Building Green Software

Foreword

The preferred terms are “climate emergency, crisis, or breakdown.”

The Guardian

Change is hard. Even in the presence of a global climate crisis that is causing migrations, wars, and destruction of ecosystems and habitat for everything from corals to humans, there are vested interests, investments, laws, regulations, and “best practices” that reinforce the status quo of a fossil fuel powered global economy. As individuals, we can choose to be part of an ethical movement for a sustainable future. We can vote, choose where we work, choose what we buy, redirect our investments, and lobby for better laws and regulations. As software developers we need to develop and implement new best practices for building green software. That’s where this book comes in.

The business world can be divided into three categories, one that makes money causing the climate crisis by selling fossil fuels and resists the change. Another that makes money by building the new future of wind farms and heat pumps and the like and profits from the change. The third is the biggest category, trying to survive and build a business where the climate crisis hasn’t been a direct concern. Why should these businesses care enough to have goals, invest resources, and support employees that want to be green? The pressure is coming from all directions and is intensifying. It comes top down from regulators and investors, bottom up from employees and side to side from customers and suppliers. Governments and regulators ...