that you can actually measure. Because one of the problems is with all of this data, depending on your perspective, you could see two different measurements, which are saying exactly the same thing, but, you know, kind of that are almost impossible to compare. And so I think that's something that's really, really important.

[00:19:41] Diarmuid: To Audrey's point, I don't think we should wait. I think we already have enough information within each individual company to know what it is we do today. So obviously we need to increase the rigor in which we approach all of this, and not just to look at single metrics.

[00:19:59] Diarmuid: So Audrey talked about some of the really important things specifically around ad serving. So reducing the payload, reducing the complexity, reducing the duration and stuff like that. And all of those are good, but they're somewhat only the tip of the iceberg with respect to what happens in the overall kind of creation of an advertisement.

[00:20:19] Diarmuid: So, you know, in a company like Criteo, we collect a lot of data on a daily basis, which we use to make the decisions on which advertisements to send. And so we do machine learning. So that obviously requires a lot of processing. And so at each step it's really important that we as a company are optimizing as much as we can to try and reduce that now that is a double benefit in terms of, from my perspective as a CTO , that being efficient reduces costs , being efficient increases our efficiency or how we serve our clients and doing all of that actually reduces our carbon footprint . So it's like a win-win, but at each step, taking into account, you mentioned about the carbon footprint of the machines themselves, so the frequency at which we renew our servers is something we have to take into account.

[00:21:16] Diarmuid: And so, at some point, to be able to come up with a measurable concrete figure that we can publish, that we can show to our clients, and then at some point, probably through regulation, but, maybe it won't even need that, that every company engaged in digital advertisement will actually publish their carbon footprint as a result of this, so, you know, it's not just the advertising industry itself, but all of the companies who advertise online. It would be really great if you went on some of the big brand advertisers that we all know, and we could actually see exactly, you know, how they're advertising changes from year after year, and we could see the efforts that they're making through their whole supply chain to reduce their impact.

[00:22:00] Gaël: And that's super interesting, because with you we can see under the hood. Do you have the top one, top two or top three, in your own experience, what were the most effective ways to achieve efficiency?

[00:22:16] Gaël: So one of the things that happens with software development is you develop features organically over time. So you know, you start with a simple application and you extend you extend you extend and it's a little bit like if you built a house and then you kept adding extensions to it. After a period of time, you realize that you've got this kind of crow's nest of the coupling of dependencies and so on. And every once in a while, you need to kind of go back and do some spring cleaning. And so what we found was we had lots of things with redundant code, or inefficient code, or duplicate code.

[00:22:53] Gaël: And so going back and taking the time to refactor, to re-architect, and sometimes to actually redesign, really generated a lot of benefit. Now the challenge that we would have, and every software development company would have, is that you get pressure from the business to continually add new features, because new features means you can provide more value to clients to get more revenue and so on.

[00:23:18] Gaël: Whereas, you know, refactoring the code very often you're looking at just a cost efficiency. And so it's really making the case. So me, as a CTO, I need to work with my partners in the product organization and in our commercial organization and say, I need to keep a certain bandwidth of my team's available time to be able to work on improving our code, right. So it's having that constant looking-at, so that we don't let the code get so bad that it becomes inefficient, that it becomes slow and that it's generating costs. It also helps with respect to employee morale. People don't like working with old legacy crappy code. So that also helps as well.

[00:24:03] Gaël: So we're trying to incentivize good behavior whilst at the same time trying to show to the business the benefits of spending time on this versus just adding feature after feature after feature.

[00:24:16] Gaël: So if i'm one of your customer , either Citeo or at Impact + customer, do you have today, we said, all the knowledge you've gathered, the ability to tell me, okay, if you want to run a one million targeted people campaign video based, something like ten seconds etc., if you run it that way, you will use that many servers, that we will consume that much energy, and eventually that will emit that much greenhouse gas and play a bit with a different scenarii, or is it a bit too much science fiction?

[00:24:53] Diarmuid: So I would say we're not there yet, and part of it goes back to what Audrey talked about in terms of not having an established framework, because, you know within the ecosystem, clients often will compare us to other people in the ad tech space. And so my answer would be, it depends on what you choose to measure. And so if it's purely just related to the serving of the ad, well then that's how many bits and bytes you're sending over the pipe and the impact that it has on our servers, on their website, on the devices of the end user.

[00:25:29] Diarmuid: But then there's the question of, do you take into account the embedded carbon of the machine itself. And do you take into account the amount of energy that we use on a daily basis and so on. So I think part of that really depends on going back to where we talked about, which is having like an industry standard.

[00:25:48] Diarmuid: So that if they come to a company like Criteo and they compare us with the alternative options, that they're able to have a concrete measure where they can see who's doing better than the others and that they can rely on those numbers.

[00:26:02] Audrey: About the way the ads are delivered from servers to servers, a lot of the ads also, not, not the biggest part because the biggest part of digital advertising is still delivered through social platforms and video, video ads on the media part. Part of the digital advertising ecosystem is built on what is named programmatic advertising, meaning that there are a lot of different players through the supply chain between the publisher who will deliver the ad to the user and the advertiser who is buying the ad. And there are many different technical systems named DSPs or SSPs ad-exchange in this supply chain. And so that's difficult from an advertiser's point of view and even from the publisher point of view to know who is involved. In this supply chain, it's not fully transparent and it's not at all transparent, actually, for most of these people, the advertiser, the publisher, and so this non transparency of the supply chain makes it very difficult to understand who is involved and how much data is also transferred from the advertiser to the publisher. And this leads to difficulties in evaluating the whole impact of a digital ad. And that's one of the biggest problems of our industry.

[00:27:32] Gaël: But your tools provide dashboards, and I’ve seen them where you say, okay this campaign has admitted that much etc., but what are the shortcuts that you have to take in order to provide numbers that will be consistent and coherent?

[00:27:46] Audrey: So, let's say all the evaluation services are based on the same kind of modeling of this supply chain. Including a number of intermediaries, including a number of connections, for example, between the website and the different SSPs or DSPs. And these are all based on models, and that's why also I'm pushing to use evaluation, instead of measurements. It's because nobody has the full view of this. Every single evaluation tool is relying on data declared from parts of the supply chain, but don't have the full view of that. And so we use this evaluation to show that for a given ad, there should be more intermediaries because we know it, as an average, but for a single impression, that's a bit more complicated to know.

[00:28:45] Audrey: And for sure, no one from a brand perspective or from the publisher perspective has a full view of this, especially on the number of servers that has been involved as, Diarmuid can have on his company level data, but on the client side and the seller side, we don't have this full transparency of how many resources have been used.

[00:29:11] Audrey: Do you manage to incorporate somehow the embedded carbon from the professional equipment involved, like server or router, or is it something too blurry? No? Yeah, you manage?

[00:29:24] Audrey: Yeah, there is some data that has been published by the ADEME and a consortium named NegaOctet, which has been also published by the ADEME, actually. And that's a great resource to understand how much embodied emissions you can have on the device, the end user device, the servers and the networks.

[00:29:52] Gaël: And what about the very tricky question of end user devices? Do you take into consideration some estimation of the energy during the use phase? Do you take a chunk of the overall embedded carbon? That's almost a philosophical question within the industry. I mean, the digital industry.

[00:30:11] Audrey: We integrate both the embodied emissions and the electricity consumption of the user data. So that's for the evaluation itself, meaning that when we speak to an advertiser or to a tech, we must show everyone. A big part of the emissions are still on the embodied emissions on the device side, and this has an importance because, for example, on the AdTech side, you can work on your SDK to lower the amount of resources that would be used on your individual devices, limiting the number of end user renewal.

[00:30:46] Audrey: So this is important to explain to everyone that a big part of this of these greenhouse gas emissions are due to the embodied emissions. But when it comes to the reduction, then we focus our clients on reducing the electricity consumption itself, because we think that any level of optimization that you can put in place actually won't have any real impact on the embodied emission, meaning that if you decide to target smartphone instead of TV, we assume that it has no impact on the renewal on the TV or on the smartphone itself. So, yes, we take both but not in the same use case.

[00:31:30] Gaël: And just wrapping up what both of you said if i understood right, the top three things that if i were absolute beginner in the digital marketing area would be pay attention to the size of your content like video vs image vs text etc., (not necessarily in the right order), pay attention to on which device it will be delivered, make it compatible for smartphone rather than big screen etc., because of the embedded carbon footprint, and the third one would be make sure that when you deliver whatever it is world-wide, do you manage to do some carbon awareness that it's when the grid is - and I'm sorry to use this ugly word because very misleading - but the cleanest possible, I would say, or I should say the proper word, which is the lowest carbon possible. Are these the three main levers or am I missing some very serious one as well?

[00:32:29] Diarmuid: I would add a few more around that. So, one of the things Audrey mentioned was around the number of different partners or the number of different players who get involved in the chain. So, there's a thing called supply path optimization, where you have to remember everyone who gets involved is a commercial company.

[00:32:50] Diarmuid: And so, going back to the FinOps point of view, every one of those is somehow taking what's called the digital tax. And they're adding to the cost somewhere. They're taking value out of the system. So the minimum number of loops or connections that you have, actually helps increase the efficiency of your spend.

[00:33:10] Diarmuid: So, if you come at it from a financial perspective, you're actually kind of making the overall end to end much more efficient, which will reduce the number of servers, which will reduce the overall impact.

[00:33:23] Gaël: This really resonates. I should hopefully not forget about it, because that's something that surprised me.

[00:33:29] Gaël: I guess you both of you, you're familiar with a study that was published by 55 and, the two main leaders are also Shift project members, and what surprised me is that the number of layers has a huge impact actually on the overall carbon footprint and we tend, as Audrey, you mentioned, and I should have remembered that it was pretty impressive, how adding an extra layer, it's not exponential, but adding an extra layer brings some extra kilos of CO2 each time.

[00:34:03] Audrey: Actually, what you mentioned at the very beginning of your question are simple levers, but that's not something that should be done without testing. And also, you should always link these levers to the right KPI to be evaluated. And so, this is important as a brand or publisher. When you deliver an ad, you are aware of what you try to achieve in terms of KPIs, meaning that there are some clients, sometimes some brands, who are still buying video ads to drive clicks. And so, this leads to volume of impressions of videos that are huge and they don't drive any clicks at the end. And this is a total loss of energy. There are also numbers, huge numbers of ads, which are still not viewable, meaning that when you buy an ad, this is not viewed by the end user, but this is delivered.

[00:35:04] Audrey: And so, there are places where they have a lot of waste actually. And you buy ads that don't achieve your objective. So, this is important to use the right KPI to evaluate, not to link greenhouse emission s to one single impression of ads, because you can have ads which are videos, but which are actually at a high price, so for the same budget we will deliver less video than small ads, which are perhaps less impactful for a single impression. But at the end you will, for the same budget, you will buy 10 times or 100 times more than videos. And so, you should also be aware of any kind of rebound effects that can happen when you do an optimization. And you mentioned, Gaël, at the very beginning, saying, yeah, you can target smaller screens. When you target a smaller screen, you can also have users with 5G connection. Which is actually more electricity intensive than WiFi that you would have used on a bigger screen. And so, this is important, to evaluate the combinations of devices, networks, servers, and also combining this with your campaign KPIs to see which kind of ads, which player, which company, which offer, would be the most efficient for you, in a given context. And then with this evaluation, you can select and push more on this given format in this company because that's more efficient for your KPIs i

[00:37:03] Gaël: Yeah, I really like your approach that you should interconnect business KPIs and environmental KPIs to make sure that you don't go at ninety degrees. Yeah it makes total sense.

[00:37:17] Gaël: You were mentioning at the very beginning of the episode IAB effort, SRI effort, that slowly, and very slowly, but hopefully, surely, we might reach some kind of agreement among the industry. So, you were mentioning Europe and the French from SRI, I know that the Germans, they're pretty active on this topic too, but I want to ask the very impolite question: what about the Americans? Because if they don't move and if there is not a standard endorsed by the Americans in digital marketing, nothing will happen. So, could you tell us a bit more about it?

[00:37:59] Audrey: So, the IAB Tech lab, which is part of the IAB US, was also launched at the beginning of this year. I think he's on the sustainability group. So, I think, I think that Europe is still more in advance than the U. S. for the moment on the ad tech part, but the WFA, so the global organization representing the advertisers, has also launched a group last year, I think, the WFA GARM, which is currently evaluating the different frameworks that already exist on the market and to see which one, they would take in account in their global online plus offline advertising evaluation framework.

[00:38:55] Audrey: So that begins to move from the advertiser perspective. And if the advertisers. are moving, then the whole supply chain will move much faster.

[00:39:08] Gaël: And Audrey, that's interesting that you mentioned the entire supply chain because I've got two more philosophical questions before closing the podcast. And the first one being what I call the, - I think I will write something about it in 2024- the digital sustainability curse. And we are cursed because our footprint is super huge but super dispersed and so it's diluted across every sector, every company, every household. And eventually we always assert a force in the ranking of top greenhouse gases being emitted you know. Look even at Netflix okay - and that's the same story for many big tech companies - but look at Netflix. It is believed that at peak time in the US they consume more than 30 percent of the entire US internet bandwidth. That's just an amazing number. And yet, quoting here, Emma Stewart on my climate journey, the Netflix chief sustainability officer, she basically told everyone that more than 80 percent of Netflix footprint is emitted by content creation. And the same goes in advertising. You know, you do a shooting and you need to move a team by plane, and voilà, a high percent of your campaign footprint is in the making, rather than in the distribution, and until now we talked mostly about the distribution and yet, you know, still very important and we know that gathering all this little streams all this little rivers and it will make big flows at the end , of carbon being emitted in the atmosphere so do you face this opinion or this kind of rational decision from well-intentioned people saying, 'Hey, you know, okay, I got it. I got it about digital marketing and your campaign, our campaign even being a bit dirty, but let's focus first on content creation, etc.' And what do you answer, when you face this kind of, what I would call, false arbitrage; are you cursed?

[00:41:19] Diarmuid: I would say, so far, we haven't faced it that much. I think we're at the start of the curve in terms of where awareness is just beginning to rise, and people are starting to ask the questions. So, for example, the statistic that you just raised, I was totally unaware of that. You know, I was thinking about the increase in online video and consumption, but I never thought about the carbon footprint put into the creation of that content.

[00:41:48] Diarmuid: It's similar in advertising technology. I think people are only starting to ask the questions. And then when they get the first part - so we talked about the cost of serving an ad - but that's actually much, much more behind it, you know, involving the creation, the production, all of the calculations that go behind.

[00:42:08] Diarmuid: And so as we start digging deeper into this, the subject, then we're going to ask more and more deeper questions, more comprehensive overview of the end-to-end. And at that point, hopefully we can get as an industry to some more concrete and standard measurements, so we can compare like with like.

[00:42:27] Diarmuid: I would say we're not there yet. I think we're only starting on that conversation and it'll probably take some time to come up with some kind of standard metric that we can all compare.

[00:42:40] Audrey: I think that for the hi-tech site, so the seller site, most of the CSR team have understood that they need to clean up their own room, meaning that they are not involved in the production side of the advertising, they only receive the creatives that has been done, and so they need to work on their own technology, not to focus too much on what the advertiser s have done on the production side.

[00:43:11] Audrey: On the brand side, let's say, this has already been a discussion, on the production companies, meaning that the clients are also pushing the production company to reduce their waste, work on their emissions, limit the number of flights to build the ads and so on. And this has been pushed through many discussions that already have happened in the past.

[00:43:44] Audrey: So that's already addressed. And these are different people in brands that are involved in producing the creatives and buying the ads. So they are both involved by the CSR team to reduce as much as they can on their own scope, meaning that the media teams, media buying teams are involved, the creative teams, are more involved and every time they are issuing a RFP, a request for proposal, they include their sustainability requirements, or at least sustainability information.

[00:44:29] Audrey: This is now in the process and everyone is focusing on his own business. So that's not really a pushback because our clients are more on the media buying side of the things than on the creative part.

[00:44:45] Gaël: Yeah, it makes total sense. And that's kind of a good news. If everyone is attempting to reduce emissions where they can, you know, literally at the front door rather than trying to put the garbage in someone else' s backyard. So that's pretty good news

[00:45:05] Audrey: I will just complete it, it's not everyone, it's not in every company. It still has to be really deployed at scale. But in there are some company level decisions that are important. There are also a lot of individual choices in each single company, there are people who are making the organizational changes, and that's very important to help these individuals that have actually the power to make the whole multinational company move rapidly.

[00:45:44] Gaël: I got it. I got it. Makes total sense. And thanks. My last question before we close the podcast, maybe a bit more philosophical, but I have to ask it because to be honest, I know that I will have some comments from listeners about inviting people from the advertising industry, which is not as bad as the airplane industry, but let's say that you don't, you know, rank super high in the heart of many, I would say, climate activists, and on the other hand, I cannot not acknowledge all the efforts that you're doing and explaining and you're trying to bring regulation, et cetera. So, you know, the philosophy of the podcast is that everyone is welcome to share what they do to make the world a better place when it comes to environmental issues. This is why everyone is welcome. Yeah my question about the advertising and it's something actually I'd like to discuss with you if it's something that you feel a bit when you interact with people, is, if i was a bit provocative i would call it the Solitaire Thompson wake up call. I don't know if you've seen this TED talk, where basically she's a former executive from very big communication and PR company and she deliver this TED talk basically saying that PR and communication agencies are destroying the planet and they need to change the way they see the business in a very aggressive manner, because just adjusting is not enough and it's really basically stop working with any business that is not sustainable etc.

[00:47:28] Gaël: Does it make sense according to you? And is there already some kind of reflection in the industry, or at least with the people that you're discussing? Like, I know I don't want to work with this ultra-fast fashion company because I really do not see the point of promoting their business. Or is it something different with this kind of silos approach that you've described Audrey? What is the mood of the advertising industry, at least digital advertising industry, and at least what you experience on your daily basis ?

[00:48:02] Audrey: Of course, the elephant in the room is the advertising mission, meaning that the emissions due to the products and the service that are sold because of the advertising.

[00:48:22] Audrey: Everyone has to clean up his own room. That's our position at Impact +. Every marketer needs to begin to think about what they are doing, what they are selling, and so on. The overconsumption won't stop this year. And we, as individuals, as co founders at Impact+, decided to stay in this industry, to try to realign our own values with our day to day work life and see what we could change into our own industry, meaning that we are not producing these products. We are not producing these services, but we need individual marketing teams to think about first what they do, to empower them to in the future think wider and think how they can change the product and the services that they sell.

[00:49:25] Audrey: And then we need to begin with something to speak with the marketer. And digital advertising is one of the parts which can be changed rapidly, efficiently. And to show that it has no impact on the company results, let's say. And if we can show that, then perhaps we can widen the discussion in the future.

[00:49:54] Diarmuid: Everyone has a responsibility in the industry, our partners, the brands, all different types of retailers, and individuals, in how we consume the Internet and how we consume our products, what we use, what we don't use. I think digital advertising is something that's incredibly important for the Internet as we know it today.

[00:50:14] Diarmuid: Right? Your podcast, Gael, is free and it's paid for through subscriptions and through your own hard work. But much of the Internet is actually funded through digital advertising, and so it's really the only large-scale economic model that works, because if everything goes subscription based because, you know, creating the content, as you know, it's time intensive and it costs money. If everything goes subscription based, and that actually takes A lot of what we appreciate is the internet today out of the reach of so many people. Advertising helps keep so much content open and free and available. That's super important. We also helped keep, you know, choice for end users in terms of where they buy online.

[00:50:58] Diarmuid: And so, for many small businesses, you know, advertising is the only way that they can survive against, you know, the large multinational corporations. And trying to find the right way that we can protect the ecosystem, that we can provide value to all participants, I think is super important. To do it in a responsible way that, you know, we are conscious of the impact we have in the environment and that we do what we can to measure it first and then to be able to reduce it.

[00:51:26] Diarmuid: Because, you know, whatever number you come up with today is less important than the fact that you're trying to reduce it, and you're trying to optimize it, and so on. Looking at all of the participants and working all together to understand how we can all collaborate to make the world kind of a better place, and reduce our impact on it, I think that's the secret to progress in the conversation.

[00:51:51] Gaël: Fair point. It's interesting to see that yeah, it's a question of where you start your journey and in which condition you can evolve and push things forward. So thanks a lot to both of you for being honest and transparent about where you stand and where you actually want the industry to go and to move forward.

[00:52:13] Gaël: To close the podcast I would love to finish on an uplifting news. I'd like both of you to share a very positive piece of news that you've heard recently, and that made you optimistic about our past and about a sustainable future.

[00:52:33] Diarmuid: For me, I don't think there's any one single piece of information that I think is the positive thing. I think it's a collection of things. I'm an optimist by heart. And so, you know, the fact that more and more people are engaged in the conversation and Gaël, as I listened to your podcasts while I'm running, then it's overwhelming the number of people who care about this, you know, who are getting involved and who are looking for different ways to make an impact. I take great courage from that. The problem is huge, but there are a lot of people who are concerned about it. Also, I see that there's a lot of innovation in terms of renewable energy, you know, energy storage methods that don't use rare earth metals. Lots of different kinds of innovations in how we handle water desalination, and so on, trying to do them in an environmentally sustainable way.

[00:53:26] Diarmuid: I think technology has a huge part to play in helping turn things around. I'm just, very, very hopeful that it can, all of these innovations can arrive before the impact and the harm is too great.

[00:53:41] Audrey: I would say that the, the positive news, it's not a news, but a trend that we can see, is that there are more and more students, going out from huge and important universities around the world who really want to work on sustainable products and sustainable services. They really push for a change in mentality and not only in mentality but in reality. And I think that the good news is that the younger generation now know and now want to act rapidly. And that would make everyone change in the same way I think

[00:54:34] Gaël: And I hope this podcast very modestly contribute s to that, but thanks a lot both of you, that was great to have you on the show. I must admit that it's not my comfort zone, I would say, digital advertising. I was more like a CTO having to interact and to get all these barbaric names plugged into my information system, rather than someone really doing the hard job of selling stuff. So thanks a lot, because I've learned a lot with you today, and I'm sure the listeners as well. We might discuss again in the future if methodology, standards eventually arrive, that will be a big move forward.

[00:55:12] Gaël: So once again, thanks a lot and have a nice, not too hot day.

[00:55:20] Diarmuid: Thank you, Gaël. Take care.

[00:55:22] Audrey: Thank you, Gaël and well done for having learned a lot about our complex industry in such a short time.
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We don't always need a science-fiction device "à la Star Trek" to get transported somewhere else.Discussing with Maxime Blondeau results in such a journey where I discover how anthropology, geography, and cosmology can help us understand better digital technologies and more specifically:🤯 Why Digital Tech is not the first mind revolution humanity has gone through🌪️ Why its magnitude will be as impactful as the previous ones🗺️ How our representation of an over expanding digital world alters our perception of our material world🧠 Why our attention is such a precious - and increasingly scarce - resource🎁 Plus a breaking news shared by Maxime at the end of the episode!
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Transcript 
[00:00:00] Gaël quoting Maxime: "There is no contradiction, according to me, in using digital technology to perceive and represent infinity. But, we have to use it, and to see it, and to represent it, within constraints, the 1 and the 2. If we are seeing it and using it in the 1, 2, 3 infinity, then we're going to have problems, because the material world is limited..."

[00:00:32] Gaël: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Green IO, the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world, one byte at a time. Our guests from across the globe share insights, tools, and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. Before we start, a quick note for my European based listeners, you are invited to the Green IO conference in Paris on December the 8th. for free. I partnered with API days to bring you an amazing lineup, starting with Aurore Stéphant, Tristan Nitot, Théo Alves Da Costa, and all the teams involved in the 2023 sustainable digital challenge. The link to register is in the episode notes.

Our representation of the territory depends on our senses, our culture, the data we capture, but also the technical systems we choose. This is where cosmography, the graphic representation of the world, becomes essential to our existence. However, ecological disruption reflects a failure of our collective representation of the territory. This imbalance probably dates from the Neolithic revolution 12, 000 years ago. When we became sedentary, we built systems of exploitation and domination of a territory perceived as infinite.

In 2023, we are still mainly guided by this archaic mindset. This Maxime Blandeau quote powerfully resonated with me when I first read it, because this point set also drives our understanding of digital technology, which is seen as infinite and limitless by default, hence the use of the words cloud, universe, metaverse, Endless possibilities or the quest for infinite double digit gross This verbatim speaks volume about our digital tech cosmology and we should question ourselves, asking what could be a representation of digital technologies which enable a sustainable future for them?.

And for humankind I am a long-time fan of Maxime's work from his LinkedIn daily post of beautiful maps, to his course at the Paris Political Institute (Paris Science Po for my French listeners) which he decided to fully open source as he did for the. 40 plus conferences he gave on geography, technology and attention economy. He is also not a stranger to entrepreneurship, having co -founded a start-up, and I hope he will join the growing community of the French podcasters soon, and today it's an honor to have him on our show to take a huge step back and reflect on our collective understanding of digital technology.

Welcome Maxime, thank you for joining Green IO today.

[00:03:33] Maxime: Thank you Gaël, I'm very happy to be here.

[00:03:36] Gaël: Me as well. So, to put things in perspective, I mean, you post every day, including Sunday, on LinkedIn, a nice little text, I don't know how many, I think you're pretty close to hit the 1 million followers on LinkedIn, that's just insane, and this regularity, it's just amazing, I mean, I got it, like the blossoming and the richness of our world is a big source of inspiration, but how do you find the resources to produce qualitative content every day? I'm just amazed.

[00:03:42] Maxime: Well, I connect all my activities, the teaching, the entrepreneurship, the conference, the talks, I give and, the LinkedIn post. And the result is that some content come s to me, so almost every week I have readers contacting me, let's say 'I thought about you, here is a subject that you could add to'. So, in the end, it's like things are coming to me. I'm doing curation, of course, I rewrite, et cetera. But it seems that it's easier and easier to find your subject because, I mean, people want to share. And they also want to help me to find the right subject. So, in the end, I'm not alone to choose my subject every day, my daily topic.

[00:05:00] Gaël: The power of a community of committed people. That's one explanation. Now I'd like to ask you maybe to set the stage. I would love to ask you a simple and very complicated question. What can anthropology bring to our understanding of digital technology?

[00:05:18] Maxime: I'm a tech anthropologist, that is to say that I use anthropology, human science, to explore the relationship, very ancient, actually, relationship between, the way we build technical systems.

And the way we think, that's what anthropology can add to the understanding of a technical system in general, and a digital system in particular. So, I have a course at Sciences Po, but also at an engineering school called Mines Paris, PSR. It's one of the main engineering schools in Paris. And in Sciences Po, my course is programming the world, and I study how we program, that is to say, how we pre -write technical systems, technical structures. And how those technical structures program us in return, and how there is actually a link between how we define design, technical structures, infrastructure and superstructure and how it changes the way we develop perception. We develop attention to the world, because that's the place where technical systems, and culture meet and it creates a whole lot of belief systems. And that's what anthropology can bring to a better understanding of what's technical, and in particular these days, what digital systems do to the world.

[00:06:55] Gaël: And how massive is it? the destruction that digital technologies bring to the world, I mean is it just an evolution of some set of existing technologies, or is it something comparable to the reinvention of printing, because the Chinese had already known how to print centuries before the Europeans, or even the alphabet, what kind of level of disruption are we talking about when we are talking about digital technologies?

[00:07:25] Maxime: Well, there is a British anthropologist called Jack Goody, who was studying the effect of, graphic systems on, cultural mindsets, let's say, but particularly by studying, African population s in the seventies that had, at the time, never seen any scriptures, written characters. They were living in orality, and he developed a theory, by observing what it made to the culture to the belief systems to the way people were living and interacting with the world. So, he developed a theory on what he called mind technologies. Mind technologies are pretty much information technologies, but with certain characteristics, and he included language, for instance. Writing, alphabet printing, telecommunication. And we can also consider that digital systems, digital technologies are part of this 'mind' technologies category.

And what Jack Goody brought to the conversation is the fact that there is a correlation, a very narrow relationship between. the effect of the arrival of such a mind technology and the way culture evolved and the way cultures represent the world. And there are many, many stories, archetypal legends, throughout the world that tell the story of this moment when lot of new information suddenly arrived into a society because a new technology emerged and it changed the way people see, nature, for instance, and when you just take one of the most famous myth, of western culture, the, the Adam and Eve story, the fall of Eden, well, that's the story of what Jack Goody could call cognitive revolution, techno, technical and cognitive revolution, that is to say that actually you can see that story as something that happened that changed the way you, deal with knowledge and information, and that created this balance, a fall in the way you see the world. Nature and the balance of living things and actually, an ecological sustainable way of living the world. So, anthropology can tell you that there is a very deep link between digital and green climate, sustainable transition, I mean, from a very long time.

[00:10:23] Gaël: And did You already notice some trends in the way we represent the world with the arrival of digital technologies?

[00:10:34] Maxime: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. I don't know if it's the right expression in English, but I'm going to try. In French, there is that idea of volume géographique mental (geographical mental volume).

[00:10:44] Gaël: What is it? The ability of information that you can gather in your head, the maximum amount of information, or is it something different?

[00:10:52] Maxime: Yeah, but it's not a quantity, it's more related to space. For instance, our grandparents and the grandparents of our grandparents were living in a village. Maybe they had in mind their city and the valley and the mountains. And that was... their world, like really the representation of space, the idea they had of the space that constitutes their world was that and beyond, there were just stories.

They had no idea of, you know, distances and even the names of the countries and the continents, et cetera. And nowadays, I mean, it's totally changed. We can see pictures on social media of almost every place in the world, we can measure distance and times, on Google maps. We have, thanks to the new digital technology, our generation, and also new mobility, transportation, and new sources of information, so a very different comprehension of distances, and geographical perception of the world. And it also changes the way we, as humans, see the world as a planet, because as you may know, the first picture of planet earth is quite recent. It was taken in 1972, and it's called the blue marble. And, everything that the digital technologies can bring in terms of imagery, in terms of picturing the world, is really changing our representation and this can go to the right or the wrong side of things.

[00:12:36] Gaël: And actually, I’ve heard that people experiencing this out of space experience, of watching the planet earth, this beautiful blue planet earth but also super fragile, that once you start to realize the magnitude of things, and how small we are, it's got a name, I think…

[00:12:58] Maxime: It's I called the overview effect

[00:13:00] Gaël: thank you. Is it the kind of example that highlights what you just said, that it completely changes the perception, and usually people get very into sustainability after that.

[00:13:12] Maxime: Yes, it is. I mean, the overview effect would be one of the most distant and global ways of representing that idea, that our perception of the world can change, and it can create emotion and psychological changes. But imagine that this effect - a psychiatric and psychological physiological effect, happens, but on a daily basis, and on the way we represent time and space and distances and what the world is. And also, that's also why I'm a tech anthropologist by, I don't know, academically speaking, but what I'm doing on LinkedIn, posting and also, talking, is more cosmology. That is to say, our thought system, the way we represent the world as it is, and cosmology is a word academically that is used to describe our understanding of space, like the far and distant universe. But actually, what I'm interested in is the way that our cosmology, immediate cosmology, is changing nowadays. That is to say the way we represent the word, but the close word, like the word around our feet, the world, the plant, the vegetable, the animal world, around our village, our house, our home, it's an infinite universe as well, and it's changing very quickly these days. I mean, in the last 30, 40 years, the representation, the way we picture the world is really changing, and it can be an opportunity if we decide to direct that new look at things, into the right direction, and it can be a threat if we are preventing ourselves to understand better and to perceive better the world, and what is essential to our survival, for instance.

[00:15:12] Gaël: What are the main trains in this representation of our world, which has changed that much in the last 30, 40 years, as you said, and I know it will be oversimplifying, but can you try maybe to tell us the top three or top five massive changes, which are already happening.

[00:15:32] Maxime: Okay. The first transformation would be the way we collect data. So right now, we are collecting huge amounts of data on the world. I mean, it's never been that range before. So, thanks to the digital system that all my technologies [use], but principally information systems, we are now able to collect a huge amount of data. That data can be used for science, the comprehension of natural earth science, et cetera. But that huge amount of data can also be used by business companies. It can be used by government, public policies. And actually, we now have a very deep, profound, transformation on the way we perceive the world as organizations, as scientists, as business leaders, as government leaders doing public policy.  So, I would say the first change right now is the amount of data and what we are or will be able to do with the data. Secondly, it would be more something related to imagery. So not only figures, numbers, data's quantitative information, but more the quality of the things we can see and it's related to media. So social media, but also TV and movies and, photo, I don't know, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, et cetera, or in China, WeChat and all those social media, are shaping a new image of the world by. letting us exchange billions of pictures and images every day. So, we are creating belief systems by exchanging a lot of pictures of the world.

[00:17:37] Gaël: And what could be an example of a new belief that has been created by Instagram or WeChat?

[00:17:47] Maxime: It's not created by, it's more amplified and its effect has been amplified. I don't know. There are many, there are good representations. There are errors as well. For instance, flat earth representation, I mean, right now you have this international flat earth society based in the U S, but in France, for instance that is a small country, there is between eight to 10 percent of the population that believe in the flat earth representation. Why? Because, social media and digital systems are promoting a certain picture, a certain representation of the world.

Right now, we are in a cosmographical revolution, that is to say, everything is changing, and we are in the eye of a hurricane, you know, and it could go in the wrong direction. And, for instance, the flat earth belief, it's not something that is just funny. It's something that is really deep, and that's one example of how digital media right now can produce a belief system in picturing the world differently.

But we could, we could talk about climate belief, climate skepticism, eco -denial belief systems that are related to the way we are picturing the world. And the third one that I wanted to mention would be more related to what we could call indicators or measurements of our impact. For instance, companies right now want to better understand the changes in the world, climate change, biodiversity, water consumption, resources, and how it will impact their businesses.

And, now, thanks to new technological systems, infrastructure, digital infrastructure, for instance, we can implement these measurements into our business models and take these decisions accordingly, and that's new.

[00:19:52] Gaël: Okay, fair enough. So, three big trends. I got it. The amount of data, the way we collect data, the ability to measure or impact.

I remember that in one of your conferences, you kind of illustrated our collective reaction, with two caricatures who are Homo Deus and Homo Humilis. And if I understood it well, it was a reaction to this mind revolution that we are in between and how people position themselves. Could you tell us a bit more about representations?

[00:20:30] Maxime: Yes, that is more the belief systems that could be emerging right now when we are collectively facing a double crisis.

One, a crisis of information and two a crisis of space and time, ecological crisis, but also identity crisis, the way we relate to the place where we live And facing that huge challenge, some people believe that technology will solve the problem , and that if we are, I don't know, building the right technical systems, we can solve any problems, including death, And so we are entering a field, a space that is really a belief system, close to religious belief, and even sometimes it becomes a cult, it becomes indoctrination, and, it can go very far, and that is the idea of Homo Deus. So, the idea that, thanks to Homo Deus, technical power, we can do anything, including killing death, you know.

[00:21:44] Gaël: which has been structuring our society since we exist on Earth, and things are finite.

[00:21:52] Maxime: Not since we exist. I mean, in the last 12, 000 years, I mean, I can go back to that subject, but there are different periods in our human evolution, as I see it. So, three or four periods and in the last 12, 000 years, yes, we have been developing the Homo Deus point of view. That is to say, thanks to technical systems, agriculture, cities, transportation, and now digital media and digital infrastructure, the ability to do anything, anything in an unlimited world.

[00:22:27] Gaël: And what was his belief system before?

[00:22:31] Maxime: Oh, okay, so before the Neolithic, so that happened 12, 000 years ago, we were hunter- gatherers, you know, living in a world that would provide meat and fruits. And, it's in, I don't know, between 40 and 60, 000 years, two or three ice ages, we were living that way. And before, we were living in a world with no complex language. So, we were really integrated as a human population into the animal sphere. Then we developed language, complex language, and that's the moment when Homo sapiens conquered the old planet. So, it's funny to understand that we developed complex language at the same moment, we conquered the world - Homo sapiens went out of Africa and conquered all continents, probably because we developed a certain way of communicating and it changed radically the way we saw the world. We became the main predator on Earth in the last 50, 000 years.

[00:23:44] Gaël: But is it related to this view on the fact that sapiens managed to kill actually also humans on planet earth as well, because they created complex belief system s that basically made them able to stick at one, two, or three or four hundred people in the same room, whether apps or even the industrial we will never be able to do so and that collectively we were stronger , because we were believing in things, that the ability to believe in things were our superpower.

[00:24:18] Maxime: Definitely, …called it the cognitive revolution, this moment when we invented the complex language, and that's why he said what makes us special as a sapiens is the our ability to tell stories -that's his point of view - and he studied the way as an historian, he studied the way, stories built social, but also technical, and in the end, biological structure that let us conquer the world in the last, 50, 000 years.

According to me, there are three main periods. First, the deep Paleolithic, when we were really integrated into nature. Then we developed complex language and we became the first predator on earth, conquering the whole planet. And then you have the Neolithic revolution where humans are taking everything the world has to give, we became a producer. We became able to use technical systems like agriculture, cities, et cetera, to produce what we need out of the world. So suddenly the world became like a huge mine, we can mine to gather, accumulate wealth and everything we desire. And actually, what I'm saying is that we are still in the Neolithic period, and we have to reach a new age ...

[00:25:41] Gaël: With new tools. You mean we are still in the nihilistic period, but with tools that are more and more powerful.

[00:25:49] Maxime: Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. First, we developed agricultural basic rudimentary tools 12, 000 years ago. Then we developed cities, bridges, and military tools. And then at the Renaissance, thanks to the science revolution, we enter the period we call humanism, but humanism is exactly the same process that started at the Neolithic. That Is to say that the idea is one of human emancipation from the natural constraint in a way, except we have more and more technical power, more and more means. And we are still in that idea that we are exploiting, representing a word, land, space, and time that we can exploit, that we can Dig in a way things from it. And we perceive the world as unlimited and that is the Neolithic mindset, according to me. And we are still in it, and we need to move forward to a next stage post Neolithic. That is not to say we should unplug all technology and, no, it's more that we should think about the use of technical systems that is very different because we have a new representation of space and time of land and territory, and that would let us enter a new belief system that is more directed to care maintenance and balance in our relationship with the world,

[00:27:25] Gaël: But that's very interesting, because the latest super powerful tool that we've developed is obviously digital technologies and the representation we have for our digital world is infinite and endless. So how would we be able to move towards what is a post Neolithic vision, whilst at the same time we are double betting on the very latest technology, which is digital technology, that maps the world as something potentially infinite? We have disconnected the materiality of our surroundings with something that is now purely virtual. I know that it's not truly virtual because it's grounded in materiality, via the resources it needs to get powered and built. But the way we represent our digital world is infinite. So, don't you see a discrepancy here?

[00:28:22] Maxime: Well, that's where it becomes mystical. It's our relationship to infinity. In mathematics there is a character that is called Aleph that is the first letter in Hebrew, but also in Arabic - Alif. And it's very close to the Alpha Greek Alpha. And actually, that's the first letter of the first alphabet that was invented by Phoenicians 3000 years ago, on the shores of Lebanon. And that letter, in mathematics, represents infinity within infinity. So that is to say, we are representing the world right now with 1, 2, 3, 4, infinity.

But if you just take 1 to 2, there is infinity within between 1 and 2. And there is no contradiction according to me, in using digital technology to perceive and represent infinity. But, We have to use it, and to see it, and to represent it within constraints - the one and the two. If we are seeing it and using it in the one, two, three, infinity, then we're going to have problems because the material world is limited.

But if we use digital technology as a way to touch infinity, but within one and two, then it works. And that is called Aleph in mathematics, the end, the amount of numbers that are infinite within two, nombre entier, (whole numbers) so in English that would be, I don't know, numbers, like one and two, three, four, but the in-between, that's interesting because that's poetry. What is poetry more than just making beautiful things with strict constraints, with limits, and limits can help you make beautiful things, and infinite creativity. So, there is a paradox, but a paradox that is perfectly clear to me, and that we can use to build a world that we want to live in that's mystical I told you.

[00:30:41] Gaël: That's very interesting - this is the way you would re-incorporate the matter reality and the resource shortage that we are already facing, and that we will face more and more in the future, versus the over -expanding immateriality of our digital world.

[00:31:00] Maxime: Yeah, that's a little bit the same idea. You know, last night I was invited to talk about growth, post growth economics. Can we move forward from that idea of growth? And is it possible? And what is growth? Well, the way I answer it is to use a very simple analogy: human body growth. I mean, from a certain point, we don't want to grow more. You know, it's not good to grow more, but we are still growing in different ways.

I mean, when you reach 20. Years old, you do not grow physically with your body anymore, but you grow in your mind, you grow in your relationship in, in the way you are, I don't know, you are trying to reach wisdom or caring for people around you. So that's a type of growth. That's another way of growing.

And that's that idea of, you know, reaching creativity and infinity within new constraints that are not a bad thing at all. I mean, it's actually a good thing that we do not keep growing infinitely, you know, as a body, and that's a little bit of the same. And that's, according to me, a nice way to say that we have to be aware of the moments when physically we should not grow anymore. And that we should turn our growth into something else that has more value.

[00:32:33] Gaël: Do you believe that we'll be able to spot the moment we need to stop growing?

[00:32:39] Maxime: I believe that we are right now reaching the tipping point in terms of awareness of the limits of our wealth. And that's a very, very good thing. That's why I think we are living an extraordinary and fascinating and exciting period that is a cosmological revolution comparable to the main one that occurred in human history, that is to say the Neolithic revolution or the language revolution. And what is it exactly? This cosmological revolution? Well, precisely what we're saying before, that it's the awareness of being in a limited physical body: planet Earth. And that's beautiful because it would let us build develop creativity in a different way

[00:33:30] Gaël: That's very very, very interesting but I’ve got this same feeling. We talked a lot about digital technology and the way it shapes all representations. I remember that in one of your conferences you made an example of how the Innuits would represent the world - how it was different between summertime and winter-time. I think it was a good illustration that the way we represent the world dramatically shape - like in summertime it's almost a free lunch and you can travel for how long and, pretty much whatever you want - and in winter time you're under very strict social rules and your surrounding is reduced to a few kilometers. Am I quoting you or explaining your thoughts well here or ...?

[00:34:15] Maxime: Yeah, well, that's how anthropology studied the Inuit population in the great North, in Northern Canada. Indeed, that's a population that is nomadic in summer. So really, you know, traveling all the time and sedentary in winter. So, that's probably why I mentioned those observations, but everybody, actually, we have our own belief systems, our own representation of the world. I mean, French people have their own conception, philosophy of space and time, and especially when it's related to the land. American people have their own representation and conception and philosophy of the land. And in America you have the East Coast, the West Coast, the middle, the Midwest, and they don't have [the same representation]. Our representation of the world is very cultural, but it's also very technical, because what I'm interested in is how technical systems create culture because in anthropology, we know that every technical system changed our perception of space and time from the fire, to chat GPT, and, it creates a new social and cultural order. The question is, do we take that into account first? I mean, in our liberal democratic society, we don't really (take it into account). In authoritarian countries, like China or Russia, they do, they really want to use technical systems in order to produce control and social order, because they know it works that way.

So the question is, how do we direct, govern the effect of this huge, massive technical infrastructure that has an effect on culture, that has an effect on our belief system, and our minds in a way that is compatible with our values, with our education, culture, political, convictions. And that's a very, very concrete problem that is related to the cosmological revolution we are talking about.

And, what I want to add, in this conversation is: how do we perceive the world? Well, according to me, there are three main ways of perceiving the world. First is information. We get information from the world and technical systems, digital systems, science, help us to collect knowledge about the world. And that's the first way, we comprehend what's around us.

The second one would be more the stories we tell. So, belief systems based on stories, On, more the power of creativity in terms of what we share in terms of stories and it's related to communication. And when you are a company or when you are in government, you tell stories a lot internally and externally. And that creates a certain way of comprehending the word that surrounds us.

And thirdly, you have the direct experience of the world senses, ‘sensoriality’. The hot, the cold, the light, the dark, and we are living in a world - because of the technical structure that surrounds us, a digital technology - that is preventing us more and more from feeling the world. So, the way we feel the world with our bodies. Has an effect on the way we are building the word with our mind. So, there is a connection between our direct experience of the world physically and the stories we tell and the information we collect. And all that is the way we represent, [the way]we picture the world.

And, right now we have to be very careful on the direction we are collectively choosing in terms of cosmography, that is to say, in terms of representation of what the world is, and what we want to do in it, and to it. And, what is our mission and purpose and role and place as human beings on the planet.

[00:38:53] Gaël: I used to see attention as a moral question, like you don't have the right to steal attention from people, and you're the first one who kind of, shifted my perspective like no, this is a resource it's like water ,you know clean water ,air etc., they are actually the main resources that helped sapiens () we discussed earlier), to become the dominant species on earth, it's our capacity to focus, to create stories, and that is powered by attention, and that attention is a resource that should be carefully curated rather than just something on the moral stance ...

[00:39:31] Maxime: And my message, if I want to make my message in one sentence, it would be: our attention resources are limited, and we have to direct them as much as possible towards the world itself. So, we have to comprehend, we have to focus on the world, which is quite complicated to focus on everything. But compared to just looking at ourselves and, you know, being disconnected from the world by creating digital connections that are not sustainable, because they are not connected to material reality, we have to focus, on the contrary, on what is material reality, and what is material reality is life itself. Animals, vegetables, the water, resources, the air, the ocean, the world itself. And, I'm not saying that we should only think about ecology, natural ecosystems, but it's our interest as humans to heal our relationship with the world.

[00:40:47] Gaël:

That's kind of a positive message, and I'm going to jump to make an easy transition for an easy conclusion, which is if you had to pick one piece of good news, which made you optimistic recently, about this ability as you described, to connect a bit more with the world, pay attention to the world and make it a more sustainable place to live, what would be the news that you would choose?

[00:41:19] Maxime: I think I would choose the trend that we are observing in terms of accountancy, which is a very specific and technical subject, but it's very related to everything we've said. Accountancy is a very, - I don't know, some find it boring, but actually it's crucial in the way we interact with the world, because it's the way we, I don't know, pay attention to anything by integrating numbers, quantities into actions and decisions.

And right now, we're observing on the planetary level and especially on a European level because it started in Europe, but it's a global conversation right now. A reflection on how we could count things and how we could be accountable for things, and accountancy is a way to measure the activity of a business, but it's also a way, or it could be a way, and it will be a way of measuring impact, and also measuring risks.

And right now, if we want to assess risks and measure impact properly, we have to focus on the world itself and what we are doing to the world. So according to me, the first steps we are observing right now, we are taking right now in terms of accountancy, could be in the next year's, a door to a change in perception.

And I'm really optimistic in relation to that particular field. And for me, that's really a good [piece of] news and a good trend. And, we'll see what's happening in the next days and weeks, because there is an accountancy war right now. And I really consider it's a critical decision we are going to make in the next few days and months.

[00:43:25] Gaël: Yeah. Double materiality or not.

[00:43:27] Maxime: Exactly.

[00:43:30] Gaël: When you start saying, 'by the way, I'm going to talk about the content and that's a very positive friend', I suddenly feel way less lonely. So thanks a lot for that Maxime,

[00:43:40] Maxime: You are welcome.

[00:43:42] Gaël: And thanks a lot for joining the podcast. That was great. I know that you've got a crazy agenda. I hope that you will not get kicked out of your hotel room, and that your conference tonight will be awesome. I strongly suggest every French speaker, even if he's not, or she's not, a native one, to follow you on LinkedIn, because your posts are beautiful, and they're always kind of, you know, mind blowing or opening the chakra, as I like to say.

And I think that for our non-French native speakers, you've got an announcement to make

[00:44:18] Maxime: Yeah, well, it's a very simple announcement. It's just that I've decided to translate all my posts, LinkedIn posts in English, because I received many requests from, yes, from people not speaking French. And so I decided that next January, I would translate everything and post everything every day in English. So if you are an English speaker, please feel welcome to read them and see what I'm sharing every day.

[00:44:46] Gaël: So, from 100,000 followers on LinkedIn to 1 million in 2024, yeah, you could do it! Thanks a lot, Maxime, for joining the podcast.

[00:44:59] Maxime: Thank you very much.






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🤯 AI is all the rage at the moment but what about its impact? 🌱 Especially its environmental cost? 🛑 Does it mean we should stop leveraging this tool? 🏃 Can we extract ourselves from this rat race? 
AI comes with many questions and this episode comes with a clear angle to debate it: how do data experts specialized in impact business such as Lou Welgryn and Theo Alves Da Costa - the 2 founders of the NGO Data for Good - and Anastasis Stamatis - the founder of Dataphoria - answer these questions?It’s not that much about the training, go for a factor 10, … A lot of counterintuitive answers and great food for thoughts!
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Anastasis', Lou's and Theo's sources and other references mentioned in this episode

• Climate Q&A 
• Data for Good 
• Dataphoria 
• Hugging Face and its models Zephyr 7b-beta and Bloom
• Code Carbon 
• Andrew Ng
• Sasha Luccioni and her paper “Counting Carbon: A Survey of Factors Influencing the Emissions of Machine Learning”
• Pyronear, the NGO using AI to to detect forest fire
• Quota climat
• Green IO episode 11 with Elin Hauge and Heloise Nonne 
• Climate Fresk 

Transcript 
[00:00] Gaël : Hello everyone. Welcome to Green IO, the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener Digital world one byte at a time. Our guests from across the globe, share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. 
[00:33] Gaël: You might have heard about artificial intelligence last month. Yeah, sorry about the joke. But you might also have heard about the rising concern about the environmental footprint about artificial intelligence and data groups. Actually, I recorded a full episode with Jerry McGovern and Katie Singer in January about what they call data tsunami. And since then, we've seen new studies about the water consumption of chat GPT, about the electricity consumption, training and requesting these artificial intelligence models, that have started to raise concerns about the sustainability of these new technologies. But on the other end, I'm bombarded with articles, posts and discussions with peers and clients about the expected benefits of AI for humankind. So I reckon this question is on a lot of tech practitioners’ minds today: how to leverage AI and data to regenerate the planet in our societies rather than destroying them. And to answer it, I decided to ask people I could trust, to tell more about data for good. For real, and by real, I mean, without overlooking all the impacts of using AI including the negative ones. And believe me, Lou, Théo and Anastasis are to be trusted. 
Lou and Théo founded Data for Good in France five years ago. Today, this community gathers more than 3000 data scientists and data engineers doing pro bono work for NGOs and nonprofits. And Data for Good has been making headlines in early November with their job on 425 climate bombs worldwide, and which companies and banks are supporting them. But that's something Data for Good has been familiar with. Just last year, Lou was listed among the 100 thought leaders who give meaning to technology in France, (kudo) and was getting attention with the ClimateQA, using Chat GPT, but trained only with IPCC reports. And it was important to me to have another point of view than a French one. And so for this episode, Anastasis Stamatis was a perfect match. Thanks to the Climate Fresk network, I discovered the founder of Dataphoria in Greece and his amazing track record in the impact business sector, most of them powered by AI. So welcome, Lou, Theo and Anastasis. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today. That's our third attempt to get a recording, but this one will be the good one. 
[03:10] Théo: Hello everyone. 
[03:11] Lou: Well, hi. 
[03:12] Anastasis: Hi, Gaël. Thanks for having us. 
[03:13] Gaël: You're welcome. Before we jump into both the bright and dark side of AI, I would like to ask a very simple question but a very tricky one. Where are we with artificial intelligence in the world? What's really the spread of AI in both tech companies, but in regular companies, government, etcetera. And is the technology moving that fast? How much is hype, and how much is really big acceleration? 
[03:46] Théo: It's an interesting question, because it's been a year since Chat GPT has come out, and it's changed a bit how people see AI. And with it, at Data for Good, we created a white paper on generative AI, and we actually discovered that a lot of people in the general public didn't really know the history of AI and there are still a lot of misconceptions about the topic and a lot of people, for example, don't know that AI actually has been around for more than eighty years, and has had a lot of waves and evolutions over the years, and has already enabled us to do lots of stuff. For example, I always say when we explain about the topic, that Google search has been using the Transformers technology (which is in chat GPT), for more than seven years in production. So people are using AI every day in their Google search. And this has been a constant evolution for the past eighty years, even if there has been some increasing pace at some points in history. But still there is something new about today, which is for me, the general public’s adoption of these technologies, which has actually struck a lot of people by surprise, by the fact that it was not something that different. Of course, we can do a lot of things a lot better since we have access to generative AI technologies. But still, it was only the fact that 200 million people now use Chat GPT every day that signaled a big change, and people now were able to actually test it and that made them even want to learn more about the topic. So for me this is actually not a technological outbreak or like a complete shift in what was feasible. But more something that now is accessible and people know that it's not something obscure, and that they can use it. And with it, there is a question of the exponential. That's when you talk about environmental issues. Every time there is an exponential like this, there is a question. So there is a part of Ai that is in constant evolution for me. 
[06:06] Lou: And I think maybe to complete what you're saying, what's interesting, is what you were saying about the fact that people now are more aware that it's here. I feel like in the tools that we're using, there's often functionalities that tell you ‘ask AI to do this or to do that’. And this is a shift from before where there was AI, but we were not talking about it, and most people were not seeing it, and maybe it's a bit more visible than before, because since there's been this breakthrough in a generative AI, we have the feeling, as users, that we're talking and that we're using it maybe almost like a relation. So I think, to complete what Théo was saying, it's more visible than before, and it's breaking through much more, much faster than before. 
[07:02] Gaël: Anastasis, is it a trend that you analyze as well? That the breakthrough is more on public adoption than purely the technological side? 
[07:12] Anastasis: Absolutely. So it's more the democratization of AI, it has raised massive amounts of users compared to previous applications of all sorts. And I think that's where the risk might be, because our reaction time is limited with regards to the massive adoption that is happening all around us. And yes, we have been using AI over the past years without even realizing it in our phone, in the way we consume the news, even some news we might have read, it was generated by AI. But now it is all around us, and there is all this public sentiment around it. And with it comes a lot more data that needs to be used. And with AI being so massively in production, also the infrastructure requirements and the electricity and technology requirements are becoming bigger as well. 
[08:10] Gaël: And you mentioned that it's more [a question of] public adoption than technology. But if you read many articles, if you listen to many thought leaders, it's more like everything has changed, you know, since GPT III or since even chat GPT IV or whatever. And actually, that's not truly the case. It has been a trend but it creates a massive hype that, you know, everyone needs to put AI in everything. I mean, it's exactly as you said Lou, that stuff that was done by machine before without acknowledging that it was artificial intelligence suddenly needs to be labeled as AI because it's better to sell.  So I still see this massive hype wave and that leads me to another question. But a similar one, how you spot a hypist, I would say I've just made this word up but I love it. So how do you spot hypist and how do you spot true thought leaders, and who do you actually follow? And who do you believe is speaking good sense about what is going on in the AI field at the moment? 
[09:28] Théo: I think honestly, I have one simple rule that worked quite well. It is a newly labeled expert that has been around for less than a year? which means that he only knew GPT as what he thinks is AI (his own vision) and, actually it's most of the time it's a he and not a she, or is it someone who has been around for many years and especially scientists and engineers in the field of AI,  that have been applying AI in production, which is a bit different than doing a prototype using GPT or just embedding such technology in your product. And at the end, after you have confronted the buzz, there is a question of user adoption and I think already a year after, there has been a course of adoption by users, but there has also been a lot of deception on the topic. People are using it less for mundane tasks. Developers are using it a lot, but there are already a lot of people that have tried it, and now feel that they don't have a use for it. So, and that's normal and that's a lot coming from people that are not just like experts on the topic but just saw this trend and put it in their products. So in the end, mostly I love people like Hugging Face, for example, they are probably the one that I've been advancing the most to the field in the open source community. And I'm spending one hour on their platform just to see the latest innovations and papers, and following the people that are within, because they are probably gathering a lot of people that actually have the same values that we have at Data for Good. But on a wider scale, I would say that those are the people I'm following on my side.

[11:13] Lou: I would say I'm not following experts, but rather the important thing for me is really the purpose of the algorithm that's used, what's really important for me is, besides the technology, is what is it aimed at? And is it going in the right direction or in the wrong direction? And spoiler? I feel like 95% of the usages that are made today of chat GPT are just going in a way that makes us buy more stuff or do more things that we don't need to do. So that's why I'm really focused on the usages that are going to benefit for all. And I think they're are some [usages] and I'm not going to make some internal publicity, but I think the tool that has been developed called ClimateQ&A and which helps you navigate through IPCC reports and make climate data accessible to citizens and to people that want to understand the problem, yet don't have the time to read 14,000 pages of climate reports - it’s these kinds of usages to democratize knowledge which are amazing, and this is the kind of thing I follow. 
[12:34] Anastasis: Wow. Hats off to Théo for this tool, which I'm gonna definitely be checking out after our session.  Just to add to that, I guess the most important thing, from my perspective, is if someone is being generally objective about AI and does not treat it like a silver bullet. Usually what we get out of the hype is people claiming it will change everything, it will save the world, it will destroy the world. And I don't really like dealing in absolutes in that sense. Definitely many hard-working people in the industry for loads of years, most of whom know how difficult it is to collect the data, to label the data, to train the right models and how difficult it is to actually get a good trustworthy result out of AI, and so yeah, AI is hard, it's very burdensome to get the right results, and most people who would tell you that, yeah, they would find no silver bullets and no extreme hype…
[13:41] Gaël: And Anastasis, if you had to pick one name, who would it be?
[13:45] Anastasis:   I  think I would probably go back to basics, back to a person, one of the people who started all of this, who started the hype behind AI, behind data science as well. And that would be Andrew Ng , who is very well known in the community. And he's one of the voices that has been there from the beginning actually, 
[4:08] Gaël:Thanks a lot, Anastasis, and the two others know that I'm going to ask the same question. But actually, I’m pretty sure I can do a bit of a mentalist exercise with Théo. So if you had to pick one name, Theo, who would it be? And my guess it will start with an S…
[14:26] Théo:  Yeah, that's a good person to follow that for sure, Sasha Luccioni, she was a researcher at Mila, a university in Canada (Quebec) and she was one of the people and actually the only one in the world to create a research paper on the carbon footprint of AI. And that is the only resource we have today to estimate what is actually emitting. And she has been doing a lot on AI ethics and AI carbon footprint. She also created a tool that we use, and now we maintain at Data for Good to measure the carbon footprint of AI. And now she works at Hugging Face. So yeah, that's one of our models.
[15:05] Gaël: And Lou?
[15:06] Lou: Well, I was going to say the same person. So it's not fun. 
[15:10] Théo: Oh my God, that's super bad.
[15:13] Gaël: We stole your hero. I'm sorry about that.  OK. So the fun fact is that I really wanted this episode to start on a positive note, and focus on data for good. But what is really interesting,is despite the fact that you are working on very positive applications of AI, the three of you started right from the start about, hey, cool down, there are some downsides as well, etc. So, OK, you know what? You won, I will not have such a positive episode, or at least not yet. And let's talk about A I as a destructive [force]. 
[15:51] Lou: No, I wanted to complete what you were saying, because I think it's really important, and the reason why we're doing it is that we're facing speeches in the media or people that are all AI experts, in 90% of the cases they're talking about AI and technology in general, like something that is going to save us, and behaving as if we can continue exactly the same pace that we're having, and that we just need to change our technology, and behind it we're going to be saved. And I think especially when you work in this field and you are aware of all the limits of those technologies, well, I feel like I have a role to, each time I have the possibility to talk in public to remember and to remind [everyone] of all those limits, because they're huge and we need to say it. There are positive cases, and they're amazing in science and all the projects that we can do at Data for Good, but they are not the majority. And this is really important to be said when the occasion is happening. 
[17:08] Gaël: So technocracy won't save the world. I'm under shock. But could you elaborate a bit with maybe one example? Like if I understood you well, that, it’s really the question of with such a powerful tool, towards where are we accelerating? And are we accelerating in the right direction? Or I would say the other side of the same coin is well, just drop a pinch of AI everywhere and it will solve the entire world’s problems. So do you have some specific examples that you would like to share when you really believe that it is a terrible idea to use AI? 
[15:51] Lou: Well, basically, when we're talking about technology, I think what is really important to bear in mind is the materiality of this world that we believe is immaterial. For instance, I think it's really funny that we're talking about the cloud as if it was something in the sky, that was really not material. When we know that for instance, 99% of the data that we exchange worldwide, they're circulating through submarine cables and then they're stuck into like monsters of metals. So everything is material. And so when we talk about technology, we need to remember that there are two sorts of impacts. The first one is ‘direct’, the materiality of it, that I was talking about. And then there are also all the indirect effects. And one of the main ones is called the rebound effect. And it's the fact that every time that we have discovered or improved a technology, or use technology to improve the usage of something, well in the meantime, we've increased its usage. And then as a result, the absolute emissions are always bigger. So, for instance, in our daily lives, we have the example of the planes. Because for instance, we've reduced the intensity per passenger, but we've increased hugely the number of flights. And so the absolute emissions are way bigger. And so for generative AI and AI in general, it's really the same thing happening. For instance, to take an example, we can take as an example the fact that AI helps you write emails way faster. But at the same time, it's going to make you maybe be able to make many more emails. So if the objective of your emails is to send stuff, maybe you're going to be able to sell much more stuff. Another example that I like a lot is the example of publicity. So you can make much more [publicity], you can personalize much more the advertising that you're going to make. And so in the end, you can make it faster. But so you're going to sell much more stuff. And these examples, actually, I didn't find a counterexample today, maybe somebody has it but I don't…
[20:23] Gaël: Anastasis, do you have a counter example? Actually? No, let's stick with the negative force. Would you like to comment on what Lou shared about the rebound effect, about accelerating in the wrong direction, just selling more stuff? 
[20:39] Anastasis:  Oh absolutely. And I feel this is like another facet of consumerism that's been evident in our days. And especially since if we do flood the internet with AI generated copies of emails and advertising texts, then guess what the next models will be trained on, and what degradation that might produce in the future. So, again, some elements that people should consider. When I say people, just to get back to that technocratic aspect of what we discussed, what I'm sort of feeling, which leads to the destructive force behind AI, is limited knowledge and limited engagement with the risks and the dangers around Artificial Intelligence Data centers, cloud computing, the energy they produce, that's the essence of your show, Gaël.  So, we've been exploring this throughout other episodes. What happens when we try to apply AI without the relevant data? I mean, all of us are working at least to a certain part in climate change. We have to create aspects to global North and to global South. Some climate change solutions embedded with AI should apply to the global South as well. But most of the data come from the global North. So you end up trying to do good, but you might end up applying solutions where they have actually no applications because you've trained them with wrong data sets. All these are dangers and risks that we, as a community, should be informed of, and should be informing people of, and democratizing this knowledge. When people apply AI or use AI, there should be a way for them to know what to use and what not to use. Just the way when you use the electricity or you use the water, you're aware of the dangers, you're aware of what to do, what not to do. It should reach a point where it is the same thing with artificial intelligence. That's how we can de-risk it and stop it being a sort of destructive force through its application. 
[23:06] Gaël: And actually listening to both Lou and you Anastasis, I realize that people are seeing the data that is needed to train any data algorithm a bit like the cloud. It's some kind of magical [solution] and they don't really challenge the media reality of the cloud, and they don't really challenge the materiality of the data we need to use. And that creates this huge bias that you've mentioned. And actually, I think it's a very important bias. It's not an environmental bias. But yeah, if you train data mostly based on US behaviors and you try to apply it to Madagascar (just to pick my neighbors as an example), well that can create a lot of issues. And it’s funny that this hype and all this magical thinking around AI tends to overlook this aspect. I mean, am I right to rephrase it this way? 
[24:03] Anastasis:  Absolutely. You're absolutely right. And technology in itself nowadays is political. It has been used as a political tool. So the users of technology have to be political as well, the way we use it makes a statement that leaves its footprint on the world based on our ethics, our responsibility. So we do have to claim this responsibility.

[24:30] Gaël : You mentioned earlier that Sasha Lucionni was the only one who wrote a research paper on the environmental footprint. That's something that both Anastasi and Lou mentioned several times that we also need to pay attention to the electricity consumption. And I guess much more. Could you elaborate a bit? What do we know today about the environmental impact of artificial intelligence? 
[24:56] Théo:This is important because that's also where you see what you can do in terms of negative impacts.  I think there are three misconceptions about the environmental impact of AI. The first one is that actually we don't know what the environmental impacts are of AI. We don't have the data for it. We have ideas for it. We know that it consumes energy and water and we have a lot of data over there, but no one may actually measure it aside from a few people in the world. So we just don't know. But what we know, the second misconception is I'd say, is that people tend to focus on the carbon footprint and the energy consumption of data centers, which for me, and I will give some figures, is actually not that important, and especially for people in AI, because it has been the case for a lot of years, people think that it has to come from the training phase, that this is the most important phase. And the third misconception is that they always forget the indirect impact. So let me give you a few figures. We think we know that GPT 3.5 has been trained and consumed during the training phase and emitted around 500 tons of CO2, 500 tons of CO2. It's quite big, but it's not huge. It's like it would be a small company of maybe 10 to 30 people, or it's around 250 people flying back and forth to New York, which is actually, if you divide that by 200 million users, it's actually nothing. One thing is the second indirect impact is actually the use of AI before, because we had a lot of technologies that were actually trained and used and the usage phase were actually not that [bad] in consuming energy. But with the transformer technology that we have already, that we have now in the generative AI techniques, actually, the inference phase, the usage phase emits as much the training phase. So if you scale it to 200 million users per day, that's becoming quite a thing. And we did the exercise in our latest white paper at Data for Good. If you do the exercise, you find that for GPT 3.5 it is around 100,000 tons of CO2. But even so, for me, if we only take that into consideration, we forget a lot of things. There was one study by McKenzie that we actually did some work on, that said that a generative AI will just add to the economy 4000 billion in GDP worldwide every year. And that means that in each sector, you will have an increase in revenues. And if you take for each sector the decarbonization trajectory, you can do a small calculation, that it will mean that it would be emitting around 2 billion tons of CO2 every year and 2 billion tons of CO2. Now, it's not negligible at all. It's around 5% of the global emissions worldwide. And this is exactly a figure that represents the fact that with generative AI, people think that we will accelerate an economy that is not decarbonizing so much, and that it will be actually emitting 5% more of CO2 every year. And this is why we actually tend to focus on the finality of the algorithm. What are you using it for? And especially stopping using it for marketing and publicity, or even fossil fuel extraction actually, and start using it only for good.
[28:35] Gaël: Which makes a beautiful transition because we don't know that much on what exactly is the impact, and still we try to use it for good. So can we try to switch now? Because the alerts are crystal clear about bias with data accelerating in the wrong direction, all the political entanglement that you can see. But the three of you, you've managed actually, you tried, to use it as a force for good. So let's get our hands a bit dirty. Can you pick a project where you say, OK, I'm going to use AI, I'm going to challenge myself about the direction I'm going in, and also challenge myself about the intensity of the energy, the water usage, etcetera, trying to reduce it all. 
[29:22] Lou: Maybe I can illustrate with an example, which is one of my favorite ones, that we're doing right now at Data for Good. We've been helping an NGO that's called Bloom for several months now. And this NGO is focused on protecting the ocean and marine life. And what we've been doing with them is helping them track the biggest boats on the sea and being able to identify when they were fishing in zones that they were not allowed to. So in this case, we've really used algorithms and artificial intelligence to develop algorithms that will help us detect depending on the boat’s trajectory, whether they were fishing or not, and then match it with the geographical zones in which they were identified to be in, to see if they were in a protected area or not. And when we match the two information on whether they're fishing or not and if they are in a protected area or not, we can know if they are violating some rules. And since we've been doing this work, we know that Bloom has been finding more than 20 complaints at international level in order to denounce the illegal fishing. And here, we felt that we haven't totally measured the impact of CO2 of those algorithms compared to the benefits that they procure. But what we're sure of, is that protecting marine life is way more important than the consumption of electricity that those algorithms are generating. 
[31:22] Théo: Maybe I can continue on the Data for Good example. We have a framework to see if the project is actually for good or not, not talking about the moral aspect of it. But we try to be quite logical, but the one thing that we actually always see that it is working well and if we don't do it, it won't actually have a real force for good, as we were saying, deploying it in the field and not staying at the level where it's only a geek thing, where we just produced something that could be used. And we put it in open source and we say we created a great thing, just use it and now you will be for good. Now what we thought that now you discover we're actually delivering our impact when we are putting our tools and what we developed in the field. A few of our examples that have been done, not only on the fishing side, for example, was one project that we did with an NGO called Pyronear, which is detecting forest fires before it's too late for the firefighters to intervene. And at first, we created just an algorithm to detect it with computer vision from small cameras that were quite sober and frugal. But the moment that the project completely switched and actually became a force for good is when we actually made the contact with the firefighters with the people managing forests so that we can actually implement it. And at the end, it raises alerts with the firefighters. And the project now, the full life cycle, it's actually now starting to really prevent fires. And if we hadn't been doing that, we had nothing. And other examples, we worked a lot with another NGO called Quota Climate, which is basically monitoring how people speak in the media about the ecological transition. So it's counting the quantity and the quality of interventions in the media and ranking TV, and radio chains together to see who has been talking about what topic, and having some barometers to see the evolutions. And at first, the same thing, we created algorithms and we created some linkedin posts and it was good and we had a lot of buzz with it. But the project actually started to become quite important when with our work, with the KPIs that we produced, this NGO created a task force to change the regulation around media and the ecological transition. And we always see that aspect where, if we stick to keeping just having a geek thing, when we think it is a good thing, we're not actually delivering something on the field. So that's why, even if we have a lot of other aspects to consider, if the project is so good, then that's the most important thing for us. 
[34:11] Gaël: And Théo in that case, do you completely skip the intensity part, which I would say is reducing the environmental footprint in other aspects as well? Or do you have some basic guidelines that you follow all the time? 
[34:29] Théo:  Yeah, because we have one good thing at Data for Good, we were talking about that before, where we now maintain a library in Python called Code Carbon that is helping us monitor the carbon footprint of what we do. And we're actually trying to do the most that we can; it's not always feasible when you're working with volunteers because it's not a company. So sometimes people don't use it because they don't know how to use it, and we cannot really train them, but we do that as much as possible. And what we actually found is that most of the time, because for all of those projects, it was not using generative AI. So like other AI algorithms that are basically statistics, statistics which are not that heavy for a computation. So even if, when we monitor it, it's cool because we can actually have this impact measurement of our actual impact  with the plus and the negative part of it. But in the end, it's actually changing now that we have generative AI. And if we had been creating a product where the generative AI was live and used by millions of users, that would be when the question would become so important, that we actually would have some big decisions on whether we kill it or not, or actually do we invent it or not if we [already] know that it will be deployed at such a high scale. So we try to measure it, and one big part of it is not just not using some complicated algorithms in production or at all, that's all like a good way of being sober is just not doing it. 
[36:05] Gaël: Anastasis, Théo mentioned that to be efficient, to actually achieve its goal, a proper data for good project should not be left only to geeks. Is it something that you've practiced also? And do you have any good stories to tell us about this? 
[36:26] Anastasis: Absolutely. So what we usually do, we are more business focused in the sense that our clients are Corporates and businesses of any size that want to showcase and monitor their sustainability KPIs, we connect to their data systems. So we prepare their data infrastructure and then we are able to extract all the sustainability data and more general ESG data of sorts. Through that, what we hope to achieve is to automate the process of ‘how’, and leave the ‘why’ to them, for example, why do they need to reduce their carbon footprint? Why do they need to improve their ESG performance? and then to help them through this process. In this sense, we are trying to use data to reduce their own footprints and to improve their own environmental, social and governance performance. So their success is our success, and the tools they are using to implement these goals is something that's very close at heart for us. Through this process, we found that, more often than not, the need for AI comes in organically at some stage in the project. So we're always careful to avoid using it as a buzzword. I do remember a specific example which shed some light on the way we can use AI at Dataphoria and it was all about benchmarking. So we've got a particular case where the client wanted to see how they were performing against other peers in the industry with data that could not be found in specific databases or specialized ESG websites, but which was embedded in a number of sustainability reports. Most of these are in a PDF format, a couple of 100 pages long each. So when we started looking through there, to find the right data, at one point, we decided that it was going to take a very long time actually. So we tried to automate the process. We started with a few basic text analytics and one thing led to another, and we found ourselves working through a text classifier and a way to extract this textual data in a very structured format. And now when we're talking about technical data, like carbon emissions, like intensity base years, materiality topics and all these, of course, this has to come with very specialized knowledge. So that was the point where we had to stop and discuss between ourselves. Even at the small scale, we were applying heat, whether the footprint, the impact of what we were hoping to achieve could surpass the impact of building this model and deploying this model itself. And we found this as a rule of thumb ever since. 
[39:54] Gaël: Yeah, a good rule of thumb makes total sense. It’s not easy, it’s not easy all the time, to try and assess how much your clients will actually save. But I guess having this order of magnitude to 1 to 10 protects you from minor estimation errors. I would say.
[40:16] Anastasis:  Absolutely. That's the engineer in me speaking. So yeah, that's the sort of case ‘we're never gonna get it right’. We just have to be certain. 
[40:27] Gaël: You know, when I prepared this episode, I had a very interesting discussion, a very meaningful discussion with Yoann Fol and Buster Franken, thanks to Anastasis’ advice. And I remember Yohan telling me, you know, maybe AI will just become like electricity or a fridge, a technology that it is so obvious that it will become invisible, and we will not talk that much about it because we don't talk every day about electricity or the fact that we are able to produce cooling mechanisms, which is pretty amazing when you think about it. So do you foresee this trend that AI will become just AI, and not a cool hype technology boost. It's just AI, you know, it's just electricity. What do you think about it? Starting with Lou? 
[41:21] Lou: Well, I think it's as we were saying earlier in the podcast, I think it's already happening, as we're already using it every day in our lives. When you're going on social media, there are algorithms behind it, and when you're using the internet, it's algorithms again. So it's already everywhere in our lives. And what frightens me is the pace at which it's going right now. And the fact that nobody is questioning it, especially politicians. I think it's a subject where they're completely out of their reach and they don't understand. So they're not taking it seriously. Well, I believe we should in the political instances take the subject and ask the question about the usages, and the needs that we have about those technologies, because they're spreading faster and faster, and we need to ask ourselves about our needs. 
[42:23] Théo: Maybe my idea around that is, especially with this new word generative AI, and it's not only a question of Chat GPT, that is the top 10 that we always talk about. It's a question about generated human readable content that is multimodal. So that means image plus text plus sound, plus video, plus whatever. That means that it's not a question about being a real intelligence, but it's actually emulating how we are in this world, what we do in this world and how we interact with things. And so as soon as you have that ,and you're actually connecting actions, like reading and writing and so on, it becomes something that is natural to have embedded everywhere in our life, if we just follow how [others think ] it should go, if we just listen to technocratic people. So it's logical that actually, yes, AI can become obvious and invisible. For example, if you use Notion, there is now the AI part  and it's labeled as AI because it's like the buzz, but at some point it will be not [be a buzz], it will be something like when you use a keyboard and it writes for you and it helps you write faster. So it will be there, and it’s already there, but is it like a good thing? That's another question.  We always love to talk about Jacques [inaudible] and the people that are and have been studying technology and there are some researchers and social researchers that are saying that a good technology has to be convivial. That means that you cannot create a dependency to it. Because at some point, there will be a problem, and this is something that we already see. If you ask a developer right now, they are using github pilot and other AIs to write code, and I'm using it six hours a day to write code faster. And now when I don't have it, because there is a problem with my server, or I'm on a train and I don't have any networks, I know less how to code than before, but with it, I'm super faster. And this is a big question, because as soon as you create dependency, you make something that can create a lot of problems. So I don't know if it has to be obvious and invisible to be more of a force for good than a destructive force, but for sure, it is happening already, and I agree that now it's a buzz. So it's labeled AI, but it will disappear at some point. 
[45:02] Anastasis: I would totally agree with Théo on that. And just to go back to the ages before writing was actually democratized, there were all these mnemonic devices and mind balances and ways of sustaining the most information you could within your own mind. And then writing became easier because of papyrus and the parchments and so with the writing tools, it was certainly easier than writing things on stone tablets. And then there was a sort of disruption and a sort of resistance from the society back then, because people would tend to forget how to remember stuff if everything was written down. But that was the way we passed knowledge from one generation to the other. That was the way we could learn all the more, and use our mind for creativity instead of remembering lots of things. That's the analogy I would see for AI as well. It is a tool that, as Théo said, can free up our time for creative stuff that can help us accelerate what we are actually doing and take off the burden. I would see it more as a tool, therefore, more as an integration within our daily lives. The same way we have books, the same way we have phones, the same way we have other tools, calculators, you name it. But in order for it to be a force of good, not a destructive force, we need to set this trend in the right trajectory. That's what the European Union is aiming to do with the regulations about AI. That's what our generation should do as well. So in order to make AI for for good, in order to embed it the way it should be in our daily lives, we need more people, like you Théo, like Lou, like Gaël, like you listeners, to become part of this dialogue, part of the discussion and act for positive change. 
[47:15] Gaël: Thanks a lot Anastasis, it resonates a lot, with a lot of the listeners as well, and definitely with me. And now my last question to close the podcast on a positive note. Could you share one piece of good news which made you optimistic recently about a pass towards a more sustainable world? 
[47:37] Lou: Ok. Well, maybe you're gonna say it's not a good news, but I think it is. You were mentioning it at the beginning of the podcast, but today with Data for Good, we've been working on a project for several months about carbon bombs in the world. So this is not a fun topic, but I think what's positive about it, is that we've had media coverage all around the world. And I think a few years ago, this would have never happened, because people didn't care about these problems and the fact that the media is talking about these subjects in their front pages and selected them as their recommendation of the day and stuff, this is a positive thing. By showing that the media is becoming more and more aware about the subjects and trying to use the impact that they have to notify people and to inform, to help us go in the right direction.  
[48:39] Théo: I'd say a very geek good news is, in the past week, there has been the release with Hugging Face, which I was saying that I loved a lot at the beginning of the podcast, there was a release of a model called Zephyr 7b-beta, which is basically like a geek code name for a new large language model. So the kind of algorithm for generative AI that is free, open-source, small, sober, with very fast inference - that means less energy consuming inference - And that is for the first time, more performant than the things that I'm doing with GPT in production. So that means that for the people that in the field are called the GPU poor, ie. the people that don't have a GPU to do AI (that means like 99.999% of the world), if you're not working at a tech giant company, you can now have access for free, and switch your actual model that you are using for AI from a proprietary closed model, to something that is open-source and free, and consuming less energy, and created by people with different kinds of values, and something that you can actually fine tune, remove bias, audit and so on. So that's actually for the first time that I've been using generative AI every day for a year in the past year. And now for the first time, I have something that I can put in a product that I actually trust a lot more because I know I can control it in a way. 
[50:23] Gaël: And what about you, Anastasis, what is the good news that you want to share? 
[50:29] Anastasis: Right. So a few weeks ago, we had significant news in the corporate sustainability reporting sector. So all over the EU we are waiting for new sustainability reporting standards that would require a lot more companies, five times more companies than today, to report on and reduce their carbon footprint, and also their general sustainability performance. And part of this was put to a vote in the European Parliament, and there were some moves to hinder the vote and to reject the motion, or set it back a couple of years, at least by certain parties. And it was looking quite grim. It was quite unsure if this was going to pass. Obviously, if this doesn't pass, then the whole environment and sustainability progress is left two years behind. The very good news is that this passed with a majority. So we are continuing on as planned with the vision to become the first net zero continent. So that for me is great news. We shouldn't take it for granted. But people all over the place are working towards this same goal. 
[51:48] Gaël: Well, it was a lovely chat and, and it was great. Actually, it was a bit less technical than I would expect with geeks like you. But maybe it was because the right question to be asked is really the use of AI and this kind of ratio, I love how you, Anastasis, how you put it, you know, ‘multiplying by 10, otherwise it doesn't seem worth it’. And, you know, starting with a real live case, and all the tips that you shared, about how Lou and Theo, with Data for Good, manage to create massive impact using AI, and using AI doesn't necessarily mean the latest shiniest model. So thanks a lot. I really do mean it, the three of you, it was great talking to you. And as I mentioned, I hope that we will have some room in the Green IO conference hosted by API days to talk about data for good. I will try to convince some of my guests tonight to be with us in Paris. I'll let you know more in the next episode. 
[52:59] Gaël:Thanks a lot once again for joining the Green IO podcast tonight about AI and data for good. In episode 29 we will talk about anthropology and geography and Anthropocene and yes, it will still be a tech focused episode, but taking a huge step back in time, thanks to Maxime Blondeau. Yes, the one and only thought leader on geography and ecology and technology, who shares one map a day on Linkedin to his 100,000 followers. 
[53:34] Gaël: And before you leave, a small message from our sponsor. No, I'm kidding, Green IO remains a free and independent podcast, and so we need your help to keep it that way. We have zero marketing budget, so you can support us by spreading the word, by rating the podcast five stars on Apple and Spotify, by sharing an episode on social media or directly with a relative. That's a good idea. Also, thanks for your support. It means a lot to us. Us being me, but also Tani Levitt, our amazing podcast producer, and Jill Tellier, our amazing podcast curator. And stay tuned by subscribing to Green IO on your favorite podcast platform or via the Green IO mailing list. The link is in the episode notes. But you already know the drill  - every two weeks, you will get more insights and premium content to help you, the responsible technologists scattered all over the world, build a greener digital world, one byte at a time.

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Meeting Asim Hussain, the Green Software Foundation’s Director, is always an uplifting experience and this episode makes no exception. A patchwork episode where we talked about: When we finally have the chance to meet with Asim Hussain the Director of the GSF, the episode becomes a crazy mailbag one where we talked about: 

• 🙌 How trust and consensus can work in an organization gathering small and agile NGO with Tech multinationals, 
• 🔧 Which tools shall we pick to report about carbon and which ones to build more carbon-efficient software, 
• 📈 How a simple yaml file could boost comparisons and operability of green software, 
• 🌿 And yes … a bit about psychedelic medicine also 🙂

⚠️ Breaking news ⚠️
📣 Green IO launches its first on site Green IO conference in Paris, December 8th. Join us  to get the latest insights on Digital Sustainability with Aurore Stéphant, Perrine Tanguy, Tristan Nitot, Julia Meyer, Theo Alves Da Costa, and many more! Get also feedback from all the teams involved in the  2023 Sustainable Digital Challenge: Allianz, Axa, BlaBlaCar, BNP Paribas Cardif, Ekwateur, Evaneos, Groupama, INSEE, Leboncoin, Norauto, SNCF!
And it's free for our listeners! Register here with the voucher GREENIOVIP. We're looking forward to seeing hundreds of you there 😍.


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• Asim's LinkedIn
• Gaël's LinkedIn 
• Gaël's website 
• Green IO website 
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📧 You can also send us an email at [email protected] to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   

Asim's sources and other references mentioned in this episode

• Green Software Foundation
• Decarb Software 2023
• Environmental variables podcast
• Impact Engine Framework
• Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification
• Green Software Maturity Matrix
• Asim’s article “My 6-year journey with psychedelic medicine”
• Boavizta
• Watttime
• Institut du Numérique Responsable 
• SustainableIT.org 
• Blue Angel label Resources and Energy-Efficient Software Products (DE-UZ 215), 
• Linux Foundation
  
  

Transcript
Green IO E27 TRANSCRIPT
Asim [00:00:07] "We have a very specific way of working. If you're in a working group and you do not like what is happening, you have to say the words I object. It can't just be like a strong argument. You have to sarcastic a magic incantation. You have to say the words, I object."
Gaël [00:00:30] Hello, everyone. Welcome to Green IO, the podcast for Responsible Technologists Building a Greener Digital World. One byte at a time. Our guests from across the globe share insights, tools and alternative approaches, enabling people within the tech sector and beyond to boost digital sustainability. Quick note from our European-based listeners. You are invited to the first Green IO Conference in Paris on December the 8th (2023) for free. I partnered with API Days to bring you an amazing line-up, starting with Aurore Stéphant, Tristan Nitot, Théo Alves Da Costa and all the teams involved in the 2023 Sustainable Digital Challenge. The link to register is in the episode notes. Hope to see many of you.
Gaël [00:01:20] In the small but growing community of people coding with our environment at heart. The GSF, the Green Software Foundation, is getting a lot of traction. Big companies and universities are joining almost on a weekly basis. Dozens of open-source projects around the globe participated in the 2022 hackathon. The numbers of LinkedIn followers have doubled in less than the semester, if not a quarter. And a quick glance on the Green Software Foundation website will give you a good idea of all the tools and methods they provide to decarbonize software. But what's in it for a software engineer or a designer who could get lost in this vibrant library? Where to start and what to use for which needs? What are the limitations of these tools today? I seized the opportunity of meeting Asim Hussain, (the Green Software Foundation director) at API days, London, in September - where we were both talking about tech sustainability - to ask him to join the show. Between fellow podcasters because Asim and Chris Adams are the regular hosts of the great Environment Variables Podcast. He gladly accepted and voilà, hi Asim. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today. 
Asim [00:02:38] Thanks, Gaël. Thanks for having me.
2 Gaël [00:02:40] So, Asim, before we deep dive into the GSF tools, I have the question I wanted to ask you since I've started following your work. What's the connection between Microsoft, Intel, JPMorgan, the European Space Agency and psychedelic medicine?  
Asim [00:03:00] Hmm. Well, there's hopefully no connection between them and psychedelic medicine, other than the fact that I was employed (in these sectors). I've had quite a long career working in various areas, including, space and finance. And for a long stretch I was actually self-employed, teaching and training courses in teaching. Then I joined Microsoft six or seven years ago, I think, in the recently reformed developer relations division. And I was doing JavaScript developer relations focusing on the audience, but then I eventually I was the EMEA regional lead for developer relations over there. And honestly, that was just an opportunity when the whole organization shifted. It was a big reorg. Everybody was struggling to figure out "what are we going to give Asim"? And I just said, "Hey, look, I've been really part of this movement around green software. I'm talking to all these people. It's a passion area of mine. Let me incubate a team that lets me focus in on this golden question, and the stars aligned and they allowed me to just focus in on that area. And that's when I became the Green CAT advocacy lead at Microsoft. And then eventually I just moved over to Intel. And that's how we launched the Green Software Foundation. So that medicine is kind of completely tangential to all of that. So, about seven years ago, honestly, I used to suffer from very significant depression. And I really went through quite a few different modalities. I was looking at meditation - it used to be a very large part of my daily routine as well as just a number of other things that I would I was trying. Meditation is extremely powerful. I extremely recommend meditation. But then I discovered actually for many, many decades psychedelics were actively being used, and as treatment mechanisms. There are over 20,000 academic peer reviewed papers on the use of psychedelics in a wide variety these areas. But then it just got banned by Richard Nixon because he didn't like the people who were in the psychedelic movement and he wanted to find reasons to put them in jail. And that unfortunately, just spread. It's just a really unfortunate thing. And then it became illegal and the way he made it illegal was he made it illegal. So there was a schedule one, which means there are no medical uses for it.  Cocaine FYI is schedule two. So, you know, that's an interesting little thing that that speaks right now. 
Gaël [00:05:52] That's crazy. 
Asim [00:05:54] Now what's happening is, based on the large polymer study that Tim Ferriss funded, which is in the Johns Hopkins University, there's this big resurgence of research in this space. Australia just legalized that. There are multiple countries in the world which are changing their legislation over it. And there's been a large kind of movement over the last couple of years to really explore this space - sometimes it's called the psychedelic medicine movement, sometimes it's called plant-based medicines. And yeah, I've been doing a lot of those, mostly ayahuasca, but a lot of those ceremonies over the last seven years. I do them a couple of times a year and I'd say my journey in the psychedelic medicine space and my growth in there as a human being and as a spiritual entity has really - I wouldn't even remotely have been able to do what I've done here without that space. And I'm happy if anybody ever has any questions about it. I'm very open on it. It's on my profiles, on socials.  I wrote an article about it recently, so I'm always happy to answer any questions on that for anybody. That's one of my missions, recently, I realize, was to advocate for this space, to be a beacon and thank you for the opportunity to tell everybody about it because it is an area I'm trying to destigmatize. 
Gaël [00:07:21] Yeah, you're welcome. You know, I feel that a lot of we're doing is actually, in tech, showing how complex the system is. But actually, if you take an even bigger point of view, I think it's good that to break the silos in which we position our professional life our personal life or spiritual life, and understanding that everything is somehow pretty strongly connected, it helps us to be a bit more humble. I guess one effect at some point in one space could have ripple effects in others. And also reconnecting with our ecosystem or biosphere nature, choose word you want. Thanks a lot for sharing. That was intimate. So thanks for your openness. 
Gaël [00:08:11] Yes, you said you had a pretty astonishing trend in success professionally last year and even before that, for sure you've been a beacon, I would say, in the green software movement. And actually, that's true now for the Green Software Foundation. And my question would be, why so much traction for the Green Software Foundation? And I know that in the 2023 additional decarb software, I guess this online conference is in two week’s time - am I right? 
Asim [00:08:43] Yup. 16th of November 2023. 
Gaël [00:08:46] Okay. Thanks a lot. And of course, we'll put the link in the show notes along with every other reference that we mention in this episode. But you will give the introduction talk with Adam in that matter, if I'm not mistaken. And one of the aspects is 2023 in review. So could we have some teasers? Some previews? Was 2023 a good year for the Green Software Foundation? And why? Why do you see these trends? 
Asim [00:09:13] Well, it was just to talk very openly and honestly, I think. Through 2023 and we're still in it, but if you remember, the start of the year was a very interesting, challenging time for the whole industry and everybody was letting everybody go. There were really big question marks over what's happening in the ecosystem. You know, as a person who leads a foundation where we are funded through membership fees, I started off this year with a little bit of trepidation and a little bit of concern, because I knew the pressures that were on organizations to cut budgets. And, as much as we are run through volunteers, there are staff and there are costs and we have to maintain it. And now as ED, I never wanted to give anybody any bad news. So that was for me a bit of a worry. So at the start of the year, my goal for the year was mostly to ensure that we could continue functioning.  My initial thought at the start of the year was "Oh my word, the world's going to a terrible place". I know other foundations that really lost a lot of funding and they're in significant issues. And so I was like, okay, as an ED, let's be careful. We've got this mission we're trying to deliver and drive it. Let's make sure we can keep it going. And the reality is, and this is the thing that so surprised me about us, is that we've grown over the year. We kept on growing. We kept on growing, we kept on growing. And I took an opportunity and we had a healthy budget. And there are a lot of people suddenly on the market with such wonderful talent. And we've now grown such a wonderful team in the foundation, very, very strong in their field. And we were just in a great situation. So we've a) grown a great staff, really strong staff who've been driving some amazing work throughout this year. 
Gaël [00:11:18] I've got a quick question. How many people are actually working for the Green Software Foundation? 
Asim [00:11:26] I don't know, because we have quite a lot of staff that are part time. We have one, two, three, four, five full time - no eight full time staff members, currently right now. Some of them might be on more of a temporary full-time contract. But we have definitely five people who are just completely full time all the way through, and also other people who are allocated from the Linux Foundation on a permanent part time basis. Yes, we have like a good staff, but also because we do a lot of things like, you know, we don't have a full-time designer, but we have a designer. We do have a full-time web developer, we got a developer, we have writers, we have multiple writers on staff, we have a designer, we have multiple people who we go out to on an ad hoc basis.
Gaël [00:12:22] Asim, you're not full time working for the Green Software Foundation are you? Because you've got your job at Intel also, or are you now fully allocated by Intel to the Green Software Foundation? 
Asim [00:12:33] I'm not fully allocated by Intel to the Green Software Foundation. So, we have strange bylaws, we have this role of chairperson, which has to be an unpaid position. It is the leader of the organization and has to be one of the steering member organizations. Yeah, that's me. And I am very generously, my role at intel pays for my role here. I do say I have two full time jobs. It's kind of my life right now. I have a I have a calendar that is crazy. I have multiple admins supports to help me just figure out and navigate the whole space. But yeah, that's kind of my world, right now. 
Gaël [00:13:14] I understand why you need so much meditation.
Asim [00:13:17] Yeah. Yeah.
Gaël [00:13:20] But. Okay, so coming back to the initial question, because you mentioned the means, the budgets and the fact that you've been able to secure funding and actually to grow. But how do you explain the success you made in the tech industry today? 
Asim [00:13:35] So I've been kind of contemplating this. It's hard to pin down, I'll be honest with you. I think we have a very good reputation amongst the industry. We have a very good reputation amongst the industry, non-profits and in academia. We have a rare foundation in that we have representation from across the board. I would say there's a couple of ways of working that we have, that I think are quite fundamental. Like when the foundation first started, there was hardly anybody out there. Everybody was asking themselves, everybody's telling me - i remember one organization came to me and said, "You know, Microsoft tells me this, Amazon tells you that, and Google tells you this. I don't really know what to do. Then there's other organizations telling me this, and this other thing, and then there's this paper over here, and that over there." And so, the really the one word we would try and run, the mantra we had at the start was trust. We need to grow a trusted ecosystem. We need to create a place where people can trust. And so that's actually why when we formed, we formed as what's called a 'standards body'. So, we were actually a standards body at heart. You also do open-source, you also do these other things. And that means that when you're a standards body, we have so many rules around collaboration, like the open-source foundations (not to criticize open-source foundations) but open source foundations do not have those rules, which, I think, makes for a much more collaborative environment inside the Green Software Foundation than in other organizations. For instance, we run a lot of our projects and all of our working groups and everything through a consensus model. That means that every organization has got to agree before we move forward. And we also have a rule where that you if you're a nonprofit, it doesn't matter if you're Microsoft with 100,000 employees or you're a nonprofit with ten, you actually hold the same amount of power inside the Green Software Foundation as each other. When I was first forming it, a lot of nonprofits were, I was speaking to them and we want we want to create a big church, have everybody who's talking about the space here. And they were like, "We don't want to join. We've joined other foundations. We just get bullied by the enterprises. Our voices just get silenced. You just use us as effectively greenwashing for your things. And I was like, look, trust, you know me, I'm not doing this to greenwash. I had a reputation previously. We have these rules, you can join and we have a very specific way of working, which is if you're in a working group and you do not like what is happening, you do not like a change that is being made to a spec, you do not like a wording that is being proposed for a white paper, you have to say the words 'I object'. It can't just be like a strong argument. It's like a magic incantation. You have to say the words 'I object' either written or spoken. And then we actually have very specific rules for how we get over that objection. And eventually, if we can't get over it through discussion, we have a voting mechanism, so we have this extremely collaborative mechanism where anything that we create, you know, everybody has the opportunity to say no. So, when we actually publish something, so we publish something like the SCI specification, the advantage of it is that anybody out there can create a spec. It's so easy to create a spec, it's nothing. You just write something out. And a lot of other organizations, it's just one or two organizations, just write a spec and go, 'Are you all right with this? Hmm, I wasn't part of the meeting’. Where is when we publish the SCI, every single organization had specific input into that. And so because of this mechanism that we have, when we release the SCI, everybody's already adopting it because they've already been discussing it intensely inside their organization, it's already been used in academic research, already being used in all these areas. It's really ridiculously hard, the consensus model is agonizing, honestly. Sometimes you just want to go like, okay, I'll make the call. But it's the thing I think that creates the trust, because that allows your member organizations, the nonprofits, the academics, to engage because they know that their voice is going to matter. And then when we release something, it allows people to trust what we release because they're like, "Well, look all those names behind it and they really are behind it." So, I always use the word trust. I think trust is what this space needed and trust is what we're trying to provide.
Gaël [00:18:34] Before moving to everything you do concretely because what you've explained is super, super important, I'd like to go a bit more in-depth. I've got like this question about the potential downside, which is until when, or until how many could it work? Because a consensus with ten is hard to obtain, with hundred is ridiculously hard, and with 1000, I don't even know if it's possible. So how do you foresee the future and is it connected, which is my question number two, to a very strict onboarding process? That you don't welcome anyone or you welcome anyone, but following very strict rules that will avoid to have some kind of a...
Asim [00:19:23] Malicious intent…
Gaël [00:19:24] Insiders with a general philosophy...
Asim [00:19:26] Yeah. So I think we're trying to educate people on, is that consensus is ridiculously hard. But however hard the consensus is, like, if you saying if there's a thousand people we need to get around to make a consensus, that's actually good. Because that means that once you get people, eventually put all that effort in, and all that negotiation, you've got a thousand people who are about to adopt something. So you've kick started that whole process. We have mechanisms where we do have a voting mechanism, which we have rarely used. I will say that there have been and I have been some extreme [moments]. You know, we're in the sustainability space. Everybody in the sustainability space, we all care about the same thing, but we have different views on certain topics. There are very powerful views on those topics. There have been some extremely tense 'I object' things, where everybody is a wonderful human being who deeply cares, passionately cares about it, and there's not really a clear path forward. But we've always found we've always found a compromise all the way through. 
Gaël [00:20:39] Yeah. Okay. So, you do have this kind of nuclear option, that is the big stick that if we don't manage to get consensus, there is another way and nobody wants to use it but hey it's here. So, it drives people toward a collaborative mode. 
Asim [00:20:57] Okay, But the truth is the thing, I think that I used to be very nervous about this model because it was a strong recommendation to me at the start. And I was like, okay, ughhhh, I'm used to more command-and-control structures. I now fully trust the process of getting a bunch of passionate people, passionate, knowledgeable people, together on a subject. As long as that group is large enough and diverse enough, you will always get to the right solution. I'm a very trusting of that whole process. We also do have projects which you don't run through consensus, more of, like open-source projects. If there is literally a piece of software, we're not going to have a consensus on every single pull request merge. 
Gaël [00:21:43] No, obviously. 
Asim [00:21:44] But we have a slightly different mechanism called 'graduation'. Once you graduate, you're free to do what you want, and there's still a lot of oversight. 
Gaël [00:21:55] So, let's deep dive. And that was very, very enlightening on the work of the Green Software Foundation. And let's deep dive a bit on what actually you provide, because I had obviously a quick look on the Green Software Foundation websites. Well, it would make anyone realize that the GSF provide a lot of tools. Just to name a few principles on green software engineering. SCI, as you already mentioned, Carbon Aware SDK, the green software maturity metrics that Anne Currie very recently advocated, and I was not aware of it, so of course I had to look at it. The software carbon efficiency rating, how you've gone through community tools, the green software champions or a state of green software study, so there are quite a lot of them. Could you try to make sense of them? What connects them and why are they interesting or important? 
Asim [00:22:54] So there's a lot going on and a lot of people of engaging on a lot of fronts in the Foundation. We have four main working groups: standards, policy, community and open source. So standards is the software carbon intensive specification - most of our projects are in that area because we are just like an expert at making standards, and getting people to sit and agree and all other stuff. So software carbon intensive specification is a thing that I'm so incredibly proud of because that specification was built by people who had been actively trying to measure the emissions of software inside their organizations using the GHG or other mechanisms and for a while had seen the real limitations of that protocol when applied to software and had, when they first started off the process of building the ECI, they had this idea - what we want this to be, what do want this to drive. And there were some very early decisions. I was staring at this zoom room full of people, with such pride - wow, you all really are making wonderful decisions here. But they were [saying]: We want to make sure that the spec drives certain behaviors. We don't want the behaviors that we know are good to be an accidental byproduct of a spec, which is often what happens. These are the behaviors, so what is the spec that we need to drive these behaviors? We need people to invest in more energy efficient software. We need people to into making stuff more energy efficient. We need people to invest in using fewer servers and using less embodied carbon, using less hardware. And we need people to invest in making software carbon-aware.  These are the things that people have been trying for years inside their organizations to get effort into. And they were [saying 'The gesture isn't helping us, it's not driving any of this stuff. And in fact it's harming a lot of our efforts". The market-based emissions loophole and GHG kills off any effort to make any work in the energy efficiency space. It just does not happen. 
Gaël [00:25:23] It has been changing recently. 
Asim [00:25:24] The GHG?
Gaël [00:25:25] Fortunately. 
Speaker 1 Asim [00:25:25] Yeah there are movements but... 
Gaël [00:25:28] That it's too much location based rather than a market-based approach. But yeah, I was I was very, very relieved when I read the latest SCI specification, when it became really public, to see the public version, to see that embedded carbon was taken into consideration, that the main first focus was you reduce everything. And offset is just what has absolutely to remain, and that offset is almost off the table. That's not the topic. The topic is really, yeah, it's about reduction. 
Asim [00:26:00] By the we say it's about elimination. Like the only way to reduce your score is to eliminate your emissions. But when you talk about a lot of our projects, a lot of the work we do is really about measurement. 
Gaël [00:26:13] Can I ask one final question about the SCI, because I know that a lot of people listening the podcast are developers, designers, that can truly leverage this kind of tool. But my question is, do you believe that today the SCI has closed the gap with the GHG protocol? And let me elaborate a bit on it, because that's really something I'm struggling with some clients  - that the SCI hubs definitely help to steer the decarbonization of your software in the right direction, especially taking into account the embedded carbon, in not only energy, which is electricity consumption actually, but when you say, okay, I wrote this piece of software and I now believe that when I run it, it emits, I don't know, several kilos of greenhouse gas or CO2 equivalent, [and so] it's not really easy to connect with one bucket, one slot in the GHG protocol, because it will split it between electricity consumption, what are the goods you buy or whatever services you bought to build this software? So do you believe that actually this gap could be closed at some point? Do you believe it has already been closed? Or actually it doesn't really matter, because it's a tool to steer people in the right direction. And at some point you will also see obviously the benefits in greenhouse gas protocol reporting, even if it's not directly connected, you know, one line really related to another. 
Asim [00:27:48] So I would say that they are completely different tools. When you measure something, you're trying to find the answer to a question. GHG is just a different set of questions than SCI. GHG is trying to answer the very specific question: what is one organization's emissions separate to another organization's emissions? Because the unit of pressure, responsibility, accountability is an organization. And the belief is that if you tell an organization what their emissions are, they will somehow drive reductions. The SCI is just trying to answer a different question, is trying to answer what is the intensity of a piece of software? Because I don't even want the SCI ever to be used in a reporting context like that, because we are trying to drive behavior change through the SCI, rather than just ticking a box of what are your carbon emissions. We always say this, it actually doesn't even matter what the carbon emission value on the right-hand side of the SCI is. All that matters is that the actions that you take, that we know our actions that drive down emissions, i.e., reduce electricity consumption, [and which] will reduce that score. If you have that connection, that's how you drive behavior change. You, as somebody who works in organizations, the GHG serves a very important function, which is we need to know all of the total carbon budget. What is one organization or one country responsible for versus another one? It does not drive behavior change.  If you make your software consume less energy, it is extremely unlikely that that will be reflected in the GHG reporting numbers for your organization. If you make your application carbon aware, it is impossible for that to be reflected in your organization's carbon reporting number, because of that complete break in behaviors and numerical reporting. It does not drive behavior change. That's the really important thing. That's the thing that I realized over the years. What happens often times inside organizations and I've seen it multiple times, is that people spend ages calculating their carbon footprint. And then you submit a PDF and everybody's happy, and then you go away and do the same thing next year. How was that action? Can you connect the dots between programs inside your organization that are trying to search for funding? And we know 100% will reduce emissions. And this reporting mechanism, which doesn't care about keeping those connections from, you know, actions that you take to this carbon figure, that is actually what's so important. That's the kind of a message I'm really trying to get along the world. It doesn't matter. Calculating your carbon footprint does not matter if you, in that, process have broken the understanding of the actions that you can take to drive down that number. And that's oftentimes what happens because concrete number is so unbelievably hard. Use a thousand spreadsheets. You copy values from one spreadsheet to another, and you lose. You lose that relationship. And then at the end of the day, there's some team going, you know, I need $1,000,000. I'm pretty sure I can reduce actual emissions by 10%. And then people go, "Well, you might be able to reduce actual emissions by 10%. But the way we calculate our carbon with the assumptions that we make and the averages we've have to use, and our auditors have insisted that we can't use that figure, we have to use that figure." So unfortunately, even though you could actually reduce 10% of of physical carbon emissions, the way we measure doesn't recognize that. Therefore that work will not happen. That is that is what I'm seeing happening multiple times, repeatedly. And that is what I think is broken about our space right now. 
Gaël [00:32:15] Yeah, I agree with you. That's why that's why you need the Chief sustainability officer to have a very open and transparent discussion with CTU and CIO because they both need to acknowledge they will have the same goals, not using exactly the same tools. And that the GHG audit end of the year is a lagging indicator in that some of the indicators that could become the sustainable dashboard of any CTO or any CIO around the globe is more in need of leading indicators. And you know that at the end of the day you will achieve the same results. But you need to understand also that the bridges are not there and it's not just copy pasting and it will work. I'm very happy that you made the point because that yeah, I think I will refer to you as like the director of the Green Software Foundation site. So, so please believe me that you can track multiple things, or the same thing in different ways. And that actually that's a very consistent way to work so that you will achieve meaningful progress rather than just one north star, then, you know, sometimes still you are in the wrong direction. 
Asim [00:33:27] Yeah. And, and I find that quite frustrating and annoying. I always say when I go to a doctor for a health check, it's not just weigh me and then that's it. They weigh me, they check my height. You see your blood pressure, you see this etc. There are all of these things that you need to measure, all completely different units. They're very different ways of measuring so you understand what is going on and what do you need to do. And there is a complete obsession with this one, not just carbon value, but one methodology of measuring carbon and assuming that this one is the magical way of measuring which will inform you of all of the things that you need. It's like it's like an organization saying the only metric every single department needs to know is profit. And you should be able to figure everything else out. You should be able to figure everything else out from profit. I don't need that. I need to know employee satisfaction. I need to know customer happiness. I need to know how many people are visiting my website and if people are dropping up, I need to know all these things. And that's the same we need in the sustainability space. 
Gaël [00:34:35] We agree. That reminds me, you know, the crazy focus we had in the eighties, in the nineties about fat. You know, fat fat fat fat fat. You realize that when you crack the surface, half of the studies were sponsored by the sugar industry, that actually fat is not the issue -I mean don't get me wrong, eating too fatty can lead to a significant disease - but sugar is way more an issue than fat. It's quite kind of funny. Obviously. We talked a lot about the SCI, software carbon Intensity - which is so important of carbon intensity, but there are a lot of other initiatives going on. Do you fancy giving us a tour or maybe highlighting what could be the most beneficial for doers in the tech industry?
Asim [00:35:22] So therefore, I recommend the training that we have learned on our greensoftware.foundation site, which is often used to be called the 'principles'. That has been an effort just to get everybody on the same page. Unlike others before, we weren't even all using the same terms. Our conversations are confusing, so it's just a way of getting everybody on the same page, everybody in the same language. Even if you having a conversation, if you're on the same page and you are having a conversation with a customer or somebody else, you can send them to our training to get on the same page. In terms of what wer are working on in the future, hopefully next year we'll be working on more certification. 
Gaël [00:36:08] Still working with the Linux Foundation?
Asim [00:36:11] So we're still we're having some conversations [about] where to learn that right now. But yeah, we'll probably want to do it for free, which is a challenge for the cost structure of the Linux foundation that does that. But yeah, so, that's where our education arm is going. And again, all of this stuff is stuff that we do through consensus, through our members. So, some of the stuff, it really depends on whether the members feel this is an area that they want to invest that time into. There's a lot of work going on in the standards space. One project I want to highlight is a project that I've been particularly putting a lot of my personal attention in is there's a lot of interest from our members in this particular project and we're going to be announcing it at DeCarb and it’s called Impact Framework. And what it is, it's a tool to allow you to measure the environmental impacts of software. Now it won't scan anything. It won't do anything. You have to manually create a manifest file, a YAML file to describe everything, but hey, here's what happens all the time. Somebody measures a piece of software or makes a claim about a measurement or a user story or something like that. And it's always written up in English in like some PDF remarked on file. No, it's just like, it's like someone writing a blog post, I guess. There's no structure to it. What this is like is a YAML file where you gather some user data about your application workloads. This is the backend workloads. This is the utilization. This is this, this is that, this is the other, you gather data, you put it into a YAML file and then you actually very explicitly say, "Hey look, you can define a pipeline of computation and again it's all in the YAML, you can install plugins, all different types of modules that you want to use and we've standardized the interface to models". So, let's say you want to use, - I'm using the Boa Vista model - and then let's say, you know what I actually want to use- What times- what time are big supporters of the marginal emission factors for and I trust most of exposed I want to use what time versus resources, electricity maps. And so, you can really define, not only you're putting your data with this manifest file, but then you're explicitly stating your method, your methodology of calculation. This is how I'm taking that utilization figure. I'm turning into carbon, and that is all in a manifest file. So, when you report a carbon figure, you're not telling me a carbon figure, you're sending me a YAML file, that I will then execute and I will then see what your carbon figure is. And then you know what? I don't like some of your assumptions that you've made. I don't like the fact that you've used this coefficient for the database. I think you're being a bit too generous there, that I'm going to use my coefficient. I don't like the fact that you use values from that paper for your networking. I prefer the values from that other paper. So, it's making the whole thing just fully transparent. You're not just people, not just telling you what your carbon emissions are. Here's your money. Here is my working out, here is my manifest. The future that I see is that every open-source project in the world has this YAML file and its root directory, and you know what the emissions profile of this application is. My dream is, in the future, every single software product that's released, every single version of it, will come with one of these manifest files. There are so many use cases that people are coming up with for this thing. Yeah, those are projects I'm extremely excited about. I put a lot of my personal effort into it, and energy, and I think it's going to be quite transformative in the industry. 
Gaël [00:40:02] And actually I didn't realize how deep it was, how structural, I would say it could be. For me, it was more like an extension of the sky. But no, it's more rooted in. Yeah. Has a huge potential of making significant change. And fun fact is, while you were talking about it, it was like, hmmm, that could be a box to be ticked in the Green Software maturity metrics. You know, that's okay if you are truly at this level of maturity, all your code will have this YAML, file, etc. This is kind of the idea as well?
Asim [00:40:42] Yeah. I think I will now talk to with others, it was still pre alpha so I'm trying to get to the point where, a lot of what I've just explained to you would be just obvious by looking at the project. Unfortunately, there's a lot of just old code hidden away in places. But yeah, that would be that would be an ideal place. I've even had somebody say they want to create, - they're selling more of a physical product, and they want to create a QR code which would point people to the YAML file, because you can do with a physical product as well. There's nothing stopping you from using this YAML file as a LCA for physical stuff as well. So yeah. 
Gaël [00:41:24] I would love to talk about all the other projects as well, the tools, etc., but being mindful of all time, I'd like to talk a bit about the interaction of the Green Software Foundation with the rest of the ecosystem. I understood from your earlier description that your strategy is mostly to produce norms and methods and standards. This is what you are excellent at, quoting yourself. But yeah, that's my advice as well. But that leads me to a very important question, which is how do you connect with other initiatives in Europe? You've mentioned Boavista, but also sustainability.org. This initiative in Germany around the Blue Angel label, Blue Angel Label Green software. I don't remember the German word for it. Obviously in French you've got several big initiatives like the INR, Sustainable I.T.. How did you translate it?  IT Sustainability Institute or something like that, institute in your area, because...
Asim [00:42:33] I know that... 
Gaël [00:42:33] ...In Switzerland and in Belgium and. And actually, it could go all the way up to - we already mentioned the GHG protocol - but do you plan at some point to become ISO norms? So how do you see yourself in this ecosystem? 
Asim [00:42:51] Because you mentioned ISO, the SCI is actually now an ISO approved specification. So, we've gone through all those processes and it was ratified by 195 countries, which I didn't know that was the actual process for the ISO. But yeah, we, adjust to the pace of the feedback. So, there is that. So I'll just tell you one of the things, that we have a theory of change which was developed to our members, which is basically like three pillars. We need changes in knowledge, we need changes in tooling. And we need changes in culture. The culture is a big one. We need that. We need a cultural change in order for people to prioritize a lot of these things. We went through this whole exposure to this theory change. Then we went through this exercise of what are all the things we need to change in the world to make all of those things happen? And then we went through the exercise of 'Well, are we even the right organization to make that change?' Because we don't have to be the right organization. And one of the things that we're doing a lot more now is we are, especially amongst the LF foundations, because in a lot of the foundations, there is like a working group or an arm or like a new there's a sustainability focused little team inside. They're focusing how to do that part of that fund. Now, whatever the foundations focus areas is more sustainably. So and also there's multiple organizations like the ones you mentioned out there. Our working group, the one that's responsible for connecting all those dots is a policy working group. But there's so many dots and everybody's a volunteer and we've even with the staff, there's just too many too many things going on. So one of the things we want to start doing for next year. So actually some of those you mentioned, we actually do have very specific arrangements with some of the sustainability i.t. Org. We have an MOU understanding, and that they're collaborating together on a piece of work in the Policy working group, and some of the others are members of the foundation. But one thing we really want to start doing from next year after we're going to call them roundtables, which are closed door meeting. In fact, I think I stole the idea from Boavista, because they were doing this a while ago, but closed-door meetings, with Chatham House Rules. So you have a bit of freedom to talk. Well, we invite everybody together, like one day a quarter. We'll arrange everything, and we just talk to each other. And I think that's just the most important thing. Just talk to each other. And there's so much going on, it's hard for you to keep a track. It's not the case of people stepping on each other's toes. We're just all busy and no one knows. You've barely got enough time to figure out what you're doing. So, trying to keep an eye on what everybody else is doing, you just don't have the time. So we want to create an environment where we bring everybody together and we just we talk. Maybe we do a show and tell, and we just keep the lines of communication open. And then we do things like, Hey, look, we were going to do X, but you seem like you're much more suited, so why don't you go about it? You focus on X, you focus on Y, you focus on Z, and then we all support each other. We really want to create that kind of collaborative now, hat's what we do with it. We're a collaborative organization. The way I want it to be is much more to help everybody get together, to help the whole ecosystem get together, and just all be moving in the same direction. And again, we're just all busy. That's the thing. If there is stuff that's not moving in the same direction, it's just because we're busy most of the time. Or maybe there is a difference of opinions that could be there as well. But we're not like competitors where we're kind of intentionally trying to come up with different things at the same time. So that's the idea, it is just to get everybody together. We'll figure it out.
Gaël [00:46:48] Well, I love the philosophy Asim, because actually, I know that you know, but you know only since a few minutes so it's still a bit of a surprise for you I guess, but we will have a Green IO conference in Paris December the 8th. And of course, all the listeners can get free tickets. So it's just a matter of pinging me on LinkedIn or by email. But most of the listeners, they already know it. And this conference, I really want to have a roundtable with most of the organizations, and I didn't know that you wanted to create this roundtable approach is for 2024. I think this is absolutely awesome. But as you know, it's also why I launched this podcast. This is a very DNA of the Green IO podcast. So congratulation and obviously I hope that either you or a representative of the Green Software Foundation will be able to join the onsite roundtable in Paris with many other organizations, to discuss about collaboration, steering things in the right direction, and also acknowledging our differences. Because this is how the world works, and how it moves beautifully toward a more sustainable future. Hopefully. So, that's kind of funny. I didn't expect this announcement. So pretty cool. And now closing the podcast, I've got my two last questions. What piece of news would you like to share that recently uplifted you when it comes to our move toward sustainability and maybe a bit more digital sustainability? 
Asim [00:48:27] So the news that gives the most optimism is just I'm a big believer in the fact that we need to have a deep cultural shift in society to actually make a solution. Now, I don't think this is going to be, I think everything else just really stems from there. I think there's been a massive shift up to this point. But, um, but that's really what makes me excited about is just a number of people and I'm very lucky to speak to a lot of people, a number of people like yourself, and others in this space, who are, you know, just talking about these questions. And I think that's all you really need to have, is just have people talking about these questions. That is 99% of the challenge. I remember once I was speaking at a conference in sustainability, and it still comes to me quite often, which was, afterwards the audience came up to me and they said, you know what? You're the first person who's ever spoken to me about sustainability and were giving me solutions; and they were energized and the other speaker, and he's quite famous, not to name him, but his fundamental nature, his talk was like very doom and gloom. In fact, this is why I do not remotely talk about any of the aspects of climate change, I don’t think it matters. I just focus on the solution. And I think that's what I'm seeing a lot more of, I'm seeing a cultural shift with people where you go, "right let's dig in, we're focusing on solutions, okay, you do X, you do Y. This is the solution the GSF said what? Said do that? Ok let's focus on that. So as I said it's like I'm seeing that kind of action happening and that kind of conversation happening. I always said, for us in our part of the space, all we really need to do is just to have people, when things are being proposed, when features are being proposed, to actually say, hey, look, what is a sustainability aspect to this? Sustainability is not the most important thing for everybody. It will never be. Security is important. All these other things are important. But as long as we could just have somebody go, what about sustainability? Just having to ask that question is enough for me, because I think that we're there now. We're there at the table with everything else, and now we just are doing a negotiation, and that's the culture shift. Like honestly, four years ago, if any, if there was even one article published which mentioned anything around green stuff or anything by tech sustainability, we all lost our heads over it. And now the foundation's got a weekly newsletter where we're just jamming it full of information. All the news is going on, you've got your podcast, we've got all this, there's loads of material out there. I talk to multiple organizations that have said to me very explicitly, we are willing to spend more on sustainability this year. It's been more challenging to get that kind of answer from an organization, but the fact that we're still getting it is a really positive sign. So from where I sit, I'm just seeing like a hockey stick curve up. So I always get a lot of inspiration. But one of the things I'm very adamant about and it's one of the values, one of the values of the foundation, is that we focus very much on solutions. We talk about solutions. We don't solve our problems. I'm not in that space. I don't care. I've got enough people with climate anxiety who are just sitting there and they just get shouted out all the time by people about how everything's going to pop. Doesn't matter. Like knuckle down. Work on solutions. Ask us what gives me a lot of inspiration. 
Gaël [00:52:34] Thanks a lot for joining us. Thanks for all these great insights that you shared with us and hope to see you soon in Paris or somewhere else. 
Asim [00:52:45] Thank you so much for having me here and hopefully see you at an event soon. And just another final statement, we said, please come, please visit the decarbonized software event - it is happening on the 16th of November. It's online. It's free. It's about two and a half hours. We've got community speakers from all over, talking about various topics. We'll be talking about some of the releases, some of the Champions program, which I've not even mentioned, but we're launching an MVP style Champions program, the Impact Framework, a bunch of other things we'll be talking about. And if you go to Decarb.GreenSoftware.Foundation, that's where you can sign up. 
Gaël [00:53:23] Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. In episode 28, we will talk about A.I., but artificial intelligence with a purpose. I focus on data for good as we see it labeled quite often. I will have the pleasure to host Lou Welgryn and Théo Alphas Da Costa, the founders of Data for Good, who made the headlines this month with their data visualization of the 422 carbon bombs which might detonate worldwide, and Anastasis Stamis, the founder of Data for Hire, the first data for good impact driven startup in Greece (self-claimed) providing ESG and sustainable data integration, management and analytics. Stay tuned. 
Gaël [00:54:08] Before you leave, a small message for my sponsor. No, I'm kidding. Green IO is a free and independent podcast, and so we need your help to keep it that way. You can help us by supporting us on Tipeee, and the link is in the episode notes. I also give online and on-site conferences and facilitate workshops about climate change and digital sustainability. So do get in touch if that interests you. It's a good way to allow me to keep investing in the podcast. Full disclosure: each episode takes me roughly 15 hours of work finding the guest, convincing them, researching the topics, and it costs between three and €400 to produce. Now you know everything. If you cannot donate, that's fine. You can support us by spreading the word. Rate the podcast five stars on Apple and Spotify. Share an episode on social media or directly visit the website. Seriously. Thanks for your support. It means a lot to us, us being me, but also Tani Levitt our amazing podcast Producer Engineer and Jill Tellier our amazing podcast curator. Stay tuned by subscribing to Green IO on your favorite podcast platform or via the Green IO mailing list. The link is in the episode notes, but you already know the drill. Every two weeks you will get more insights and premium content to help you, the responsible technologists scattered all over the world, build a greener digital world.


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This episode is not in Spanish or Portuguese but it might have been 🙂 
With Catalina Zapata - founder of La Web Verde community in Colombia - and Ismael Velasco - founder of the Adora foundation and based in Mexico - Gaël Duez explores the momentum of Digital Sustainability in Latin America as well as the pitfalls it faces. From COP21 memories to the structure of the IT industry in LATAM, both guests share unconventional wisdom as well as tips for any IT workers based in LATAM to green the Web. 

Learn more about our guest and connect: 

• Catalina's LinkedIn and WordPress.tv results
• Ismael’s LinkedIn
• Gaël's LinkedIn 
• Gaël's website 
• Green IO website 
  
  

📧 You can also send us an email at [email protected] to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   

Catalina's and Ismael’s sources and other references mentioned in this episode:

• ClimateAction.Tech
• WordPress Sustainability Community 
• Adora foundation 
•  Elena Morettini’s talk 
• Gerry Mc Govern’s work
• Tom greenwood’s Curiously Green newsletter
• Unitar’s article on Latin America’s e-waste management  
• Article in Portuguese: Green Information Technology practices in University educational institutions: A systematic review
• CSIS article on The Development of the ICT Landscape in Mexico: Cybersecurity and Opportunities for Investment 
• Environmental Variables - The Week in Green Software: episode with Chris Adams and Ismael Velasco 
• Green Web Foundation

Transcript (in English - for Spanish check below)
(00:09) Gaël: Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO, the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world, one byte at a time. On Green IO, we explore how to reduce the environmental impact of our digital world. Our guests from across the globe share insights, tools, and alternative approaches enabling people within the tech sector, and, beyond to boost digital sustainability.More than 300 million digital users, home of dozens of unicorns, with vibrant tech scenes scattered across the region. 2.2 million working in the technology, internet and communication sector, according to LinkedIn. No, I'm not talking about Europe, but Latin America. Latin America, which is a significant player in our digital world and as such a significant contributor to its environmental impacts. Just following a non-rigorous approach based on the number of its users, but hey, remember that the majority of the environmental impacts come from both manufacturing and user devices, and the electricity consumption of these devices. So, resuming my on-the-go analysis, with 5.5% of world users, Latin America’s carbon footprint for its digital activities would be around 77 million tons of CO2 (2019), which is more than any country in Central America, apart from Mexico, obviously, and for instance it is more than Uruguay has emitted. So, I guess now that you understood that today's episode is about Latin America, and more specifically, how someone working in the digital sector and based in Latin America can contribute to decarbonizing the Internet.To help us finding the answers, I'm pleased to welcome two guests today. Catalina Zapata, who's based in Medellín, Colombia. Catalina is a seasoned web designer who started a project called La Web Verde, (my pronunciation is terrible because it's in Spanish) in order to democratize sustainability on the web, teach designers and developers how to create more sustainable digital projects and more specifically spread green awareness about our digital footprint within the WordPress community.
 (02:34.39) Gaël: I spotted Catalina in this vibrant WordPress sustainability group last year, and when I reached out to her, she told me that she was already a regular listener of the podcast. And when I asked her why she was so much into sustainability, she had a very straightforward answer: because we breathe the same air and we are all on the same planet. And that was pretty straightforward. Well, later, she actually told me that three years ago she read an article about internet being the fourth most polluting country in the world, and that was kind of a ‘ha-ha’ moment. But actually, I think I even love better her first answer.Ismael Velasco is based in Mexico and I met him via the amazing CAT community. Ismael is a veteran in the software industry at large, and green software in particular. His API ‘graceful degradation’ concept immediately appealed to me, but I discovered someone whose knowledge and commitment goes far beyond green IT, with his involvement in the Adora Foundation, which forces social innovation across the globe and his recent decision to focus more on the sustainability side of technology. So, welcome Catalina, welcome Ismael. Thanks a lot for joining Green IO today.(04:02) Ismael: It's great to be here. Great to be with you.(04:05) Catalina: Thank you, Gael, for connecting, for inviting, and creating this space, that is not only innovative, but also is very, very, very necessary for those who design the web and consume the internet.(04:18) Gaël: Wow, thanks a lot, both of you. I would love to start, actually, with a very straightforward question. Is the title of this episode all wrong? I mean, is Latin America a pertinent scope to apprehend Tech and sustainability? Ismael, do you have an opinion on it?(04:40) Ismael: I think, personally that, yes, it is a meaningful category. I think the distribution of technology and the role and contribution of technology does diverge regionally. So; each country, each area will have different profiles. But I think the main realities facing Latin America in relation to technology do have a lot of parallels. I think culturally, there is probably even more commonality across Latin America than there is across Europe, in many areas. The tensions that we experience are often also mirrored across countries. So, I think it's definitely a meaningful category, which is not to say a homogenous one. I think you will find enormous diversity country to country. But I don't think that negates the fact that addressing the reality of technology at a Latin American level makes sense on very many levels. So yes.(05:45) Gaël: Catalina, do you have an opinion on it?(05:48) Catalina: I think that in Europe, digital sustainability has become a priority for both government and business. But there are strict regulations on the energy efficiency or data centers, the recycling of electronic devices, and the reduction of carbon emission in the technology sector. The United States has not reached European standards, but there is a growing awareness of carbon footprint reduction. But in Latin America, we have a great challenge in accessing resources and knowledge, and access to information in Spanish is limited. It is necessary to translate and adapt resources into Spanish and other native languages of the continent, to make the information more accessible and usable. However, I believe we have great potential, but more awareness and education is needed from all of us who create the web and consume the internet.(06:57) Gaël: Well, that's very interesting feedback, Catalina, and there are a lot of different things to unpack here. So we'll go back to them point by point, but I'd like to bounce back on what you've just said about the level of awareness across the globe. What is the level of awareness according to you about digital sustainability in Latin America?(07:19) Catalina: For me, it's very, very, very low. Digital sustainability is a strange concept in Colombia and Latin America. Everyone talks about climate change, net zero, circular economy, sustainable development goals, sustainable fashion, human rights, green mobility, recycling, inclusion, female empowerment, artificial intelligence, eco-tourism. But no one talks about green software, green web, or the impact of the internet on each of our digital actions on carbon emissions. And I ask myself why. To give you an example of how ignorant we are. I am an ambassador for the Climate Reality Project. It's a non-profit organization, one of the largest communities of world climate leaders of the world created to promote solutions to climate change. This organization has a virtual platform where everyone can connect with other leaders. There are materials, videos, forums, events, resources, surveys, discussions, seminars, virtual meetings, job opportunities. And for the last three years, I have not found a single conversation about digital sustainability or sustainable web design or digital sovereignty. The server where the website and digital community is hosted is not a green server. That makes a lot of inconsistency between what is said and what is done in companies or organizations or change makers in Latin America.(09:09) Gaël: That's not the first time I hear someone saying that digital sustainability per se, not sustainability at large, because a lot of stuff is obviously going on in Latin America, but digital sustainability is not a hot topic. Ismael, is it something that you agree with, especially with regards to the situation in Mexico?(09:29) Ismael: Yes, I think I recognize that situation, and I think it's probably the case for almost all of Latin America, with the exception of the academic sector in Brazil. But in Brazil, you do have quite a lot of academia that has been publishing for years. They've been, I think, some of the earliest thinkers around brain computing and digital sustainability. But they are the exception. And I don't think even in Brazil it has expanded outside of academia into industry in any meaningful way. In Mexico, a bit like we heard for Colombia, I've organized a number of events here on ‘greening your software’. I've given a few talks, etc. I'm in touch with a lot of developer communities here, in the thousands. And I think every single time, without exception, when I brought up the theme, it has been the first time anyone remembers ever having come across a talk or an event dedicated to the subject. But, like Catalina mentioned, there aren’t really any accessible resources in Spanish. There aren't bodies that are pushing for it. There isn't a regulatory or a policy agenda for it. And the people who have thought about it have tended to think about it in isolation. We've been trying to start building communities through a set of events around ‘Green Your Software’. We launched one in Mexico. We're hoping, with Catalina, to do something like that in Colombia too, and also outside of Latin America too. But generally speaking, I would say that, like Catalina, my experience is that the topic is highly resonant. The moment that people hear about it, developers in particular, they go, ‘ah, that makes sense’. I want to do something about it. But it's almost always the very first time they've thought about it. The level of awareness is extremely, extremely low, with the possible exception of Bitcoin, which has got such a globally bad reputation environmentally, that it has permeated the popular consciousness. And people might go, ‘oh, yeah, Bitcoin might be bad for the environment’. But outside of that, I don't think it's a discussion that is happening in general.(12:04) Gaël: So how come we are facing so many issues? Catalina, you mentioned that a lack of documentation in Spanish was one of the issues, but is there any other hurdle that a designer (because you're more on the designer side) faces, to start greening the web?(12:28) Catalina: I agree with what Ismael said, that the principal problem is the awareness. Yes, many companies and professionals in Latin America are still aware of the environmental impacts of their online activities. The lack of education and awareness about digital sustainability is a key challenge for those of us who create and consume internet content. Another very important point is the resistance to change. Some companies and professionals may resist to change, especially if they believe that adopting sustainable practices could increase their costs or require additional efforts. Another point is green hosting challenges. At times, selecting eco-friendly hosting provided by renewable energy sources can be a challenge, as there may be a lack of available options in certain areas and costs can probably be high.(13:36) Gaël: Ismael, is this something that you've noticed as well or do you have another angle as a developer?(13:44) Ismael: Both. I definitely agree with absolutely everything that Catalina has said, but I also think that there is a structural issue that is driving a lot of this, and it's the nature of the ICT market in Latin America. I think there are four layers to it. You have the base layer of a very small website and simple apps for a domestic market, that are not necessarily high skill and they're also not high in price. So that means that developers generally do not have much say in terms of what or how they build. They are freelancing. There's a huge gig economy around ICT. So that first layer of the gig economy means that even if you cared about green software, and even if you were a bit informed about green software, the opportunities to present it, to incorporate it, to discuss it, are smaller. Then you have the next layer, which is where you have developers who are building more sophisticated software applications, and are who are primarily competing on price - they tend to be software agencies, and this is another scenario where they are given not a lot of resources, not a lot of time to come up with an app and who do not necessarily have a high level of training or focus on quality. The importance is to churn out products and the jobs are precarious. So, the long-term thinking around green quality, around impact, around all kinds of things that companies might do if they're building a single product over three or four or five years is much harder to do if you've got a three-month contract or a five-month contract.(16:12.) Gaël: There is, in different parts of Latin America, a much more highly skilled digital labor force and people are offshoring to Latin America and often for longer-term projects. So often, in major companies, people will have products that they're building and they will have entire teams based in Mexico or in Colombia or in other parts of Latin America. And there you will have the level of expertise required to build perhaps green apps, but the commissioning process, the people making the actual decisions on architecture, on design, on hiring, are all in the United States, in Canada, in Europe, and they don't particularly care about the environment.
So, they are achieving high quality for lower price. And then the final layer is the unicorns. You have some Latin American tech companies that have begun to emerge in Mexico. I can't remember the number, there might be five or ten unicorns. So, these are people getting billions from venture capitalists etc., and they are no more green than any of the big companies in the global North. So, whereas I think there is a big gap between awareness in Latin America and awareness in North America and Europe, I don't think the gap in practice is equally as large, because in Europe and in North America, people really are much more aware of the environmental implications of software, but I don't think they are particularly more committed or active in building greener software. So, the same people who are building the most polluting software on a global scale across Europe and North America are the people who are hiring the Developers in Latin America to build that software. So, there's a whole bunch of structural factors that, even if you have the desire to build green, would create significant barriers. These are significant barriers, because you have less power.as an external freelancing or contracting Dev than if you are a staff engineer in Google, for example, to say, actually, ‘I want to do it green’. So even if you have the awareness and the resources, I think there are economics and responsibilities that lie outside of Latin America for some of the barriers that we have in implementing green applications.
(19:30) Gaël: Ismael that's super insightful to go all the way up to the entire structure of the tech economy in Latin America. So overall, this is not really good news that you have shared because low level of general awareness, lack of documentation in Spanish, lack of green, (or not a single one, actually) structural issues, several about who gives order a short-term profit incentivization. I guess it was you, Ismael, who also mentioned that there is a terrible lack of political pressure concerning these topics. So, it’s pretty hard to try to code green or to design green in Latin America.
Yet still, here you are, like thousands of others. So, I'd like to switch the narrative a bit here, and to see the glass as half full or even one third or one quarter full, and say, okay, so I'm just a tech worker in Latin America, what can I leverage to help me build a greener internet? And how vibrant is the green IT ecosystem in Latin America? Because maybe it's not as vibrant as other parts of the world, but I know for sure that there are people working on these topics. What are the available resources? We say that there are not many, but I guess we still have some resources. What network should I connect with? So, Catalina, would you like to give some advice to someone starting in the design or the sustainable design business? What would you say to this person? 

(21:07) Catalina: There are some resources available such as blogs, discussion groups and online communities. The offer in Spanish, like those in Portuguese, is not the same as that compared to languages such as English or German. But I think that digital sustainability today in Latin America is an issue only for large worldwide private companies, such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft or other large companies in the country / region, for example, Globant, Nubank, Rappi, Natura, Mercado Libre. But it is noticed as subject now by small entrepreneurs or micro entrepreneurs or designers or developers. We have to start talking about digital sobriety and the impact of digital actions by ordinary citizens can contribute. Not only how the companies we consume can neutralize carbon emission, but also how we, the user, can support and contribute. 
(22.15) Gaël: Ismael, from a developer's perspective, what would be the resources and the approaches that you would advocate? 
(23.23) Ismael: I'd like to mention three things and not just as a developer, but also for entrepreneurs. And I think we need to make and understand that green software is not a barrier or a hurdle to get over, but it's also a commercial opportunity. So, for example, across Latin America, there is, in Mexico, I think there's something like 71 million regular internet users, but there's a huge percentage of people who have very low intermittent access to the internet. In other parts of Latin America, the number of people with poor connectivity is even greater. If you're able to design an app that is green, you are likely to design an app that works well under low connectivity; that uses less data, so it is cheaper to run. And you are likely to design an app that is flexible, depending on availability, which means that you've got a gigantic addressable market that does not exist in the global north. So, the first thing I would say is that entrepreneurs, companies, inventors in Latin America should think about that large addressable market that could be reached if you build software with green patterns. And the nice thing about green software is that you end up building an app that works both for the person in that village that has full connectivity, and for the businessman in the city, and for the woman president in that country. And they can all use the same app because you developed it ‘green’.The second thing that I would mention is that regulation is coming. It's already started. Europe as ever is ahead. France is ahead of Europe. The US is beginning to catch up. And this means that a lot of the nearshoring jobs that will come to us in Latin America, a lot of the companies in the US and in the EU who will hire Latin American debts, will in the next three to five years, have to demonstrate that they are reducing emissions in the apps they build. So that means that if you're a developer or a student right now, and you master the art of green software, you're going to be at the cutting edge of labor demand when there is a huge skills gap. And when people are coming to Mexico or to Colombia and saying, ‘we want to hire devs but in order to comply with regulation, it needs to be built green’, it you've started learning now, you're going to be in a uniquely competitive space. And the last thing that I want to mention is community. Community really matters. Go check the software community that Catalina mentioned. Climateaction.tech has a bit of a Latin American bit growing.But I also wanted to say to any listener that the Adora Foundation is going to launch a project to bring green computing knowledge onto Wikipedia in Spanish. And there are grants for this. So, if anybody wants to partner with us in creating what they call Wikathons, I think, but basically, partnering with us in creating new and translating existing green compute content into Wikipedia, please reach out to me on LinkedIn, and we will add you into the partnership. And together we can create a massive explosion of access to knowledge in the most democratic platform available in Spanish and eventually in Portuguese and other languages too, but we'll be starting in Spanish. 
(26.33) Gaël: And just to bounce back on what you've said, Ismael, actually there is another tool which is now available in Spanish - the Digital Collage:-
(26.47) Ismael: El mural digital.
(26.33) Gaël: Yes. Ismail, you mentioned communities, and I know that Catalina, in previous discussions, you mentioned the importance of the open-source community as one of the solutions, because we're still trying to answer this question: ‘Where can I start when I am a developer or a designer or an entrepreneur in the tech sector in Latin America?’. Do you want to elaborate on the importance of the open-source community?
(27.25) Catalina: Yeah, the open community in Latin America is very big and robust and very active. The focus is the collaboration and open access and quality software. Maybe the privacy and data security is a central topic. But it's important that I mention that in Medellín, my city, because Medellín won the recognition of the most innovative city in the world in 2018, and the most intelligent city in the country in 2022. And is known as, or is calling to be known as, the software valley. Here, there is enough scholarship to bring people closer to technology. And we are rich human talent in all digital issues, and we are in the place that has the most technology communities within the country, or maybe the region. But the question is we never hear about sustainable web design, green software or digital sobriety, that there is only focus on programming language, databases, artificial intelligence, security, marketing frameworks, libraries, apps, etc. And my question is why? Digital technologies are responsible for the 4% of all greenhouse gas emissions of the planet, and that the cloud has a larger carbon footprint than the aviation industry. That 10 hours of high-quality video contain more data than all the Wikipedia articles in text format. That the web and the data centers that power our digital lives consume more energy and water that we can imagine. And it's controversial, because it's a city that has many technology communities, but it never speaks about this topic, this ‘sustainable digital’ and it's a question for me every time, every day.
 (29:56) Ismael: I think that's a really great point, Catalina, a really important one. I have also found that I know many Mexican developers who are in the very top rank of open-source contributors to their projects, people who have contributed to the Linux kernel or people who are at the heart of WordPress, or at the heart of all kinds of big open-source projects with really serious international contributions and recognition. And I think that would be a fantastic population to target. And if they are listening to this podcast (and I hope they are), I will certainly be promoting it.I think if you've got a voice in your area of open source, if you are a serious contributor as a Latin American to an open-source project, consider that you may be the person who can green that technology. You may be in a really good place to actually impact on a technology that impacts millions of people because you know what you're doing and you've got reputation and credentials. So, to all the Latin American open-source contributors out there, and especially those of you who are really serious about it, consider asking yourself the technical question: If I wanted to green this open-source project, what would I do? And then rally people around it. You will find all of us around the world supporting your efforts.
(31.44) Gaël: Thank you Ismail. That's very inspiring and actually quite true as well, because the momentum we've got today in digital sustainability in Europe, just to speak about what I've experiencing, has been built a lot on the open-source community, and with people just, as you said, starting to pay attention, usually coming from privacy movements, the question of truly open source, and the intellectual property issues around digital rights, etc. And suddenly they are switching to, ‘oh, but actually there is a missing part in my puzzle, which is sustainability’.And connecting to the question of having different angles, there is one last question I wanted to ask to both of you. Going a bit beyond this green angle that we had, how much can we, or shouldn't we, disconnect the environment from other issues like ethics or social justice in Latin America? Because we were discussing before the interview that some, especially some countries in Latin America, are rife with inequalities and that might be hard, actually, to dissociate both, or should we dissociate both because otherwise no topics get any traction if we try to connect too many things. What are your opinions on it?
(33.17) Catalina: Okay, I believe that we cannot disconnect and separate these issues, because everything in the planet is systemic. The environment, ethics and social justice are interconnected in systems that depend on each other and together they form a complete vision of a better and brighter world for all. Social justice means that everyone must have equal access to resources and opportunities, and that basic human rights must be protected. And the ethics is about doing the right thing and treating our natural environment and other forms of life with respect. We must act responsibly to preserve the herd, not just for ourselves, but for others as well. Our ethics is how we treat the herd and others life forms, it has a direct impact on social justice for generations. But I think that it's impossible to disconnect and separate these issues.
(34:33) Ismael: Thank you, Catalina, for your point about ethics. Actually, you're not going to green software if you do not have values that drive you towards it, right? It is a values-based choice. So, you cannot associate values from that decision. I would question, however, the framing, Gael, that you introduced, because you pointed out the inequalities within Latin America. And I think the inequalities within Latin America are a huge, huge dimension of this. If you do not have access to water, let alone to internet, let alone to full literacy, then clearly your ability to contribute to – though I guess you are contributing to a greener digital footprint by not using it - but you will be limited in those abilities and those skills if your access to information is limited. Then even if you are educated and keen, it's going to be hard for you to acquire it.However, the real constraint on greening the digital world in Latin America, from mining through to the supply chain, through software building, is not the inequalities within Latin America, it's the inequalities between Latin America and the rest of the world. It is the dynamics of the way Europe, and in particular the United States and Canada and China and the richer countries, interact and consume Latin American resources and products, that are the biggest determinant of the kind of applications that get built. So, the challenge of justice here is that it is definitely crucial to have justice within Latin America. But one of the reasons why you don't have regulation that works, is because of pressure from companies that are not based in Latin America. So, I would say the social justice issues are the sine qua non, the basis of achieving digital sustainability in Latin America. But that involves the inequalities between the people who commission most of the digital products in Latin America, which is the global north, and the people who produce them in the global south. That inequality, I think, is the key barrier. If you can make all of the companies that commission software or mining or supplies or sell e-waste to Latin America from abroad, demand green standards, you will see that digital sustainability accelerates dramatically. And without that, all the goodwill, all the conviction, all the dedication of people like ourselves in Latin America will not achieve a systemic impact. So, yes to the inequalities, but I would say it's the global ones that count more than the regional ones at this stage.
(38.10) Catalina: Yeah, I totally agree Ismael’s whole answer. 
(38:17) Gaël: Yes, thanks Ismael, fair point. It's also definitely an issue about inequalities across the world, and not just within a country or a continent. Now being mindful of time, do you want to add just one more recommendation to learn more on digital sustainability if you're based in Latin America? 
(38.44) Catalina: I would recommend the talks by Elena Morettini, who is the Global Head of Sustainable Business at Globant, and shares a lot of values, content about transition and energy efficiency and green IT for business/
(39.00) Gaël: And what would be your pick, Ismael?
(39.04) Ismael: Well, I am conflicted, because I'm going to recommend something that I want to discourage at the same time. So, I'm going to say why I don't want you to use it. I don't want you to use ChatGTP and Bard and LLMs because they are environmentally 10 times worse than most other alternatives. However, what I will say is, if the main barrier right now is information, if you are in Latin America, and if you're listening to this, you probably have enough fluency so that's not your barrier. But you will have so many colleagues for whom this might be a barrier. And what I would advise is, search and google all the resources, all the names that Catalina mentioned, and they are connected. So, the moment you find one, if you find Jerry McGovern, if you find Wholegrain Digital, if you find the people in this very podcast, if you find who Gaël has interviewed, look them up, basically go find all the resources you can in English and translate them. If you can use Google Translate first, it'll be cheaper environmentally. But if not, to be honest, that is a trade-off that I am happy to do. If using ChatGPT or Bard will equip you to green the next 300 apps that you build the rest of your life, go and use it.
(40:52) Gaël: Excellent. I didn't expect such an answer. But that's a very nice one. That's a beautifully played card. I'm not going to choose, actually, I'm going to list all these great resources, but the tool is translation. And I fully agree with you, Ismail. Sometimes you use a terrible tool in the right way and that’s the worth the type of investment. But that was great. And so, because we are on a positive mood, Ismail, if you had to share one piece of good news which made you optimistic recently about our path toward a more sustainable world, what would it be?
(41.37) Ismael: I need to say that good news is there if you look for it. Around COP27, there were these series of reports that came out, that were dire. They were terrible, they really were. The situation is absolutely horrific. We're moving too slow. But buried in all of those reports, were extraordinary achievements that no one really reported. So, I was in Paris for COP 21. And I remember that at the start of COP 21, the level of ambition was on the floor. None of us believed this was going to lead anywhere, not the governments, not the activists, not the NGOs, not the academics, nobody. And then civil society moved. The largest demonstrations in the history of the planet and the use of technology, groups like Avaaz creating mobilizations. And in real time, I saw governments change their positions. And then when people weren't going to embrace certain targets, city mayors embraced those targets. Terrible multinationals embraced targets, and the mood changed. Now, at that point, the status quo, the business-as-usual scenario, was leading us into the worst apocalypse. The latest reports that came out are saying that we are on track for catastrophe, but we have moved away from apocalypse. No one has tracked the fact that at the most dysfunctional time in global decision-making, humanity has managed to shift track. For the first time in the whole of our records, by 2030, the IEA expects emissions to no longer grow, but to flatline. None of this is enough to spare us from catastrophe. But it shows, that as a global community, we have the power to truly change scenarios. So, we need to understand that power, not become complacent, and go, ‘it's all okay’, but also not to forget that hope exists empirically.
(44:15) Gaël: Thanks a lot Ismael. I may just comment on COP21 that, yes, civil society played a big role, but hey, this is the episode on Latin America, so I guess we also have to give a big kudos to one of my longtime heroes now, which is Cristiana Figueres, obviously, because if she hadn't have been there, leading the UN climate delegation, with her amazing ambassador skills, and everything else that she built around her, and the team she brought, etc., I don't believe anything would have been achieved (without downplaying the massive role civil society played too). I'm not trying to give her a percentage here, but just acknowledging that, yes, I think without her, we would be in real dire straits at the moment.
(45.08) Gaël: What about you, Catalina? Is there one piece of good news that you'd like to share? 
(45.14) Catalina: Concerning this point, I need to talk about WordPress. This is my community, right, and some excellent recent news is that the global WordPress community has formed a sustainability group. With 264 members showing a growing interest in the topic though only from Latin America, like Ismael and me, but this is an important step for other people, other humans, whether Spain or other countries in Europe. But it's also encouraging to see that several developers are reducing the size of their plugins to make them more efficient and environmentally friendly. Awareness about the importance of greening servers is increasing, where every small contribution, like removing a single kilobyte, or millions of websites, can significantly reduce carbon emission. Also, it's inspiring to see more people engage in creating a more sustainable web. That is a good piece of news, and good for the global community for WordPress, because it's a good step. 
(46:44) Gaël: Thanks a lot, both of you, for sharing such positive news at the end, and for the amazing work that you're doing in Latin America, and way beyond just a green internet, to make people aware of the environmental footprint of our digital world. Thanks too for being there, and connecting with me on being based on a very different time zone, and for accommodating all those differences. So, thanks a lot. It was great having both of you. I hope this episode will be very useful for people based in this beautiful region of the world. And as usual, I will put all the references in the show notes. Thanks a lot for being there, both of you.
(47.35) Ismael: Thank you. Great opportunity and great to chat with both of you, Catalina and Gaël. Really great opportunity. Thank you.
(47.44) Catalina: Thank you, Gaël. Thank you, Ismael. Really, really, I'm very, very happy to share.
(47.51) Gaël: Thank you for listening to this Green IO episode. In episode 27, we will talk about all the tools provided by the Green Software Foundation to decarbonize software. There are quite a few, and Nassim Hussain, the Executive Director of Green Software himself, will give us a guided tour. And he might also share some exclusive announcements before the big Decarb Software 2023 conference. So stay tuned.
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Transcript (in Spanish - AI generated)
(00:09) Gaël: Hola a todos, bienvenidos a Green IO, el podcast para tecnólogos responsables que construyen un mundo digital más verde, byte a byte. En Green IO, exploramos cómo reducir el impacto ambiental de nuestro mundo digital. Nuestros invitados de todo el mundo comparten ideas, herramientas y enfoques alternativos que permiten a las personas dentro del sector tecnológico, y más allá, impulsar la sostenibilidad digital. Más de 300 millones de usuarios digitales, hogar de docenas de unicornios, con escenas tecnológicas vibrantes repartidas por la región. 2.2 millones trabajando en el sector tecnológico, de internet y comunicación, según LinkedIn. No, no estoy hablando de Europa, sino de América Latina. América Latina, un jugador significativo en nuestro mundo digital y, como tal, un contribuyente significativo a sus impactos ambientales. Solo siguiendo un enfoque no riguroso basado en el número de sus usuarios, pero recuerden que la mayoría de los impactos ambientales provienen de la fabricación y el uso de dispositivos y el consumo de electricidad de estos dispositivos. Resumiendo mi análisis rápido, con el 5.5% de los usuarios mundiales, la huella de carbono de América Latina por sus actividades digitales sería alrededor de 77 millones de toneladas de CO2 (2019), lo que es más que cualquier país en América Central, excepto México, obviamente, y, por ejemplo, es más de lo que ha emitido Uruguay. Así que supongo que ahora han entendido que el episodio de hoy trata sobre América Latina, y más específicamente, cómo alguien que trabaja en el sector digital y está basado en América Latina puede contribuir a descarbonizar Internet. Para ayudarnos a encontrar las respuestas, me complace dar la bienvenida a dos invitados hoy. Catalina Zapata, que está basada en Medellín, Colombia. Catalina es una experimentada diseñadora web que inició un proyecto llamado La Web Verde, (mi pronunciación es terrible porque es en español) con el objetivo de democratizar la sostenibilidad en la web, enseñar a diseñadores y desarrolladores cómo crear proyectos digitales más sostenibles y, más específicamente, difundir la conciencia verde sobre nuestra huella digital dentro de la comunidad de WordPress.


(02:34.39) Gaël: Descubrí a Catalina en este vibrante grupo de sostenibilidad de WordPress el año pasado, y cuando me puse en contacto con ella, me dijo que ya era una oyente regular del podcast. Y cuando le pregunté por qué estaba tan interesada en la sostenibilidad, tuvo una respuesta muy directa: porque respiramos el mismo aire y todos estamos en el mismo planeta. Y eso fue bastante directo. Bueno, luego, de hecho, me dijo que hace tres años leyó un artículo sobre Internet siendo el cuarto país más contaminante del mundo, y eso fue como un momento 'ja-ja'. Pero en realidad, creo que incluso me gusta más su primera respuesta. Ismael Velasco está basado en México y lo conocí a través de la increíble comunidad CAT. Ismael es un veterano de la industria del software en general, y del software verde en particular. Su concepto de 'degradación grácil' de API me atrajo de inmediato, pero descubrí a alguien cuyo conocimiento y compromiso van mucho más allá de la tecnología verde, con su participación en la Fundación Adora, que impulsa la innovación social en todo el mundo, y su reciente decisión de centrarse más en el lado sostenible de la tecnología. Así que, bienvenida Catalina, bienvenido Ismael. Muchas gracias por unirse a Green IO hoy. 

(04:02) Ismael: Es genial estar aquí. Genial estar contigo. 

(04:05) Catalina: Gracias, Gael, por conectar, por invitar y crear este espacio, que no solo es innovador, sino que también es muy, muy, muy necesario para aquellos que diseñan la web y consumen Internet. 

(04:18) Gaël: Wow, muchas gracias a ambos. Me encantaría comenzar, de hecho, con una pregunta muy directa. ¿El título de este episodio está completamente equivocado? Quiero decir, ¿América Latina es un ámbito pertinente para abordar la tecnología y la sostenibilidad? Ismael, ¿tienes una opinión al respecto? 

(04:40) Ismael: Creo, personalmente, que sí, es una categoría significativa. Creo que la distribución de la tecnología y el papel y contribución de la tecnología divergen regionalmente. Cada país, cada área tendrá perfiles diferentes. Pero creo que las realidades principales que enfrenta América Latina en relación con la tecnología tienen muchos paralelos. Creo que culturalmente, hay probablemente aún más similitud en toda América Latina que en Europa, en muchas áreas. Las tensiones que experimentamos a menudo también se reflejan en otros países. Entonces, creo que definitivamente es una categoría significativa, lo que no significa que sea homogénea. Creo que encontrarás una enorme diversidad de país a país. Pero no creo que eso niegue el hecho de que abordar la realidad de la tecnología a nivel latinoamericano tenga sentido en muchos niveles. Así que sí. 

(05:45) Gaël: Catalina, ¿tienes una opinión al respecto? 

(05:48) Catalina: Creo que en Europa, la sostenibilidad digital se ha convertido en una prioridad tanto para el gobierno como para los negocios. Pero hay regulaciones estrictas sobre la eficiencia energética de los centros de datos, el reciclaje de dispositivos electrónicos y la reducción de las emisiones de carbono en el sector tecnológico. Estados Unidos no ha alcanzado los estándares europeos, pero hay una creciente conciencia de la reducción de la huella de carbono. Pero en América Latina, tenemos un gran desafío para acceder a recursos y conocimientos, y el acceso a la información en español es limitado. Es necesario traducir y adaptar recursos al español y a otros idiomas nativos del continente, para que la información sea más accesible y utilizable. Sin embargo, creo que tenemos un gran potencial, pero se necesita más conciencia y educación de todos nosotros que creamos la web y consumimos Internet. 

(06:57) Gaël: Bueno, ese es un comentario muy interesante, Catalina, y hay muchas cosas diferentes que desempacar aquí. Así que volveremos a ellos punto por punto, pero me gustaría volver a lo que acabas de decir sobre el nivel de conciencia en todo el mundo. ¿Cuál es el nivel de conciencia según tú sobre la sostenibilidad digital en América Latina? 

(07:19) Catalina: Para mí, es muy, muy, muy bajo. La sostenibilidad digital es un concepto extraño en Colombia y América Latina. Todos hablan sobre cambio climático, cero neto, economía circular, objetivos de desarrollo sostenible, moda sostenible, derechos humanos, movilidad verde, reciclaje, inclusión, empoderamiento femenino, inteligencia artificial, ecoturismo. Pero nadie habla sobre software verde, web verde o el impacto de Internet en cada una de nuestras acciones digitales en las emisiones de carbono. Y me pregunto por qué. Para darte un ejemplo de lo ignorantes que somos. Soy embajadora del Proyecto Realidad Climática. Es una organización sin fines de lucro, una de las comunidades más grandes de líderes climáticos del mundo creada para promover soluciones al cambio climático. Esta organización tiene una plataforma virtual donde todos pueden conectarse con otros líderes. Hay materiales, videos, foros, eventos, recursos, encuestas, discusiones, seminarios, reuniones virtuales, oportunidades laborales. Y durante los últimos tres años, no he encontrado una sola conversación sobre sostenibilidad digital, diseño web sostenible o soberanía digital. El servidor donde se aloja el sitio web y la comunidad digital no es un servidor verde. Eso crea mucha inconsistencia entre lo que se dice y lo que se hace en empresas u organizaciones o agentes de cambio en América Latina. 

(09:09) Gaël: No es la primera vez que escucho a alguien decir que la sostenibilidad digital per se, no la sostenibilidad en general, porque obviamente hay muchas cosas sucediendo en América Latina, pero la sostenibilidad digital no es un tema candente. Ismael, ¿es algo con lo que estás de acuerdo, especialmente en lo que respecta a la situación en México? 

(09:29) Ismael: Sí, creo que reconozco esa situación, y creo que es probablemente el caso para casi toda América Latina, con la excepción del sector académico en Brasil. Pero en Brasil, tienes mucha academia que ha estado publicando durante años. Han sido algunos de los primeros pensadores en torno a la informática y la sostenibilidad digital. Pero son la excepción. Y no creo que incluso en Brasil haya expandido fuera de la academia hacia la industria de manera significativa. En México, un poco como escuchamos para Colombia, he organizado varios eventos aquí sobre 'hacer que tu software sea verde'. He dado algunas charlas, etc. Estoy en contacto con muchas comunidades de desarrolladores aquí, en miles. Y creo que cada vez, sin excepción, cuando mencioné el tema, fue la primera vez que alguien recuerda haberse encontrado alguna vez con una charla o un evento dedicado al tema. Pero, como mencionó Catalina, realmente no hay muchos recursos accesibles en español. No hay entidades que estén presionando por ello. No hay una agenda normativa o política al respecto. Y las personas que han pensado en ello tienden a hacerlo de manera aislada. Hemos estado tratando de comenzar a construir comunidades a través de una serie de eventos sobre 'Haz que tu software sea verde'. Lanzamos uno en México. Esperamos, con Catalina, hacer algo así en Colombia también, y también fuera de América Latina. Pero en términos generales, diría que, al igual que Catalina, mi experiencia es que el tema resuena mucho. En el momento en que las personas escuchan al respecto, especialmente los desarrolladores, dicen: 'ah, tiene sentido'. Quiero hacer algo al respecto. Pero casi siempre es la primera vez que lo han pensado. El nivel de conciencia es extremadamente bajo, con la posible excepción de Bitcoin, que tiene una reputación ambiental global tan negativa que ha permeado la conciencia popular. Y la gente puede pensar: 'oh, sí, Bitcoin podría ser perjudicial para el medio ambiente'. Pero fuera de eso, no creo que sea una discusión que esté sucediendo en general. 

(12:04) Gaël: Entonces, ¿cómo es que nos enfrentamos a tantos problemas? Catalina, mencionaste que la falta de documentación en español era uno de los problemas, pero ¿hay algún otro obstáculo que un diseñador (porque estás más en el lado del diseño) enfrenta para empezar a 'verdear' la web? 

(12:28) Catalina: Estoy de acuerdo con lo que dijo Ismael, que el problema principal es la conciencia. Sí, muchas empresas y profesionales en América Latina aún no son conscientes de los impactos ambientales de sus actividades en línea. La falta de educación y conciencia sobre la sostenibilidad digital es un desafío clave para aquellos de nosotros que creamos y consumimos contenido en Internet. Otro punto muy importante es la resistencia al cambio. Algunas empresas y profesionales pueden resistirse al cambio, especialmente si creen que adoptar prácticas sostenibles podría aumentar sus costos o requerir esfuerzos adicionales. Otro punto son los desafíos del alojamiento verde. A veces, seleccionar alojamiento ecológico proporcionado por fuentes de

(12:28) Catalina: Estoy de acuerdo con lo que dijo Ismael, que el problema principal es la conciencia. Sí, muchas empresas y profesionales en América Latina aún no son conscientes de los impactos ambientales de sus actividades en línea. La falta de educación y conciencia sobre la sostenibilidad digital es un desafío clave para aquellos de nosotros que creamos y consumimos contenido en internet. Otro punto muy importante es la resistencia al cambio. Algunas empresas y profesionales pueden resistirse al cambio, especialmente si creen que adoptar prácticas sostenibles podría aumentar sus costos o requerir esfuerzos adicionales. Otro punto son los desafíos del alojamiento ecológico. A veces, seleccionar alojamiento ecológico proporcionado por fuentes de energía renovable puede ser un desafío, ya que puede haber falta de opciones disponibles en ciertas áreas y los costos pueden ser altos.

(13:36) Gaël: Ismael, ¿esto es algo que también has notado o tienes otro enfoque como desarrollador?

(13:44) Ismael: Ambos. Estoy totalmente de acuerdo con todo lo que Catalina ha dicho, pero también creo que hay un problema estructural que está impulsando mucho de esto, y es la naturaleza del mercado de las TIC en América Latina. Creo que hay cuatro capas. Tienes la capa base de un sitio web muy pequeño y aplicaciones simples para un mercado nacional, que no son necesariamente de alta habilidad y tampoco son de alto precio. Eso significa que los desarrolladores generalmente no tienen mucho que decir en términos de qué o cómo construyen. Son freelancers. Hay una gran economía gig en torno a las TIC. Así que esa primera capa de la economía gig significa que incluso si te importa el software verde, e incluso si estás un poco informado sobre el software verde, las oportunidades para presentarlo, incorporarlo, discutirlo, son menores. Luego tienes la siguiente capa, donde tienes desarrolladores que están construyendo aplicaciones de software más sofisticadas y que compiten principalmente en precio, tienden a ser agencias de software, y este es otro escenario donde no se les dan muchos recursos, no se les da mucho tiempo para crear una aplicación y que no necesariamente tienen un alto nivel de formación o enfoque en la calidad. La importancia es producir productos y los trabajos son precarios. Así que, pensar a largo plazo en torno a la calidad verde, al impacto, a todas las cosas que las empresas podrían hacer si estuvieran construyendo un solo producto durante tres, cuatro o cinco años, es mucho más difícil de hacer si tienes un contrato de tres meses o cinco meses.

(16:12) Gaël: En diferentes partes de América Latina, hay una fuerza laboral digital mucho más calificada y las personas están externalizando a América Latina y a menudo para proyectos a más largo plazo. Entonces, a menudo, en grandes empresas, las personas tendrán productos que están construyendo y tendrán equipos enteros con sede en México, Colombia u otras partes de América Latina. Y allí tendrás el nivel de experiencia necesario para construir quizás aplicaciones verdes, pero el proceso de encargo, las personas que toman las decisiones reales sobre arquitectura, diseño, contratación, están todas en Estados Unidos, Canadá, Europa, y no les importa particularmente el medio ambiente.
Así que están logrando alta calidad por un precio más bajo. Y luego la capa final son los unicornios. Tienes algunas empresas tecnológicas latinoamericanas que han comenzado a surgir en México. No puedo recordar el número, puede haber cinco o diez unicornios. Entonces, estas personas están recibiendo miles de millones de dólares de capitalistas de riesgo, etc., y no son más verdes que cualquiera de las grandes empresas en el norte global. Entonces, aunque creo que hay una gran brecha entre la conciencia en América Latina y la conciencia en América del Norte y Europa, no creo que la brecha en la práctica sea igual de grande, porque en Europa y en América del Norte, la gente realmente está mucho más consciente de las implicaciones ambientales del software, pero no creo que estén particularmente más comprometidos o activos en la construcción de software más verde. Entonces, las mismas personas que están construyendo el software más contaminante a nivel mundial en Europa y América del Norte son las personas que están contratando a los desarrolladores en América Latina para construir ese software. Así que hay una serie de factores estructurales que, incluso si tienes el deseo de construir de manera verde, crearían barreras significativas. Estas son barreras significativas, porque tienes menos poder como un freelancer externo o contratista que si eres un ingeniero de planta en Google, por ejemplo, para decir, en realidad, 'quiero hacerlo verde'. Entonces, incluso si tienes la conciencia y los recursos, creo que hay economías y responsabilidades que están fuera de América Latina para algunas de las barreras que tenemos en la implementación de aplicaciones verdes.

(19:30) Gaël: Ismael, eso es muy perspicaz para llegar hasta la estructura completa de la economía tecnológica en América Latina. En general, esto no son buenas noticias que has compartido porque hay un bajo nivel de conciencia general, falta de documentación en español, falta de verde (o ni siquiera una, de hecho) problemas estructurales, varios sobre quién da la orden de incentivos de ganancias a corto plazo. Supongo que fuiste tú, Ismael, quien también mencionó que hay una terrible falta de presión política sobre estos temas. Entonces, es bastante difícil intentar programar de manera verde o diseñar de manera verde en América Latina.
Sin embargo, aquí estás, como miles de otros. Así que me gustaría cambiar un poco la narrativa aquí, y ver el vaso medio lleno o incluso un tercio o un cuarto lleno, y decir, bueno, soy solo un trabajador tecnológico en América Latina, ¿qué puedo aprovechar para ayudarme a construir un internet más verde? ¿Y qué tan vibrante es el ecosistema de TI verde en América Latina? Porque tal vez no sea tan vibrante como en otras partes del mundo, pero sé con certeza que hay personas trabajando en estos temas. ¿Cuáles son los recursos disponibles? Decimos que no hay muchos, pero creo que aún tenemos algunos recursos. ¿Con qué red debería conectarme? Entonces, Catalina, ¿te gustaría dar algunos consejos a alguien que comienza en el diseño o en el negocio del diseño sostenible? ¿Qué le dirías a esta persona?

(21:07) Catalina: Hay algunos recursos disponibles como blogs, grupos de discusión y comunidades en línea. La oferta en español, al igual que en portugués, no es la misma que en comparación con idiomas como inglés o alemán. Pero creo que la sostenibilidad digital hoy en América Latina es un problema solo para grandes empresas privadas a nivel mundial, como Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, u otras grandes empresas en el país o región, por ejemplo, Globant, Nubank, Rappi, Natura, Mercado Libre. Pero se está notando como un tema ahora también por pequeños empresarios, microempresarios, diseñadores o desarrolladores. Debemos empezar a hablar sobre la sobriedad digital y cómo las acciones digitales de los ciudadanos comunes pueden contribuir. No solo cómo las empresas que consumimos pueden neutralizar las emisiones de carbono, sino también cómo nosotros, los usuarios, podemos apoyar y contribuir.

(22.15) Gaël: Ismael, desde la perspectiva de un desarrollador, ¿cuáles serían los recursos y enfoques que defenderías?

(23.23) Ismael: Me gustaría mencionar tres cosas, y no solo como desarrollador, sino también para emprendedores. Y creo que necesitamos entender que el software verde no es una barrera o un obstáculo a superar, sino también una oportunidad comercial. Por ejemplo, en toda América Latina, en México hay algo así como 71 millones de usuarios regulares de Internet, pero hay un gran porcentaje de personas con acceso intermitente muy bajo a Internet. En otras partes de América Latina, el número de personas con una conectividad deficiente es aún mayor. Si puedes diseñar una aplicación que sea verde, es probable que diseñes una aplicación que funcione bien con una baja conectividad; que use menos datos, por lo que es más barata de operar. Y es probable que diseñes una aplicación que sea flexible, dependiendo de la disponibilidad, lo que significa que tienes un mercado direccionable gigantesco que no existe en el norte global. Entonces, lo primero que diría es que los emprendedores, empresas e inventores en América Latina deberían pensar en ese gran mercado direccionable que podrían alcanzar si construyen software con patrones verdes. Y lo bueno del software verde es que terminas construyendo una aplicación que funciona tanto para la persona en ese pueblo que tiene conectividad completa, como para el empresario en la ciudad, y para la mujer presidenta en ese país. Y todos pueden usar la misma aplicación porque la desarrollaste 'verde'.La segunda cosa que mencionaría es que la regulación se está acercando. Ya ha comenzado. Europa, como siempre, va por delante. Francia va por delante de Europa. Estados Unidos está empezando a ponerse al día. Y esto significa que muchos de los trabajos de nearshoring que vendrán a nosotros en América Latina, muchas de las empresas en EE. UU. y en la UE que contratarán deudas latinoamericanas, en los próximos tres a cinco años, deberán demostrar que están reduciendo las emisiones en las aplicaciones que construyen. Entonces, eso significa que si eres un desarrollador o un estudiante en este momento, y dominas el arte del software verde, estarás en la vanguardia de la demanda laboral cuando haya una brecha de habilidades enorme. Y cuando la gente venga a México o a Colombia y diga: 'queremos contratar desarrolladores pero para cumplir con la regulación, debe construirse verde', si has comenzado a aprender ahora, estarás en un espacio competitivo único. Y la última cosa que quiero mencionar es la comunidad. La comunidad realmente importa. Ve a revisar la comunidad de software que mencionó Catalina. Climateaction.tech tiene una parte un poco creciente en América Latina.
Pero también quiero decir a cualquier oyente que la Fundación Adora va a lanzar un proyecto para llevar el conocimiento de la computación verde a Wikipedia en español. Y hay subvenciones para esto. Así que, si alguien quiere asociarse con nosotros para crear lo que llaman Wikatones, creo, pero básicamente, asociarse con nosotros para crear nuevo contenido y traducir contenido existente de computación verde en Wikipedia, por favor, contáctame en LinkedIn y te agregaremos a la asociación. Y juntos podemos crear una explosión masiva de acceso al conocimiento en la plataforma más democrática disponible en español y eventualmente en portugués y otros idiomas también, pero comenzaremos en español.

(26.33) Gaël: Y solo para retomar lo que has dicho, Ismael, de hecho, hay otra herramienta que ahora está disponible en español: el Mural Digital:-

(26.47) Ismael: El mural digital.

(26.33) Gaël: Sí. Ismael, mencionaste las comunidades, y sé que Catalina, en discusiones anteriores, mencionaste la importancia de la comunidad de código abierto como una de las soluciones, porque aún estamos tratando de responder a esta pregunta: '¿Dónde puedo empezar cuando soy un desarrollador o un diseñador o un emprendedor en el sector tecnológico en América Latina?'. ¿Quieres profundizar en la importancia de la comunidad de código abierto?

(27.25) Catalina: Sí, la comunidad abierta en América Latina es muy grande, robusta y muy activa. El enfoque es la colaboración, el acceso abierto y el software de calidad. Tal vez la privacidad y la seguridad de datos son temas centrales. Pero es importante que mencione que en Medellín, mi ciudad, porque Medellín ganó el reconocimiento de la ciudad más innovadora del mundo en 2018, y la ciudad más inteligente del país en 2022. Y se conoce como, o se está llamando a ser conocida como, el valle del software. Aquí, hay suficientes becas para acercar a las personas a la tecnología. Y tenemos un talento humano rico en todos los temas digitales, y estamos en el lugar que tiene la mayoría de las comunidades tecnológicas dentro del país, o tal vez la región. Pero la pregunta es que nunca escuchamos sobre diseño web sostenible, software verde o sobriedad digital, solo hay enfoque en lenguajes de programación, bases de datos, inteligencia artificial, seguridad, marcos de marketing, bibliotecas, aplicaciones, etc. Y mi pregunta es ¿por qué? Las tecnologías digitales son responsables del 4% de todas las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero del planeta, y la nube tiene una huella de carbono más grande que la industria de la aviación. Que 10 horas de video de alta calidad contienen más datos que todos los artículos de Wikipedia en formato de texto. Que la

 web y los centros de datos que alimentan nuestras vidas digitales consumen más energía y agua de la que podemos imaginar. Y es controvertido, porque es una ciudad que tiene muchas comunidades tecnológicas, pero nunca habla sobre este tema, este 'digital sostenible', y es una pregunta para mí todos los días.

(29:56) Ismael: Creo que es un punto realmente excelente, Catalina, uno muy importante. También he descubierto que conozco a muchos desarrolladores mexicanos que están en la cima de los contribuyentes de código abierto a nivel internacional, personas que han contribuido al kernel de Linux o personas que están en el corazón de WordPress, o en el corazón de todo tipo de grandes proyectos de código abierto con contribuciones y reconocimientos internacionales realmente serios. Y creo que sería una población fantástica a la que apuntar. Y si están escuchando este podcast (y espero que sí), ciertamente lo estaré promoviendo.

Creo que si tienes voz en tu área de código abierto, si eres un contribuyente serio como latinoamericano a un proyecto de código abierto, considera que puedes ser la persona que puede 'verdear' esa tecnología. Puedes estar en un lugar realmente bueno para impactar en una tecnología que afecta a millones de personas porque sabes lo que estás haciendo y tienes reputación y credenciales. Así que, a todos los contribuyentes latinoamericanos de código abierto, y especialmente a aquellos de ustedes que son realmente serios al respecto, considérense capaces de preguntarse la pregunta técnica: Si quisiera 'verdear' este proyecto de código abierto, ¿qué haría? Y luego reunan a las personas a su alrededor. Nos encontrarás a todos en todo el mundo apoyando sus esfuerzos.

(31.44) Gaël: Gracias, Ismael. Eso es muy inspirador y realmente cierto también, porque el impulso que tenemos hoy en la sostenibilidad digital en Europa, solo para hablar de lo que estoy experimentando, se ha construido en gran medida en la comunidad de código abierto, y con personas que, como dijiste, comienzan a prestar atención, generalmente provienen de movimientos de privacidad, la cuestión de verdaderamente código abierto, y los problemas de propiedad intelectual en torno a los derechos digitales, etc. Y de repente se están cambiando a, 'oh, pero en realidad hay una parte faltante en mi rompecabezas, que es la sostenibilidad'.

Y conectando con la pregunta de tener diferentes perspectivas, hay una última pregunta que quería hacerles a ambos. Yendo un poco más allá de este ángulo verde que teníamos, ¿hasta qué punto podemos, o no deberíamos, desconectar el medio ambiente de otros problemas como ética o justicia social en América Latina? Porque estábamos discutiendo antes de la entrevista que algunos, especialmente algunos países en América Latina, están plagados de desigualdades y podría ser difícil, de hecho, disociar ambos, o ¿deberíamos disociar ambos porque de lo contrario ningún tema obtiene tracción si intentamos conectar demasiadas cosas? ¿Cuáles son sus opiniones al respecto?

(33.17) Catalina: Vale, creo que no podemos desconectar y separar estos temas, porque todo en el planeta es sistémico. El medio ambiente, la ética y la justicia social están interconectados en sistemas que dependen entre sí y juntos forman una visión completa de un mundo mejor y más brillante para todos. La justicia social significa que todos deben tener acceso igualitario a recursos y oportunidades, y que se deben proteger los derechos humanos básicos. Y la ética trata de hacer lo correcto y tratar nuestro entorno natural y otras formas de vida con respeto. Debemos actuar responsablemente para preservar la manada, no solo para nosotros, sino también para los demás. Nuestra ética es cómo tratamos a la manada y a otras formas de vida, tiene un impacto directo en la justicia social para las generaciones futuras. Pero creo que es imposible desconectar y separar estos problemas.
(34:33) Ismael: Gracias, Catalina, por tu punto sobre la ética. En realidad, no vas a adoptar un software verde si no tienes valores que te impulsen hacia eso, ¿verdad? Es una elección basada en valores. Entonces, no puedes asociar valores desde esa decisión. Sin embargo, cuestionaría el enfoque, Gael, que presentaste, porque señalaste las desigualdades dentro de América Latina. Y creo que las desigualdades dentro de América Latina son una dimensión enorme de esto. Si no tienes acceso al agua, y mucho menos a internet, y mucho menos a la plena alfabetización, claramente tu capacidad para contribuir a – aunque supongo que estás contribuyendo a una huella digital más verde al no usarlo - pero estarás limitado en esas habilidades y conocimientos si tu acceso a la información es limitado. Sin embargo, la verdadera limitación para hacer más verde el mundo digital en América Latina, desde la minería hasta la cadena de suministro, pasando por la construcción de software, no son las desigualdades dentro de América Latina, sino las desigualdades entre América Latina y el resto del mundo. Son las dinámicas de cómo Europa, y en particular los Estados Unidos y Canadá, y China y los países más ricos, interactúan y consumen los recursos y productos latinoamericanos, las que determinan en gran medida el tipo de aplicaciones que se construyen. Entonces, el desafío de la justicia aquí es que definitivamente es crucial tener justicia dentro de América Latina. Pero una de las razones por las cuales no tienes regulaciones que funcionen es por la presión de empresas que no están basadas en América Latina. Así que diría que los problemas de justicia social son el sine qua non, la base para lograr la sostenibilidad digital en América Latina. Pero eso implica las desigualdades entre las personas que encargan la mayoría de los productos digitales en América Latina, que es el norte global, y las personas que los producen en el sur global. Esa desigualdad, creo, es la barrera clave. Si puedes hacer que todas las empresas que encargan software o minería o suministros o venden residuos electrónicos a América Latina desde el extranjero exijan estándares verdes, verás que la sostenibilidad digital se acelera dramáticamente. Y sin eso, toda la buena voluntad, toda la convicción, toda la dedicación de personas como nosotros en América Latina no logrará un impacto sistémico. Así que sí a las desigualdades, pero diría que las globales cuentan más que las regionales en esta etapa.
(38.10) Catalina: Sí, estoy totalmente de acuerdo con toda la respuesta de Ismael.
(38:17) Gaël: Sí, gracias Ismael, punto justo. También es definitivamente un problema de desigualdades en todo el mundo, y no solo dentro de un país o un continente. Ahora, siendo conscientes del tiempo, ¿quieren agregar solo una recomendación más para aprender más sobre la sostenibilidad digital si están basados en América Latina?
(38.44) Catalina: Recomendaría las charlas de Elena Morettini, quien es la Jefa Global de Negocios Sostenibles en Globant, y comparte muchos valores, contenido sobre transición y eficiencia energética y tecnología verde para los negocios.
(39.00) Gaël: ¿Y cuál sería tu elección, Ismael?
(39.04) Ismael: Bueno, estoy en conflicto, porque voy a recomendar algo que quiero desalentar al mismo tiempo. Así que voy a decir por qué no quiero que lo uses. No quiero que uses ChatGPT y Bard y LLMs porque son ambientalmente 10 veces peores que la mayoría de las otras alternativas. Sin embargo, lo que diré es que, si la barrera principal en este momento es la información, si estás en América Latina, y si estás escuchando esto, probablemente tienes suficiente fluidez, por lo que no es tu barrera. Pero tendrás muchos colegas para quienes esto podría ser una barrera. Y lo que aconsejaría es buscar y buscar en Google todos los recursos, todos los nombres que mencionó Catalina, y están conectados. Entonces, en el momento en que encuentres uno, si encuentras a Jerry McGovern, si encuentras a Wholegrain Digital, si encuentras a las personas en este mismo podcast, si encuentras a quienes Gaël ha entrevistado, búscalos, básicamente busca todos los recursos que puedas en inglés y tradúcelos. Si puedes usar Google Translate primero, será más económico ambientalmente. Pero si no, siendo honesto, es un compromiso que estoy dispuesto a hacer. Si usar ChatGPT o Bard te equipará para volver verde las próximas 300 aplicaciones que construyas el resto de tu vida, ve y úsalo.
(40:52) Gaël: Excelente. No esperaba una respuesta así. Pero eso es muy bueno. Es una carta jugada de manera hermosa. No voy a elegir, en realidad, voy a listar todos estos excelentes recursos, pero la herramienta es la traducción. Y estoy totalmente de acuerdo contigo, Ismael. A veces, usas una herramienta terrible de la manera correcta y vale la pena la inversión. Pero eso fue genial. Y como estamos de buen humor, Ismael, si tuvieras que compartir una noticia positiva que te haya hecho sentir optimista recientemente sobre nuestro camino hacia un mundo más sostenible, ¿cuál sería?
(41.37) Ismael: Necesito decir que hay buenas noticias si las buscas. Alrededor de la COP27, hubo una serie de inform
es que salieron, que eran desastrosos. Eran terribles, realmente lo eran. La situación es absolutamente horrenda. Nos estamos moviendo demasiado lento. Pero enterradas en todos esos informes, había logros extraordinarios que nadie realmente informó. Así que estuve en París para la COP 21. Y recuerdo que al comienzo de la COP 21, el nivel de ambición estaba en el suelo. Ninguno de nosotros creía que esto iba a llevar a algún lado, no los gobiernos, no los activistas, no las ONG, no los académicos, nadie. Y luego la sociedad civil se movió. Las mayores manifestaciones en la historia del planeta y el uso de la tecnología, grupos como Avaaz creando movilizaciones. Y vi en tiempo real cómo los gobiernos cambiaron sus posiciones. Y cuando la gente no iba a aceptar ciertos objetivos, los alcaldes de las ciudades abrazaron esos objetivos. Terribles multinacionales abrazaron objetivos, y el ánimo cambió. Ahora, en ese momento, el escenario del statu quo, el escenario del negocio como siempre, nos estaba llevando hacia el peor apocalipsis. Los últimos informes que salieron dicen que estamos en camino a la catástrofe, pero nos hemos apartado del apocalipsis. Nadie ha rastreado el hecho de que en el momento más disfuncional en la toma de decisiones globales, la humanidad ha logrado cambiar de rumbo. Por primera vez en todos nuestros registros, para 2030, la AIE espera que las emisiones ya no crezcan, sino que se estabilicen. Nada de esto es suficiente para salvarnos de la catástrofe. Pero muestra que como comunidad global, tenemos el poder de cambiar verdaderamente los escenarios. Entonces, necesitamos entender ese poder, no volvamos a ser complacientes y digamos ‘todo está bien’, pero también no olvidemos que la esperanza existe empíricamente.
(44:15) Gaël: Muchas gracias, Ismael. Puedo comentar sobre la COP21 que, sí, la sociedad civil jugó un papel importante, pero oye, este es el episodio sobre América Latina, así que supongo que también debemos felicitar a uno de mis héroes de toda la vida ahora, que es Cristiana Figueres, obviamente, porque si no hubiera estado allí, liderando la delegación climática de la ONU, con sus increíbles habilidades diplomáticas, y todo lo demás que construyó a su alrededor, y el equipo que trajo, etc., no creo que se hubiera logrado nada (sin restar importancia al papel masivo que jugó la sociedad civil también). No estoy tratando de darle un porcentaje aquí, pero solo reconociendo que sí, creo que sin ella, estaríamos en una situación realmente difícil en este momento.
(45.08) Gaël: ¿Y tú, Catalina? ¿Hay alguna buena noticia que te gustaría compartir?
(45.14) Catalina: En cuanto a este punto, necesito hablar sobre WordPress. Esta es mi comunidad, ¿verdad?, y algunas noticias excelentes recientes son que la comunidad global de WordPress ha formado un grupo de sostenibilidad. Con 264 miembros mostrando un creciente interés en el tema, aunque solo de América Latina, como Ismael y yo, pero este es un paso importante para otras personas, otros humanos, ya sea España u otros países en Europa. Pero también es alentador ver que varios desarrolladores están reduciendo el tamaño de sus complementos para hacerlos más eficientes y respetuosos con el medio ambiente. La conciencia sobre la importancia de volver verdes los servidores está aumentando, donde cada pequeña contribución, como eliminar un solo kilobyte, o millones de sitios web, puede reducir significativamente las emisiones de carbono. Además, es inspirador ver a más personas comprometidas en crear un web más sostenible. Esa es una buena noticia, y buena para la comunidad global de WordPress, porque es un buen paso.
(46:44) Gaël: Muchas gracias a ambos por compartir noticias tan positivas al final, y por el increíble trabajo que están haciendo en América Latina, y mucho más allá de simplemente una internet verde, para concientizar sobre la huella ambiental de nuestro mundo digital. Gracias también por estar aquí y conectarse conmigo a pesar de estar en una zona horaria muy diferente, y por adaptarse a todas esas diferencias. Así que gracias mucho. Fue genial tenerlos a ambos. Espero que este episodio sea muy útil para las personas basadas en esta hermosa región del mundo. Y como de costumbre, pondré todas las referencias en las notas del episodio. Gracias mucho por estar aquí, ambos.
(47.35) Ismael: Gracias. Gran oportunidad y genial hablar con ambos, Catalina y Gaël. Realmente gran oportunidad. Gracias.
(47.44) Catalina: Gracias, Gaël. Gracias, Ismael. Realmente, estoy muy, muy feliz de compartir.
(47.51) Gaël: Gracias por escuchar este episodio de Green IO. En el episodio 27, hablaremos sobre todas las herramientas proporcionadas por la Green Software Foundation para descarbonizar el software. Hay bastantes, y Nassim Hussain, el Director Ejecutivo de Green Software en persona, nos dará un recorrido guiado. Y también podría compartir algunos anuncios exclusivos antes de la gran conferencia Decarb Software 2023. Así que manténganse sintonizados.
Antes de que se vayan, un pequeño mensaje de nuestro patrocinador. No, todavía estoy bromeando. Green IO es un podcast gratuito e independiente. Y necesitamos tu ayuda para mantenerlo así. Puedes ayudarnos apoyándonos en Tipeee. El enlace está en las notas del episodio. Pero si no puedes donar, está bien. Puedes apoyarnos difundiendo la palabra. Y lo sé, ya te lo he pedido varias veces, y te estoy molestando con esto, pero por favor califica el podcast con cinco estrellas en Apple o Spotify. Y si ya lo has hecho, pídele a un amigo que lo haga también. Esta es la única forma en que obtendremos nuevos oyentes a través de la búsqueda en estas plataformas. Así que gracias mucho por calificar el podcast. Es súper genial de tu parte. Y con suerte obtendremos más oyentes y más tecnólogos responsables uniéndose al programa. Saben, cada voto realmente vale mil
(47.51) Gaël: Gracias por escuchar este episodio de Green IO. En el episodio 27, hablaremos sobre todas las herramientas proporcionadas por la Green Software Foundation para descarbonizar el software. Hay bastantes, y Nassim Hussain, el Director Ejecutivo de Green Software en persona, nos dará un recorrido guiado. Y tal vez también comparta algunos anuncios exclusivos antes de la gran conferencia Decarb Software 2023. Así que manténganse atentos.
Antes de que se vayan, un pequeño mensaje de nuestro patrocinador. No, todavía estoy bromeando. Green IO es un podcast gratuito e independiente. Y necesitamos su ayuda para que siga siendo así. Pueden ayudarnos apoyándonos en Tipeee. El enlace está en las notas del episodio. Pero si no pueden donar, está bien. Pueden apoyarnos difundiendo la palabra. Sé que ya se los he pedido varias veces y los estoy molestando con esto, pero por favor califiquen el podcast con cinco estrellas en Apple o Spotify. Y si ya lo han hecho, pidan a un amigo que también lo haga. Esta es la única manera en que obtendremos nuevos oyentes a través de la búsqueda en estas plataformas. Así que muchas gracias por calificar el podcast. Es realmente genial de su parte. Y con suerte, obtendremos más oyentes y más tecnólogos responsables uniéndose al programa. Saben, cada voto realmente vale mil likes en YouTube, créanme, cuando comparan con YouTubers muy exitosos y podcasters muy exitosos.
Ahora, si no tienen Spotify o Apple Podcasts, está perfectamente bien, compartan un episodio en redes sociales o directamente con un familiar, y será mucho más efectivo que muchos anuncios. Así que muchas gracias por eso. En serio, gracias por su apoyo. Significa mucho para nosotros. Nosotros siendo yo, pero también Tani Levitt, nuestro increíble productor de podcast, y Jill Tellier, nuestra increíble curadora de podcast. Estamos encantados de ayudarlos a ustedes, los tecnólogos responsables, dispersos por todo el mundo, a construir un mundo digital más verde... byte a byte.
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