12. November 2024
Matthias Wagener
Topics such as climate change and sustainability are usually associated with the physical world: we see oil, gas and coal industries, traffic and transportation – their exhaust gases cause emissions and pollution, which we try to counteract by recycling or reducing consumption.
Too little attention is paid today to what we do not see or perceive around us: the countless digital services that we rely on today. Every email, every video call and every file upload means that data is generated, stored and transferred – and that emissions are created in the process. Emissions that now contribute significantly to the overall pollution and carbon footprint of humanity.
Data is at the core of our lives today and every digital transaction requires energy, whether it is the end-users outlet to power the device, the electricity to power the servers or the cooling systems in data centers.
Calculations of the carbon footprint by the Information and Communications sector vary widely with the IDC estimating that in 2025 the world will create up to 163 ZB of data — 1 Zettabyte equals a trillion gigabytes. The amount of actors involved in e.g. sending a single email makes accurate calculations difficult, but research estimates CO2 emissions ranging from 1.4-3.8 percent of Earth’s total emissions in 2020. A number that will only be rising with increased usage of new services like AI and ongoing production of assisting devices. This is not a new, but a quickly evolving problem. And the development of Green Data approaches and coding practices emphasize the reduction of stored and transmitted data to find ways to keep the environmental impact at bay. For example, storing/saving only essential files, using data compression tools, and adopting cloud storage for shared usage can help optimize unnecessary data loads.
For Green Data, our company‘s key word is ‘digital hygiene’, regularly cleaning up old files, deleting emails, and organizing data more effectively to minimize duplicates are simple measures to make an impact. And in the process of Vast Forward‘s sustainability initiative development VAST GREEN, aiming for practical ways to integrate sustainability into our digital projects, we set up a handy checklist: easy steps towards more sustainable data management — we call it our Green Data guide. Whether individual communication behaviors such as emails or more niche-insights ‘under the hood’ of our very own projects, the Green Data guide offers simple and structured stepping stones into a greener data approach.
Green coding, also an important approach in our day to day, focuses on the need for efficient code to reduce the processing demands. The more efficient the code, the more efficient the applications, while also requiring less resources (thus – emitting less).
The idea of green coding is a good practice — and with the goal of reduced, elegant code also an encouragement for programmers and developers, to streamline their work by reducing redundancies, minimizing computational load, and emphasizing optimization throughout the development process.
Removing unused code in imported JavaScript modules, for example, can reduce the power required to run a website application — and already contributes to a more sustainable, ‚greener‘ code.
And as a cherry on top, placing less strain on hardware also increases its longevity!
With our Green Coding Guide we offer insights and tips, supporting a smooth shift in the way we see, realize and handle our part of the digital world.
To take easy but valuable measures for a more sustainable digital future.
