Green coding – bridging the gap from theory to practice

This article summarises key points from the interdisciplinary panel discussions held at the Weizenbaum Conference 2024 titled “Green Coding – Bridging the Gap from Theory to Practice”, where experts shared diverse perspectives on the importance of Green Coding (GC) in sustainable software development. As digital technologies and services expand, their ecological costs rise, with data centres consuming 1.0–1.5% of global electricity in 2022 and information and communication technologies (ICT) contributing about 1.5–4% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The panel highlighted the role of software in influencing the energy and resource consumption of hardware. GC focuses on enhancing energy and material efficiency across the software lifecycle, addressing the growing demands of ICT driven by cloud computing, artificial intelligence and video streaming. Despite some companies recognising the importance of GC, implementation remains low and is often not part of established practices in software development. The discussion emphasised the need for open-source initiatives, standardised metrics, industry integration, stakeholder awareness and robust governance to align digital transformation with sustainability goals. This article highlights the main arguments and insights from the panel discussions.