How Green Software can Benefit Your Business?
As pervasive software use and significance is only projected to grow in the future, it has never been more important to try to understand and optimize its impact on our natural environment.
Through the use of green IT, it is now possible to develop an energy-efficient business environment that can improve how a company manages its main operations and resources.
Many companies around the world still haven’t found the most efficient ways to run their everyday business processes, and there is a lot of room to improve energy-efficiency over time.
By going green, companies can positively influence employees, profits and the planet. Even if a green IT solution might cost more at the beginning, it can save key resources in the long run.
With IT infrastructures accounting for a significant chunk of a company’s budget, green computing can establish solutions that provide long-term savings and healthier workplaces. Whether you choose to develop your green IT in-house or through an offshore outsourcing company, you will benefit.
What is Green IT?
This is an umbrella term that refers to environmentally friendly software, hardware, networks, systems, applications, and overall practices. In order to achieve environmental sustainability, green IT involves three main complementary approaches:
Greener IT: An inward-looking approach with a primary focus on re-engineering IT products and practices in order to improve:
- Energy-efficiency.
- Maximize their use.
- Reduce their carbon footprint.
- Meet environmental compliance requirements.
A Greener World Through IT: An outward-looking approach that deploys IT to establish a sustainable environment by providing smart solutions in sectors such as:
- Business.
- Energy.
- Manufacturing.
- Agriculture.
- Healthcare.
- Construction.
Green Awareness: The serious impact of climate change is unfortunately not yet taken seriously by many people. This approach involves using IT to promote green initiatives and to encourage environmentally sustainable behavioral changes.
𝔻𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕟𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕒 𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕟𝕖𝕣 𝕔𝕒𝕡𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕕𝕦𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕙𝕚𝕘𝕙 𝕢𝕦𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕀𝕋 𝕕𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝𝕠𝕡𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕒𝕟𝕪? 𝔸𝕥 𝔹𝕠𝕔𝕒𝕤𝕒𝕪, 𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕕𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕔𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕖𝕒𝕞𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕕𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝𝕠𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝕔𝕦𝕥𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕖𝕕𝕘𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕗𝕥𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕤𝕠𝕝𝕦𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕒𝕟𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕝𝕕. 𝔾𝕖𝕥 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕠𝕦𝕔𝕙 𝕥𝕠 𝕗𝕚𝕟𝕕 𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕙𝕠𝕨 𝕨𝕖 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕡 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕟𝕖𝕩𝕥 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕛𝕖𝕔𝕥.
What is Green Software?
Sustainable or green software, uses energy-efficient algorithms that are able to perform computing operations faster and more efficiently than standard software, with the ultimate aim of having minimal or no impact on the environment. Being a relatively new IT discipline, green software engineering actually combines standard software development practices and architecture, hardware and data center design, electricity markets and climate science.
Green software engineering is categorized into eight basic focus areas:
- Carbon – Green software developers strive to build carbon-efficient software that can provide the same or better value to end-users, while having a reduced carbon footprint.
- Electricity – With most of the world’s electricity still produced from coal, developers try to design energy-efficient software that functions with lower electricity consumption.
- Carbon intensity – This is the measure of how much carbon is emitted per kilowatt-hour of electricity. Low-carbon intensity software is developed and run on renewable energy.
- Embodied Carbon – Total carbon released while creating and disposing of electronic devices. Hardware-efficient apps include embodied carbon in their total calculations.
- Energy Proportionality – Also known as utilization, sustainable engineers study the link between a system’s power consumption and how much of its resources are being used.
- Network Efficiency – Energy-efficient software can lower carbon emissions by essentially reducing data size and the distance that data must travel across a computer network.
- Demand Shaping – This is all about finding ways of moving computer power demand to a different time or region, and efficiently shaping it according to supply availability.
- Optimization – Boosting carbon-efficiency is a long-term strategy that involves measuring software-use factors with a consistent approach of gradual optimization.
Why We All Need Green Software?
As we are already witnessing the harmful effects of global warming and climate change, greening software is—and will definitely continue to be—a non-negotiable necessity. The offshore outsourcing company Bocasay know this, to help create a more sustainable environment, software professionals must understand the principles of green software and its potential, and embrace green IT practices.
By successfully greening your software systems and business practices, you can:
- Harness new opportunities.
- Enhance your business’s competitive advantage.
- Help to establish a sustainable environment that benefits current and future generations.
Long-term sustainability is the key goal, everything else is just a bonus.
The Business Benefits of Green Software
Being environmentally friendly means different things for different businesses. Turning your software green is not only great for the environment, it also improves your business: from significantly raising the resource and functionality efficiency of tech projects, and most importantly, towards increasing customer loyalty.
With the millennial generation being the largest population today, it is widely known that they tend to choose products and services that have less negative environmental impact. Either way, millennials will be your customers or your best employees. Harvard’s research has shown that today’s computer engineers are increasingly choosing to work with companies that focus on sustainability. A commitment to green software will attract the talented developers of the future.
Without further delay, here are the essential benefits of embracing green software for your business:
- Simplicity: The architecture of sustainable software is often characterized by minimal interdependencies, resulting in green software systems being both more straightforward and energy-efficient.
- Speed: Simple systems result in faster software. As green software tries to limit both the size of data it uses, as well as the need for data to travel far across a network, achieving high performance is easy.
- Savings: Green IT systems are specifically designed to use the least amount of energy resources possible. For companies making software an integral part of their sustainability strategies, this approach results in significant and long-term operational cost-reduction. In addition, using an offshore outsourcing company rather than developing green software in-house will help you limit your expenses.
- Brand Resilience: Today’s consumers are more concerned with the integrity and social responsibility of companies selling them products and services. Your company can raise environmental awareness, reduce its carbon footprint through green software development, and ultimately encourage brand loyalty and resilience.
