Environment Variables

This Week, hosts Tzviya and Kate are joined by AI ethicist Masheika Allgood to discuss the growing environmental impact of AI data centres through the lens of water use. Drawing on a new case study from Georgia, the conversation explores how communities can better understand the local effects of AI infrastructure, why transparency and public engagement matter, and what policymakers, developers, and residents should consider before new data centres are built.

Learn more about our people:
Kate Goldenring: LinkedIn | Website
Tzviya Siegman: LinkedIn | Website
Masheika Allgood: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:
The Green Software Foundation Website
Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

Resources:
When Will the Taps Run Dry? | AllAI [01:31]
The AI Data Center Water Management Challenge: A Georgia Case Study | Taps Run Dry [03:51]
The AI Data Center Water Management Challenge | Masheika Allgood [07:46]
UN Open Source Week [14:09]
Summit 26 - Unlock AI's potential to serve humanity [14:44]
Wyoming tightens wastewater rules after Meta datacenter contractor flushed contaminated water | The Guardian [27:39]
EV Ep141 TWiGS: Tokens, Water, and Transparency [42:16]

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:
Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
Follow and rate on Spotify
Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This Week in Green Software, Kate is joined by Diana Todea to explore how observability can become more sustainable by designing systems with efficiency in mind. They discuss practical ways to cut costs and carbon emissions, avoid telemetry bloat, and build greener observability pipelines from the start. Treating observability as an architectural decision is key to creating more efficient and sustainable software systems.

Learn more about our people:
Kate Goldenring: LinkedIn | Website
Diana Todea: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:
The Green Software Foundation Website
Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

Resources:
The Green Side of Observability - Diana Todea | DevOps.com [01:01]
Retroactive Sampling with OpenTelemetry | KubeCon Amsterdam 2026 [10:09]
Observability Is a Mesh, Not a Braid - Diana Todea | Medium [24:54]
Grafana Mimir [29:47]
VictoriaMetrics [30:03]
SCI for Open Telemetry | GSF [33:44]
Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) | GSF [34:00]
Green Observability: What Needs to Shuffle in Open Source? - Diana Todea | SCALE [34:41]

Events:
Sustainable Tech in the Age of AI 29 June 18:00 - Hamburg, Germany [40:59]
FREE UKSG webinar: Minimising the environmental harm of AI through principle thinking 30 June 13:00 BST - UK, Virtual [41:15]
Reducing Cost and Carbon 2 July 18:00 Frankfurt, Germany [41:39]

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:
Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
Follow and rate on Spotify
Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chris Adams is joined by special guest Dr. Tom Brown from TU Berlin to explore how modelling can help build a fossil free internet and power grid. They discuss Google's 24/7 carbon free energy goals, the growing impact of data centres on electricity systems, and how investments in clean energy technologies could accelerate global decarbonisation. Along the way, Tom shares why open source energy modelling is helping shape a more transparent and sustainable energy future.

Learn more about our people:
Chris Adams: LinkedIn | GitHub | Website
Tom Brown: LinkedIn | Bluesky | Website

Find out more about the GSF:
The Green Software Foundation Website
Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

Resources:
CO2.js | Green Web Foundation [01:08]
Release Guide: CO2.js v0.18 - Green Web Foundation [01:25]
Carbon Aware SDK | GSF [01:33]
CodeCarbon [01:52]
EcoLogits [01:54]
PyPSA [03:00]
https://www.tu.berlin/en/ensys
Clean Coffee #1 [05:15]
European Commission recommends open source tools for hydrogen-related cost-benefit analysis [10:49]
The Role of Energy Storage in Germany
Do renewables make electricity cheaper or more expensive? [20:17]
The cost of data centre growth in Ireland | Friends of the Earth [22:08]
24/7 carbon-free electricity matching accelerates adoption of advanced clean energy technologies | Igor Riepin [23:47]
EV Ep50 TWiGS: Modeling Carbon Aware Software w/ Igor Riepin [24:32]
EV Ep31 TWiGS: Code Green and Clean Power w/ Nina Jabłońska
EV Ep97 How to Tell When Energy is Green w/ Killian Daley
Spatio-temporal load shifting for truly clean computing [27:39]
On the means, costs, and system-level impacts of 24/7 carbon-free energy procurement [35:46]
Worked example showing that Anthropic is likely paying around 5000 USD per megawatt hour for compute capacity in the Colossus 1 datacentre [39:39]
Neuralwatt Cloud [42:06]
Solar and batteries can power the world [44:51]
Solar electricity every hour of every day is here and it changes everything | Ember [51:32]
Solar + Battery Atlas
Harnessing the Sun | Solar + Battery Atlas
model.energy [52:58]
Scenario Builder (TZ-SB) [53:50]
Tom Brown LinkedIn Post re: OpenStreetMap [54:51]
MapYourGrid [56:09]

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:
Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
Follow and rate on Spotify
Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kate and Tzviya explore the Green Web Foundation’s State of the Fossil-free Internet 2026 report and what it reveals about transparency, energy use, and the environmental impact of today’s digital infrastructure. The discussion examines the limitations of carbon accounting practices, the rapid growth of AI-driven data centers, and the role of policy, open source tools, and public accountability in driving meaningful change. They highlight why better measurement, clearer reporting, and greater awareness are essential for building a more sustainable internet.

Learn more about our people:
Kate Goldenring: LinkedIn | Website
Tzviya Siegman: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:
The Green Software Foundation Website
Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

News:
State of the Fossil-Free Internet 2026 | Green Web Foundation [01:08]
How Tech Companies Are Obscuring AI’s Real Carbon Footprint | Bloomberg
Ep 97: How to Tell When Energy is Green with Killian Daly [06:18]
Cloud Sustainability at Scale: Why Open Source Will Define the Next Era of Green Computing [15:53]
Counting own goals: High-level assessment of the economic relationship between the ICT and the Oil and Gas sectors and its environmental implications [23:20]
Enabled Eemissions Campaign
UK quietly increases AI emissions forecast 100-fold | POLITICO [34:54]

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:
Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
Follow and rate on Spotify
Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This Week in Green Software, hosts Kate and Tzviya explore how green software is moving from theory to practice, highlighting new reference implementations for measuring Software Carbon Intensity in AI workloads and progress toward standardizing SCI for Web. They also examine the growing energy demands of AI and data centers, discuss the role of policy and awareness in driving change, and reflect on why practical tools and real-world examples are essential for turning sustainability goals into everyday engineering decisions.

Learn more about our people:
Kate Goldenring: LinkedIn | Website
Tzviya Siegman: LinkedIn | Website

Find out more about the GSF:
The Green Software Foundation Website
Sign up to the Green Software Foundation Newsletter

News:
Introducing GSF Reference Implementations | Green Software Foundation [04:13]
An update on SCI for Web - a new standard for measuring software carbon intensity for the Web - Green Web Foundation [11:59]
Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) [13:27]
Scotland’s ‘green datacentres’ policy ignores emissions impact of AI, analysis shows | The Guardian [20:04]
More than 100 UK datacentres plan to burn gas to generate electricity | The Guardian [21:11]
New Gas-Powered Data Centers Could Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than Entire Nations | WIRED [24:46]
Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon back new data center tech accelerator | Latitude Media [26:41]

Resources:
Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification | GSF [03:05]
EV Ep145: Is Using LLMs for Tech Standards Work Actually Greener? (Harmony) [18:51]
The Turing Lectures: Making AI (truly) sustainable (Dr. Sasha Luccioni) [22:04]

Events:
Web Going Green | June 8 at 12:00 pm BST (Edinburgh, hybrid) [34:26]
Green IO Amsterdam | June 9-10 (Amsterdam) [34:37]
Green IO - Meetup Community Event | June 9-10 (Amsterdam) [34:53]
Who's Going to Save Us From the Energy Use of AI? You Are | June 17 at 6:00 pm BST (Brighton, hybrid) [35:04]
SustainableIT Impact Summit | June 23 (London) [35:15]
Lean Agentic AI | June 23 at 6:00 pm CEST (Karlsruhe, hybrid) [35:21]
Sustainable Tech in the Age of AI | June 29 at 6:00 pm CEST (Hamburg) [35:29]

If you enjoyed this episode then please either:
Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
Follow and rate on Spotify
Watch our videos on The Green Software Foundation YouTube Channel!
Connect with us on Twitter, Github and LinkedIn!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.