Microsoft, IMDA unveil digital sustainability guidelines to spur green software development

MICROSOFT and Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) on Tuesday (Oct 3) unveiled a set of digital sustainability guidelines that they hope can “accelerate education and awareness among businesses and developers”.

The guidelines, created with support from the Green Software Foundation (GSF), clarify the relationships between hardware and software sustainability principles and measurements, Microsoft said.

“It provides straightforward guidance on integrating energy efficiency, carbon awareness and hardware efficiency into software engineering and development processes,” the tech giant noted. “Applying these principles ensures that applications and solutions are energy-efficient and carbon-aware by design.”

According to the guidelines, sustainable software is “carbon-efficient”, which means it emits the least carbon possible by design through code, architecture and other intentional choices. Such applications tend to be cheaper to run, are more performant, more resilient and more optimised, all while having a positive impact on the planet, the guidelines said.

The three main principles that guide the reduction of carbon emissions of software are energy efficiency, carbon awareness and hardware efficiency.

The guidelines also spell out ways developers can understand how their software behaves in terms of carbon emissions, such as through the Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) specification, a methodology developed by GSF.

A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU

Friday, 12.30 pm

ESG Insights

An exclusive weekly report on the latest environmental, social and governance issues.

Sign Up

There is also a set of recommendations for developers. Some ideas include leveraging tools to measure software carbon emissions, minimising resource consumption and using renewable energy. They also suggest using open-source software and choosing cloud-based solutions.

Jeth Lee, chief legal officer, Microsoft Singapore, said the guidelines represent a collective drive to create a positive impact on the environment.

“Providing developers with practical means of tracking and reporting emissions ensures that we are not simply embracing sustainability as an aspiration but actively working towards our net-zero targets,” he added.

Chee Wei Nga, director for the emerging technology office of the biztech group at IMDA, said the launch of these guidelines will help advance Singapore’s efforts in becoming a leading digital sustainability hub in the region.

“Greening the ICT (infocomm technology) sector is important to IMDA; and we will continue to work closely with partners such as Microsoft and Green Software Foundation to enable developers and businesses (with) the ability to understand energy efficiency, carbon awareness and green software development,” said Chee. “We will continue to drive a positive change to our environment, in Singapore and beyond our shores.”

These guidelines were also applied through the Singapore GreenTech Challenge in April, where developers co-innovated to develop carbon-efficient solutions.