Green IT and Software Carbon Intensity

Green IT defines standards for reducing the environmental footprint of information technology. A key technical standard is Software Carbon Intensity (SCI), which measures the CO₂ emissions of software.

---

Core concept

Sustainability is achieved through efficient programming (green coding), optimised hardware utilisation (right-sizing), and sourcing energy from renewable sources in data centres.

Relevance

• SCI Metric: Calculation of emissions per functional unit (e.g. per API call or user session).
• Circular Economy: Standards for the procurement and recycling of hardware.
• Energy Efficiency: Selecting lower-emission cloud regions. PUE measures data-centre efficiency, it is not a general label for cloud regions; the SCI specification also distinguishes location-based carbon choices from market-based renewable-energy claims.

---

Related topics

• Strategy: Green IT, the sustainability context for Green IT and Software Carbon Intensity.
• Standards, the standards section that frames Green IT and Software Carbon Intensity.