Sustainable software products – Towards assessment criteria for resource and energy efficiency
Open accessAbstract
Many authors have proposed criteria to assess the “environmental friendliness” or “sustainability” of software products. However, a causal model that links observable properties of a software product to conditions of it being green or (more general) sustainable is still missing. Such a causal model is necessary because software products are intangible goods and, as such, only have indirect effects on the physical world. In particular, software products are not subject to any wear and tear, they can be copied without great effort, and generate no waste or emissions when being disposed of. Viewed in isolation, software seems to be a perfectly sustainable type of product. In real life, however, software products with the same or similar functionality can differ substantially in the burden they place on natural resources, especially if the sequence of released versions and resulting hardware obsolescence is taken into account. In this article, we present a model describing the causal chains from software products to their impacts on natural resources, including energy sources, from a life-cycle perspective. We focus on (i) the demands of software for hardware capacities (local, remote, and in the connecting network) and the resulting hardware energy demand, (ii) the expectations of users regarding such demands and how these affect hardware operating life, and (iii) the autonomy of users in managing their software use with regard to resource efficiency. We propose a hierarchical set of criteria and indicators to assess these impacts. We demonstrate the application of this set of criteria, including the definition of standard usage scenarios for chosen categories of software products. We further discuss the practicability of this type of assessment, its acceptability for several stakeholders and potential consequences for the eco-labeling of software products and sustainable software design.
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New approaches for evaluating environmental sustainability of software applications have not yet been widely adopted or applied to AI.
“New approaches have been proposed for evaluating the environmental sustainability of software applications (e.g., Kern et al., 2018), but have not yet been widely adopted or applied to AI.”
From Artificial intelligence for sustainability: Challenges, opportunities, and a research agenda (2020) · cites this paper as Kern et al., 2018
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Artificial intelligence for sustainability: Challenges, opportunities, and a research agenda
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Kern, E., Hilty, L. M., Guldner, A., Maksimov, Y. V., Filler, A., Gröger, J., & Naumann, S.
- Affiliations
- Leuphana University of Lüneburg (DE)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Trier University of Applied Sciences (DE)
- Oeko Institut (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Kern, Eva
- Venue
- Future Generation Computer Systems
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-09
- Volume
- 86
- Pages
- 199-210
- ISSN
- 0167-739X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2800686263
- Cited by
- 122
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 5
- FWCI
- 3.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Future Generation Computer Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Multilingual Matters (Channel View Publications) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- DORA Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa)) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Funders
- German Environment Agency (3715 37 601 0)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Electrical and Electronic Engineering › Green IT and Sustainability
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Hardware and Architecture › Energy Efficiency in Computing
- Keywords
- sustainable software, green software, resource efficiency, energy efficiency, life cycle assessment, hardware obsolescence, environmental labelling, causal models, environmental impact of software
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