Goldman Sachs has signed up to The Green Software Foundation, a sustainability initiative launched by Microsoft, ThoughtWorks, Accenture and GitHub.

The non-profit foundation has been set up to address the carbon emissions crisis and is aimed at encouraging companies to make impact pledges to become carbon neutral or carbon negative through development and use of green software.

Announcing the launch of the initiative at its virtual Build Developers Conference, Microsoft said that the software industry has a responsibility to build a more sustainable future, with data centers around the world accounting for 1 per cent of global electricity demand, and projected consumption to grow to 3-8 per cent in the next decade.

The foundation aims to help the software industry contribute to the information and communications technology sector’s broader targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.

The foundation has set out three core objectives:

Establish green software industry standards: The foundation will create and publish green software standards, green patterns and practices across various computing disciplines and technology domains. The group will encourage voluntary adoption and help guide government policy toward those standards for a consistent approach for measuring and reporting green software emissions.

Accelerate innovation: To grow the green software field, we need to nurture the creation of trusted open-source and open-data projects that support the creation of green software applications. The foundation will work alongside our nonprofit partners and academia to support research into green software.

Drive awareness and grow advocacy: If we want companies to build greener applications, they need people who know how to build them. As such, one of our key missions is to drive widespread adoption of green software across the industry through ambassador programs, training and education which leads to certification and events to facilitate the growth of green software.

Brad Smith, president at Microsoft said: “The scientific consensus is clear: the world confronts an urgent carbon problem. It will take all of us working together to create innovative solutions to drastically reduce emissions. Today, Microsoft is joining with organizations who are serious about an environmentally sustainable future to drive adoption of green software development to help our customers and partners around the world reduce their carbon footprint.”

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