Seminario Día 1

By MANUEL BALDERAS VICTORIA

​Day 1: Foundations of Sustainable Software & Impact Measurement

​Sustainable Software Architectures and the Role of AI in the Green Digital Transition

​2026

Block 1:
The Impact

Debunking the Myth

Word Cloud

In one or two words

What is the primary nature of software?

​ICT Emissions

Current ICT Emissions:

• 1.8% - 3.9% of global GHG emissions.

• 15% by 2040

​​"Software may be eating the world, but it is also heating it." — Rina Diane Caballar (IEEE Spectrum).

Poll

Case Study: The UNFCCC COP28 Website.

How much CO₂ do you think was emitted per single page load?

• 0.1g

• 1.5g

• 3.7g

• 5g

Talking about climate change is important. But why did the world’s largest climate conference overlook its own digital footprint?

​​Intent

Despite the good intentions, the industry lacks a standard way to measure the environmental impact of software.

​​Reality

Active Break

Stand up, stretch, and let the principles sink in.

Block 2:
The 8 Principles

The Core Pillars of Sustainability

"Green software is software that is responsible for emitting the least amount of carbon possible." — Asim Hussain, Executive Director of the Green Software Foundation.

What is green software?

Principle 1: Carbon Efficiency.

​Check lowwwcarbon.com

The greenest energy is the energy you don’t use.

Energy efficiency is doing more with less.

Principle 2:
Energy Efficiency

​Carbon awareness is the practice of doing more when the energy is clean and less when it is not.

​

Principle 3:
Carbon Intensity

​visit https://lowcarbonpower.org/map

The greenest hardware is the one you already own.

​Principle 4: Embodied Carbon

The most efficient server is a busy server.

An idle server consumes 50% of it's maximum power

​​Principle 5:
Engergy Proporcionality

​ The network is a massive part of the ICT footprint.
To be green, we must reduce the payload and the distance it travels.

​​Principle 6:
Networking

​Infrastructure and Networking

Instead of shaping energy supply to meet software demand, we shape software demand to meet energy supply.

​Principle 7:
Demand Shaping

You cannot optimize what you do not measure.

​Principle 8: Measuring and Optimization

Active Break

Stand up, stretch, and let the principles sink in.

Block 3:
The SCI Metric

Moving from Sentiment to Math

The SCI Equation

Poll

Scenario: You need to lower the SCI of a video processing service. Which change has the biggest impact on the score?

• Efficiency: Optimize the codec to use 20% less CPU (E)

• Location: Move the servers from a coal-heavy region to a region with 80% lower Carbon Intensity (I).

• Hardware: Buy new, more efficient servers, doubling the Embodied Carbon (M) but slightly reducing energy.

​how do we measure?

Open Ended

Final Reflection:

What is the most 'invisible' carbon cost you discovered today?

Day 1 Complete

Sustainability is not a 'nice-to-have' feature; it is a new dimension of software quality.

Thank you!

References & Further Reading

​Caballar, R. D. (2024, March 23). We need to decarbonize software. IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-software
Green Software Foundation. (n.d.). Principles of green software. https://principles.green/
Green Software Foundation. (2023). Software carbon intensity (SCI) specification (Version 1.0). https://grnsft.org/sci
Hussain, A. (2022). Green software engineering principles [Training material]. Green Software Foundation. https://learn.greensoftware.foundation/
Hussain, A. (2024). Green software and software quality [Web article]. Green Software Foundation. https://greensoftware.foundation/
International Energy Agency. (2023). Data centres and data transmission networks. https://www.iea.org/reports/data-centres-and-data-transmission-networks
Low Carbon Power. (2024). Real-time electricity carbon intensity map. https://lowcarbonpower.org/map