Green IO with Gaël Duez explores how to reduce the environmental impact of our digital world. Twice a month, on a Tuesdays guests from across the globe share insights, tools, and alternative approaches, enabling all responsible technologists, within the Tech sector and beyond, to build a greener digital world, one byte at a time.
#50 Is Eroom's law the future of Moore's law? with Tristan Nitot
December 3, 2024 • 44 MIN
Moore’s law is dead! Long live Eroom’s law!
This provocative statement from Tristan Nitot highlights the pivotal role of software engineers in our journey as an industry toward a sustainable and more frugal digital world. The majority of our old devices, from smartphones to desktop, still work. How come that we waste such a massive gathering of precious resources such as minerals, energy, water and even our human time which we use to manufacture and maintain them? What should we do to break the trend of electronic waste and the ever-increasing footprint of the IT sector on our physical world?
Gael Duez sat down with Tristan Nitot to start answering these questions in this Green IO episode where we covered:
⚖️ Why Wirth’s law matters more than Moore’s law
🗑️ How the Auvergnat cultural aversion for waste accelerated the birth of the Eroom’s law
🔎 How to find (sustainability) weakness in your software,
🐍 Why Python is not (always) guilty of being resource hungry and how to embrace a wise use of alternative libraries such as Polars,
✨The real ROII of using AI to optimize software.
#49 How to actually do Green Software in my company? with Annie Freeman
November 26, 2024 • 36 MIN
Have you ever heard “The complaint of the lonely sustainability champion”? Its IT sector version?
Here it is “I listen to the Green IO podcast and others as well, I read newsletters and articles from CAT, GWF, Boavizta, Greenit.fr, GSF, etc. But I’m isolated as a green software champion. I have the feeling that I cannot achieve much by myself. How could we actually do green software in my company?”
This episode is all about sharing one concrete use case of someone, Annie Freeman, who achieved to build and deploy an internal tool monitoring carbon emissions in a SaaS company, Xero, with more than 4M users of its accounting software across a dozen countries.
This achievement, among others, has won her to be named a finalist in the New Zealand Sustainable Business Network Awards in 2024
And she started it all by herself when she raised her voice in 2022 at a Xero’s internal technology conference despite having joined the company as a software engineer just a few months ago.
In this episode, Annie Freeman shares great insights with host Gaël Duez on:
💪 How two motivated engineers can start a movement in a 4K employees company,
🔎 Tracking the cultural change signals,
🔄 Bringing carbon awareness in existing process rather than creating new ones,
🎓🛠️ Making Community of Practices & tooling working hands in hands,
📊 How Data management primes over UI when deciding to build a carbon dashboard,
🎙️ Why listening to Green IO actually helps (not Gaël saying 😉).
#48 - Greening the video game industry with Ben Abraham and Maria Wagner
November 12, 2024 • 53 MIN
3 billion gamers worldwide, billions of devices, terabytes of data streamed, the gaming industry comes with pretty big numbers starting with its $455 billion sales in 2023.
Is its environmental footprint as big? (Not) fun fact, not a single executive in this sector could answer the question.
A new non-profit initiative, the Sustainable Gaming Alliance, is trying to get these numbers right and to equip the industry with the right framework. Its Managing Director, Maria Wagner, and its Research and Standard lead, Dr Benjamin Abraham joined this Green IO episode where great insights were shared on:
👿 The periodic table of torture for gaming device,
🖼️ The Gaming industry dependency on graphics to boost its sales
🕹️ Why “this game is beautiful” should be replaced as a praise by “this game is so enjoyable”
📋 Why GHG protocol is not adapted to the gaming industry
🌋 How to shake up a multi-billions industry in 10 weeks ?
🔄 Why the project mode in the game industry - and elsewhere? - doesn’t help a GreenOps culture to flourish
😴 Energy consumption at idle state
#47b - The Microsoft Azure dilemma with Holly and William Alpine - When enabled emissions “offset” sustainability claims
October 29, 2024 • 38 MIN
They both went to this job interview to hone their skills, and got a dream job at Microsoft! In its fast-growing and AI-pioneered Azure division. With a romance on top of it…
Yet several years later, they decided to both resign. Why? On sustainability ground, and more specifically for the lack of support on “enabled emissions” issues.
Holly and Will Alpine are now the Bonnie & Clyde of Azure and give us insider perspectives, in a nuanced and well-documented way, on this “elephant in the room” about sustainability claims in all big tech companies.
In the final part of this 2-part episode, great insights were shared on :
🤯 What is enabled carbon and why it offsets by far all Microsoft achievements
😈 Devil is in the details from tailored solutions to “carbon-neutral” oil company not following standard definitions of “net-zero”
✨ Can responsible AI principles really not mention anything about the environment?
⚖️ Why regulation will ultimately be needed
♀️✊ And … the Pussy Riot!
#47a - The Microsoft Azure dilemma with Holly and William Alpine - Learnings from a 10K employee grassroots sustainability initiative
October 22, 2024 • 42 MIN
They both went to this job interview to hone their skills, and got a dream job at Microsoft! In its fast-growing and AI-pioneered Azure division and with a romance on top of it… 💕
Yet several years later, Holly and Will Alpine decided to both resign. Why? On sustainability ground, and more specifically for the lack of support on the “enabled emissions” issues. 🕵️
Holly and Will are now the Bonnie & Clyde of Azure and they provide us with an insider perspective, in a nuanced and well-documented way, on this “elephant in the room” in all big tech companies: are their sustainability claims offset by the so-called enabled emissions? 🐘
In this first part of this 2-part episode, Holly and Will shared great insights with Gaël Duez on:
🌱 Microsoft’s employee grassroots sustainability initiative which gathers now more than ten thousands people
⚖️ The opportunity cost for most middle management to support sustainability initiatives
🛠️ The difference between attributional and consequential methodologies and why it impacts the adoption of SCI enabled tools
💰 Can investing millions in local community support justify the increasing data center expansion?
#C1 Special Green IO London 2024
October 14, 2024 • 32 MIN
Today, we don’t have 1 or 2 guests but 12! In partnership with the YouTube channel Architect Tomorrow, we are glad to share with you snippets and interviews of the speakers who made the latest Green IO Conference in London a huge success last month.
I have no idea if you have some appetite for this kind of content so feel free to come back to me at [email protected] or just comment on our posts on social media.
One last thing, the audio quality is ok but not great because of the noise at the venue. If this episode gets some success, we will try to find a quieter place and better gear for the next editions of Green IO starting with Green IO Paris on December 4th and 5th.
Still, I hope you’ll enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed crafting Green IO London 2024 for its attendees.
#46 - Green SEO with Natalie Arney and Stuart Davies
October 1, 2024 • 58 MIN
🔎 Green SEO? Not the most widespread concept in the sustainability field. Still, seasoned web designers and developers know it well: folks in charge of SEO often have the final say when it comes to content, design and even sometimes technical choices. And on top of this influence, SEO practices also carry their own environmental footprint being very data hungry.
🎙️ In this episode, Gaël DUEZ invites two seasoned SEO practitioners and pillars of BrightonSEO - one of the world’s top conferences on the topic - Stuart Davies, founder of the Ethical Agency Creative Bloom, and Natalie Arney, an SEO Consultant with a knack for sustainability to explore Green SEO.
Some Takeaways:
↔️ the transversality of SEO functions,
💻 the alignment of the core web vitals with sustainability goals,
🌐 The importance of choosing sustainable hosting providers,
♻️ Practical sustainable SEO practices,
and much more.
#45 - Assessing digital sustainability’s maturity with Aiste Rugeviciute and Rob Price
September 17, 2024 • 61 MIN
In the early 2020s, companies started facing a big question: how could they be more responsible in the digital world? Could something similar to CSR exist for this virtual and yet highly materialized world? Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR) was coined to offer some much-needed guidance.
🎙️ To explore its ramification, Gaël DUEZ chats with two renowned experts in CDR: Aiste Rugeviciute, co-author of “B.A.-BA du Numérique Responsable” and now pursuing a PhD in the socio-ecological impacts of CDR strategies, and Rob Price, a key player in developing an international CDR framework. Rob also hosts the “A New Responsibility” podcast, diving deep into CDR's role in business.
Some Takeaways:
🔑 the CDR framework in a nutshell,
🌿 the importance of embracing a balanced approach to CDR in most companies, and
🛠️ a sneak peek to the newly-released CDR maturity model.
#44 - Can the data center industry become circular? with Deborah Andrews
September 3, 2024 • 55 MIN
💭Fueled by the ongoing artificial intelligence boom, data centers are popping up around the world like mushrooms after a good rain raising serious sustainability concerns. Hence a pressing question: can the data center industry become circular?
🎙️To get some answers, Gaël Duez welcomes a veteran in Circular Economy and Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment, Prof. Deborah Andrews, from London South Bank University, the founder and academic lead for CEDaCI.
Some Takeaways:
💡 how the CEDaCI Compass tool can help data center being equipped more sustainably,
♻️ current inadequacies in recycling infrastructure for electronic waste, and
⚡ concerns about the rapid development of AI and its energy demands
#43 - Digital sustainability in a Tech behemoth: Japan with Trista Bridges and Paul Beddie
July 16, 2024 • 49 MIN
💭 How can a country defining itself as an high-tech spearheader can embrace IT sustainability? Japan is a fascinating example of both the contradictions and the synergies that such a journey creates.
🎙️ In this episode, Gael Duez welcomes two long-time Japan-based experts: Paul Beddie, VP and Sustainability Lead at Capgemini, and Trista Bridges, the co-author of Leading Sustainably, and a member of EcoVadis' Purpose Committee. Their exchange on IT sustainability initiatives in Japan led to many takeaways including:
🤝 the stakeholder-oriented nature of Japanese society,
🌱 the emergence of Japanese startups focusing on sustainability,
⚖️ the role of regulations in driving sustainability efforts in Japan,
And much more.
#42 - Decarbonizing Tech: 2 CTO share their paths with Ludi Akue and Owen Rogers
July 2, 2024 • 55 MIN
💭Decarbonizing tech stacks and platforms? This is the challenge many CTO face these days.
🎙️In our 42th episode, 2 CTOs with different backgrounds and operating in different lines of business cross share their experience in reducing the environmental footprint of their operations. Ludi Akue, former Lunii’s CTO, and Owen Rogers, .eco’s CTO meet Gael Duez to share their insights and reflect on each other journeys in sustainability.
Some Takeaways:
🌐 pro and con of migrating infrastructure to a lower carbon region,
⚙️ how to leverage technical debt to boost decarbonization,
💰 when does optimization pay for decarbonization,
⚠️ the pitfall of creating a separate program to steer sustainability,
and much more!
#41 - Decarbonizing AWS with Adrian Cockcroft
June 18, 2024 • 60 MIN
☁️ What can AWS users achieve today in terms of decarbonization? And what can they expect tomorrow?
🎙️ In this episode, Gael Duez welcomes Adrian Cockcroft, the former creator and leader of the AWS sustainability team who now leads the Green Software Foundation project “Real Time Cloud”. They had an in-depth chat about measuring carbon for software and the sustainability challenges of Cloud providers, starting with AWS. Some of Adrian’s takeaways were:
⚡ The case for PPA and market based approach facing the AI energy-hungry boom
☀️ Why we should not chase the sun
🌱 Sustainability of the Cloud vs Sustainability in the Cloud and other architecture tips
☁️ His confidence in getting a standard for Cloud-based GHG emissions
🤝 Why AWS internal structure prevented sustainability to ramp-up and why it should change
… And much more!
#40 - Triggering action in green software: a Nordic perspective with Satu Heikinheimo and Janne Kalliola
June 4, 2024 • 53 MIN
🤔 Why do we do so little to decarbonize software despite already knowing so much?
🎙️ In this episode, Gael Duez is joined by Janne Kalliola, author of "Green Code," together with Satu Heikinheimo, Planet Diplomats’ founder, to discuss how to trigger more actions among Tech people to reduce the carbon footprint of our code.
🌍 Both being based in Finland, a nice side-benefit of their exchange was exploring how the Nordic countries handle the environmental footprint of digital technology.
Key takeaways:
🏃 trend of employees considering resigning if their company's values don't align with their own,
🤝 importance of collaboration among multidisciplinary teams to create sustainable digital products and services,
⚙️ concept of carbon-neutral software and the choice of focusing mostly on energy consumption, and
💡 Nordic approach to trust, self-organization, and low hierarchy in fostering psychological safety and agency for individuals to drive sustainable initiatives
#39 - European Regulations in Tech: some insider perspectives with Kim Van Sparrentak and Max Schulze
May 21, 2024 • 53 MIN
🔎 Major regulations have been built up in Europe these past years impacting the Tech sectors. How have they been built? What does it take to pass these kinds of bills in the unique European Union political system? And what are the consequences for the people working in the digital industry?
🎙️ This episode 39 welcomes Kim Van Sparrentak, a Member of the European Parliament involved in legislation related to tech and sustainability, and Max Schulze, the founder and chairman of the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance, one of the main lobby groups for more responsible technology. Together with Gael Duez, they share their perspective on the European regulations in Tech.
Some points which have been discussed:
⚖️ the Artificial Intelligence Act,
🌱 Environmental transparency among actors, and
🤝 the Influence of big tech companies through lobbying
#38 - Building Green Software with Sara Bergman
May 7, 2024 • 43 MIN
🔎 What are the main angles to be covered when you truly want to design, run, and sometimes decommission, software, in the greenest possible way?
🎙️ In this episode, Sara Bergman, a seasoned software engineer and one of the acclaimed co-authors of the O’Reilly book “Building Green Software” joins Gael Duez to discuss the book, and more specifically the chapters on AI, measurements, and hardware.
Some takeaways:
💻 Software people’s responsibility in utilizing hardware
🌡️ Concept of temperature-aware computing
☁️ Importance of major cloud providers
🌱 Some follow-up on the discussion on carbon-aware vs grid-aware computing for more effective environmental impact
#37 - How to be a climate-conscious product manager with Antonia Landi and François Burra
April 23, 2024 • 52 MIN
💡In product management, there is a strong culture of adapting to change, testing, and rapid learning. Talking about change, we have a big big one ahead of us: climate change! How can product leaders include climate considerations into the build and run of digital services and scale sustainable practices?
🎧In this episode, Gael interviewed two hands-on experts and daily practitioners in product management on how to become a climate-conscious PMs. Antonia Landi, based in Germany, is a strong voice in ProductOps, and François Burra, based in Canada, is the co-author of the Climate Product Management Playbook.
What product manager should consider?
🌱 Environmental impact throughout the product life cycle,
💻 Minimalistic approach on user experience,
🎯 Climate-related OKRs and reducing costs through intentional data storage.
#36 - Climate change challenges to data centers: lessons from Singapore with PS Lee
April 9, 2024 • 54 MIN
📈 44 cm water level rise under the IPCC business as usual scenario.
This number shows that climate change is very real for Singaporeans and for their data centers, close to 10% of the whole of APAC!
🎧In episode 36, Gaël Duez discussed with Professor PS Lee, National University of Singapore Dean's Chair of Mechanical Engineering and one of the top experts worldwide on data center cooling, the challenges in making data centers sustainable.
🔍Some key points of their exchange are:
🌡️ why temperature rise has multiple downside,
⚡ energy challenges that affects the sustainability of data centers,
❄️ liquid cooling technology as an important option,
🗺️ why lessons from DC operating in tropical climate apply almost everywhere.
And much more!
#35 - Cybersecurity and sustainability: friend or foe? with Mary Prokhorova and Michael J. Oghia
March 26, 2024 • 43 MIN
⚙️Cybersecurity and sustainability do share a complex relationship!
The two approaches share commonalities, such as grappling with resistance from teams and executives and prioritizing resilience, but they also seem to split in notable ways such as constant updates in cybersecurity impacting bloatware and equipment obsolences.
🎧In this episode Gaël Duez invited two experts on the field, Mary Prokhorova from InDevLab and Michael Oghia from Datacenter Changemakers, to discuss the nuances of cybersecurity and sustainability’s relationship.
🔎Some few takeaways from their conversation are:
💡the critical role of IT infrastructure in modern business processes
💡importance of protecting critical infrastructure to avoid environmental damage and societal impacts
💡significance of investing in digital infrastructure to support the green revolution and highlighting the impact of climate risks on both physical and digital security
#34 - Carbon aware computing: a false good idea? with Hannah Smith and Ismaël Velasco
March 12, 2024 • 52 MIN
🎙️In our latest episode, Hannah Smith, the COO of the Green Web Foundation, and Ismael Velasco, the founder of the Adora Foundation, highlight the potential pitfalls of Carbon Aware Computing a strategy that aims to reduce carbon emissions by aligning software operations with the carbon intensity of the energy grid. While this approach has gained traction among the IT industry, including giants such as Apple, Microsoft, and Google, Hannah and Ismael discuss with our host Gaël Duez its complexities and limitations.
💻As they explored the nuances of Carbon Aware Computing, it gave us insights that while it holds promise as a tool for reducing emissions, it also poses challenges that must be carefully considered. The oversimplification of energy grid dynamics and the myriad factors that influence carbon intensity underscore the need for a more comprehensive understanding of sustainable computing practices.
#33 - Is open source and sustainability a perfect match? with Oliver Cronk and Katie Davis
February 27, 2024 • 38 MIN
🔍How open source software slashes energy consumption, extends hardware lifespan, and drives sustainability?
🎙️In this episode, Gael Duez as he unravel the intricate relationship between open source software and IT sustainability together with Oliver Cronk, the host of Architect Tomorrow podcast and Sustainable Technology practice lead at Scott Logic (UK), alongside his software engineer colleague Katie Davis.
💡Open source software (OSS) and hardware (OSH) are not just benefiting companies, but also driving global sustainability efforts. With insights from a recent HBR study revealing OSS's monumental impact on reducing software development costs, the stage is set for an insighful conversation.
💻Katie breaks down the key to OSS success: transparency. Learn how freely available code empowers developers to make efficient, sustainable choices, while Oliver highlights the importance of common hardware standards and circularity to combat waste and inefficiency.
📊Dive into the battle for open-source data transparency with Katie, and explore Oliver's vision for the tech community's future direction. From reducing emissions with initiatives like the Tech Carbon Standard to innovative projects like the Cloud Carbon Footprint tool and the Open Compute Project, the episode is packed with actionable insights and inspiring solutions.
#32 - How systemic thinking can empower sustainable design? with Sylvie Daumal and Thorsten Jonas
February 13, 2024 • 53 MIN
How can we make systemic design operational for sustainable design?
🔧Systemic design is dedicated to handling complex systems, complex questions, and complex issues.
Sounds familiar with Sustainability? But if things are so complex how digital product people willing to design sustainably can embrace them?
In this episode, we dive deep into the world of systemic design and how it can help us increase digital sustainability. Don't miss out on insights from Sylvie Daumal (acclaimed author of 'Design d'expérience utilisateur' ) and Thorsten Jonas (founder of the SUX Network), as Gaël Duez discusses the operationality of systemic design in Tech.
#31 - Estimating IT footprint: the ABB Motion case study with Fiona Leibundgut and Thomas Mosser
January 30, 2024 • 54 MIN
How do we tackle the Green IT blind spot?
🏞️ In many big corporations, IT is never number one, number two, even number three for GHG emission sources (and other environmental factors). But everyone working in the digital sustainability sector knows that, actually, little streams make big rivers with the digital sector accouting for around 4% of global emissions.
📏 In this episode we explore a very concrete case of measuring IT footprint in a massive corporation: ABB Motion with Thomas Mosser (ABB) and Fiona Leibundgut (SparkIT Consulting). How to kick start, how to leverage the Resilio tool which they chose, how to scale, etc. And the insights shared can be used in smaller organisations as well!
#30 - Can Digital Marketing be low-carbon? with Audrey Danthony and Diarmuid Gill
December 19, 2023 • 59 MIN
0.9g of CO2e. It’s pretty ridiculous when you think about it. According, the French SRI association this is the carbon footprint for a 10K prints digital campaign with a 200k image. So not a big deal?
Not that simple because we’re talking about volumes in trillions per day here. So maybe it’s a good idea to dive a little deeper on the environmental impact of digital marketing after all.
Hence we brought 2 experts in AdTech with a soft spot for Sustainability: Diarmuid Gill is Criteo’s CTO since 2019 and has been in Digital Advertising for more than 15 years. Audrey Danthony has also a long career in AdTech, she started her first company, Oxeva, during the dot-com boom when she was still a student at engineering school. And 2 years ago she pivoted and founded with 2 partners Impact+ with the aim of reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions in digital advertising.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
📧 Once a month, we deliver carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents in your mailbox, subscribe to the Green IO newsletter here.
#29 Cosmology and Technology with Maxime Blondeau
December 5, 2023 • 49 MIN
We don't always need a science-fiction device "à la Star Trek" to get transported somewhere else.
Discussing with Maxime Blondeau results in such a journey where I discover how anthropology, geography, and cosmology can help us understand better digital technologies and more specifically:
🤯 Why Digital Tech is not the first mind revolution humanity has gone through
🌪️ Why its magnitude will be as impactful as the previous ones
🗺️ How our representation of an over expanding digital world alters our perception of our material world
🧠 Why our attention is such a precious - and increasingly scarce - resource
🎁 Plus a breaking news shared by Maxime at the end of the episode!
📣 Before rushing to listen to this 29th episode, do not forget to book your ticket for the Green IO conference in Paris, December 8th.
Join us to get the latest insights on Digital Sustainability with Aurore Stéphant, Perrine Tanguy, Tristan Nitot, Julia Meyer, Theo Alves Da Costa, Pindy Bullar, Vincent Poncet, and more! Get also feedback from all the teams involved in the 2023 Sustainable Digital Challenge: Allianz, Axa, BlaBlaCar, BNP Paribas Cardif, Ekwateur, Evaneos, Groupama, INSEE, Leboncoin, Norauto, SNCF!
And it's free for our listeners! Register here with the voucher GREENIOVIP. We're looking forward to seeing hundreds of you there 😍.
#28 Rage against the AI with Anastasis Stamatis, Lou Welgryn and Theo Alves Da Costa
November 21, 2023 • 55 MIN
🤯 AI is all the rage at the moment but what about its impact?
🌱 Especially its environmental cost?
🛑 Does it mean we should stop leveraging this tool?
🏃 Can we extract ourselves from this rat race?
AI comes with many questions and this episode comes with a clear angle to debate it: how do data experts specialized in impact business such as Lou Welgryn and Theo Alves Da Costa - the 2 founders of the NGO Data for Good - and Anastasis Stamatis - the founder of Dataphoria - answer these questions?
It’s not that much about the training, go for a factor 10, … A lot of counterintuitive answers and great food for thoughts!
📣 Green IO launches its first conference in partnership with Apidays. If you are in Paris December 8th join us to get the latest insights on Digital Sustainability with Aurore Stéphant, Perrine Tanguy, Tristan Nitot, Julia Meyer, Theo Alves Da Costa, all the teams involved in the Sustainable Digital Challenge 2023 and many more!
And it's free for our listeners! Register at https://conference.greenio.tech/ with the voucher GREENIOVIP. We're looking forward seeing you there.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
📧 Once a month, we deliver carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents in your mailbox, subscribe to the Green IO newsletter here.
🫴 Green IO is a free and independent podcast! And so we need your help to keep it that way by supporting us on Tipeee here.
#27 Ayahuasca, consensus, and standards to green software with Asim Hussain
November 7, 2023 • 55 MIN
Meeting Asim Hussain, the Green Software Foundation’s Director, is always an uplifting experience and this episode makes no exception. A patchwork episode where we talked about:
When we finally have the chance to meet with Asim Hussain the Director of the GSF, the episode becomes a crazy mailbag one where we talked about:
🙌 How trust and consensus can work in an organization gathering small and agile NGO with Tech multinationals,
🔧 Which tools shall we pick to report about carbon and which ones to build more carbon-efficient software,
📈 How a simple yaml file could boost comparisons and operability of green software,
🌿 And yes … a bit about psychedelic medicine also 🙂
📣 Green IO launches its first conference in partnership with Apidays. If you are in Paris December 8th join us to get the latest insights on Digital Sustainability with Aurore Stéphant, Perrine Tanguy, Tristan Nitot, Julia Meyer, Theo Alves Da Costa, all the teams involved in the Sustainable Digital Challenge 2023 and many more!
And it's free for our listeners! Register at https://conference.greenio.tech/ with the voucher GREENIOVIP. We're looking forward seeing you there.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
📧 Once a month, we deliver carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents in your mailbox, subscribe to the Green IO newsletter here.
🫴 Green IO is a free and independent podcast! And so we need your help to keep it that way by supporting us on Tipeee here.
#26 - Digital Sustainability in LATAM with Catalina Zapata and Ismael Velasco
October 24, 2023 • 49 MIN
This episode is not in Spanish or Portuguese but it might have been 🙂
With Catalina Zapata - founder of La Web Verde community in Colombia - and Ismael Velasco - founder of the Adora foundation and based in Mexico - Gaël Duez explores the momentum of Digital Sustainability in Latin America as well as the pitfalls it faces. From COP21 memories to the structure of the IT industry in LATAM, both guests share unconventional wisdom as well as tips for any IT workers based in LATAM to green the Web.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
📧 Once a month, we deliver carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents in your mailbox, subscribe to the Green IO newsletter here.
🫴 Green IO is a free and independent podcast! And so we need your help to keep it that way by supporting us on Tipeee.
#25 - W3C Sustainability Guidelines with Ines Akrap and Lukasz Mastalerz
October 10, 2023 • 49 MIN
What if you could get sued if your website is not low-carbon enough? What if you would be barred from many call for tenders if your digital services don’t hit minimum sustainability requirements?
Science-fiction?
This is what people said on 5 May 1999 when the first version ever of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines was released by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). 20 years later, these pitfalls are day-to-day concerns for many digital companies and digital service providers.
On August 31st this year, the W3C released its first ever Sustainability Guidelines (draft version). Ines Akrape and Lukas Mastalerz, two of its core contributors, share insider insights in this episode on how it will impact the way of working for millions of web developers, designers, ops and data folks. And why we will certainly not wait 20 years for this to happen…
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
📧 Once a month, we deliver carefully curated news on digital sustainability packed with exclusive Green IO contents in your mailbox, subscribe to the Green IO newsletter here.
🫴 Green IO is a free and independent podcast! And so we need your help to keep it that way by supporting us on Tipeee here.
#24 - IT Sustainability in SaaS companies with Niklas Sundberg and Tereze Gaile
September 27, 2023 • 58 MIN
How do you decarbonize your operations when most of the action takes part outside of your organization? 🕵️
This is the issue SaaS companies face with IT sustainability. 🌱
In the latest Green IO episode I (Gaël Duez) sat down with Tereze Gaile to get insights from Salesforce’s approach. Tereze is the lead author of the “Sustainability Guide for Salesforce Technology”. We also partnered in this episode with Niklas Sundberg, author of “Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology Leaders” and a pillar of sustainableit.org to take a step back on Salesforce’s feedback and get a broader context.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#23 Greenwashing and friends with Harriet Kingaby and Mathieu Jahnich
September 5, 2023 • 52 MIN
Our regular Green IO host Gaël Duez meets Harriet Kingaby and Mathieu Jahnich to get the low-down on greenwashing, and, more importantly, how to avoid it.
Mathieu Jahnich is a consultant and researcher, and also a lecturer at Sciences Po, Paris, where he teaches responsible communication & marketing on several Masters programs. Harriet Kingaby is a strategic communications expert who focuses on responsible marketing and communications at the intersection of advertising, human rights and climate change.
Together they cover multiple questions: How do you define greenwashing? How can companies effectively talk about their CSR actions and their move towards sustainability without falling into the trap of greenwashing? ...
With concrete examples of best practice, and real-life case scenarios, Harriet and Mathieu also touch on the legal landscape, and the current and forthcoming changes that all businesses must be aware of.
Don’t want to fall into the greenwashing trap? Listen in to find out more.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#0 - Welcome to Green IO Season 2 by Gaël Duez
September 1, 2023 • 4 MIN
Hello everyone, welcome to Green IO the podcast for responsible technologists building a greener digital world, one byte at a time.
Why this podcast? What to expect in Season 2? Take a 5 minutes walk-through with our Host Gaël Duez 🎙️
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#22 Impact podcasters in Tech with Perrine Tanguy and Tristan Nitot
July 20, 2023 • 47 MIN
A special (northern hemisphere) summer one! An uncut, raw, spontaneous episode where Perrine, Tristan and Gaël discuss about podcasting in Sustainability, in Tech and in general! 🎙️
Enjoy it at the beach, in the moutains or in front of a warm fire if this is winter time for you 🎧
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#21 Greening Software 101 with Anne Currie & Arne Tarara
June 27, 2023 • 60 MIN
Are you ready to take a closer look at the environmental impacts of our code and join the movement towards green coding? What actions can we take to minimize the harmful effects of software development on our environment from an engineer stance as well as at company level?
That’s what we discussed in this episode on Green Software!
Join Gaël Duez to meet : Arne Tarara, CEO of Green Coding Berlin in Berlin & Anne Currie in London, writer of the much looked forward O’Reilly book “Building Green Software”.
➡️ Arne and Anne shared their insights on green computing practices. We tackled various topics related to :
- green software, including grass-root efforts,
- integrating sustainability in training,
- tools for reducing environmental footprints.
✅ Don't miss this episode to explore "Green Software" and gain valuable insights on the tech industry's environmental landscape and web sustainability.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#20 E-waste: friend or foe in a circular economy with Jacqueline Mukarukundo and Vanessa Forti
June 6, 2023 • 57 MIN
What about the 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste generated worldwide ? Is it time for a global commitment to tackle the alarming 82% of e-waste that remains unrecycled? And how can we, as responsible individuals and global citizens, take action to address this critical issue?
That’s what we discussed in this episode on e-waste !
Join Gaël Duez to meet : Jacqueline Mukarukundo, co-founder of Wastezon in Rwanda and Vanessa Forti, Associate Programme Officer at UNITAR.
➡️ Jacqueline and Vanessa shared their insights on the complexities of e-waste and the steps needed for a more sustainable future.
✅ Don't miss this episode if you want to explore e-waste and gain valuable insights on creating a more sustainable future.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#19 Worst Unsustainable Designs with Sandy Dähnert and Michael Anderson
May 16, 2023 • 59 MIN
What would be the three most harmful website design practices ? What are the actions that you can’t take without the client’s approval ? How could you convince your boss or customers on this sustainable journey ?
That’s what we discuss in this episode on sustainable design !
Join Gaël Duez to meet : Michael Anderson, Frontend Web Developer at Initiva AB & Founder of Sustainable WWW in Sweden and Sandy Dähnert, experienced designer and host of the Green the Web podcast in Germany.
➡️ Sandy and Michael shared their insights on how to face the challenges regarding creating sustainable websites through the lens of Green IT.
✅ Don't miss this episode if you want to learn practical advice on how to create sustainable websites and how to convince your clients of the importance of sustainability in website design.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#18 Deploying Sustainable IT under market pressure with Drew Engelson and Dominique Buinier
April 25, 2023 • 52 MIN
Can you deploy an impactful Sustainable IT strategy under market pressures? What if metrics are not there? What if your customers do not care? ..
To get feedback on these questions, join Gaël Duez to meet two great leaders : Drew Engelson, Starbuck’s Director of Engineering in Seattle and Dominique Buinier, OCTO's Chief Operating Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer in Paris.
✅ Yes, raising awareness and training teams is key. No eco-design is not more expensive. Yes, many side-benefits can be leveraged on the road to sustainability.
➡️ Dominique and Drew gratefully shared their experiences and their views on the do and the don't when implementing sustainability in a Tech company.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#17 Tech Sustainability in Singapore with Ian Chew & Thibaut Meurgue-Guyard
April 11, 2023 • 55 MIN
Ready to explore the digital sustainability landscape of Singapore?
Travel there with Gaël Duez to meet Thibaut, the local representative of both the Climat fresk and the Digital Collage in Singapore and Ian, founder of Greenie web.
➡️ Join us for an insightful discussion as we delve into the Singaporean tech ecosystem and its sustainability landscape.
✅ Our guests share their views on the evolving domain of digital sustainability, achievements, and trends in IT sustainability in Singapore and in South-East Asia, as well as their perspectives on the main environmental crises.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#16 Datacenter Sustainability with Stanislava Borisova and Benoit Petit
April 4, 2023 • 52 MIN
What if we unveiled the often overlooked environmental impact of data centers together ?
Travel with Gaël Duez to Sweden to meet Life Cycle Management expert Stanislava and to France to meet Benoît, co-founder of Hubblo and NGO Boavizta who works on impact evaluation and energy/material efficiency for businesses.
Join us for an eye-opening episode on how data centers can play a crucial role in building a sustainable digital future.
Together, we explore:
✅ The definition of data centers and their various types, including hyperscalers, enterprise data centers, and colocation data centers.
✅ Top tips and insights on how to make your data center operations more eco-friendly and reduce energy consumption.
✅ The automation and democratization of impact evaluation.
✅ The controversial topic of... cloud!
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, or stay connected in your own way so you never miss an episode!
#15 Data Tsunami with Gerry Mc Govern and Katie Singer
March 21, 2023 • 60 MIN
Did you know that 81% of a laptop's lifetime energy use will be consumed before its end-user turns it on for the first time ? 🤯
Gaël Duez travels to New Mexico, USA and Dublin to meet Katie Singer - acclaimed author of “A silent electronic spring", who has published many articles and a book about technology's impacts on nature and human health - and Gerry Mc Govern - well-known author of “World Wide Waste” - for an episode about the dark truth of the data tsunami and its catastrophic environmental effects. 🌍
Join us for a mind-blowing episode where we explore the dire need for sustainable data practices, and how we can take action to build a better future for our planet.
Together, we discussed :
✅ The high energy consumption involved in the production, consumption, and disposal of digital devices and data
✅ The relationship between efficiency in technology and its negative impact on the environment
✅ The importance of reducing waste as the primary strategy for mitigating the environmental impact of digital technology
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#14 Digital Cleanup Day with Ingrid Nielsen and Olivier Vergeynst
March 7, 2023 • 65 MIN
In this episode, we went across the world for Digital Cleanup Day. Our first guest, Ingrid Nielsen is based in Tallinn, Estonia and she has been working with Let's Do It World NGO for the last years in different capacities, as the head of Global marketing and communication, running initiatives regarding digital waste and other projects. “Let’s do it world” is the mother NGO of both World Cleanup Day - 50 millions participants worldwide and counting- and its digital offspring which is the Digital Cleanup day.
Our second guest, Oliver Vergeynst is based in Brussels, Belgium and he is the Director of the Belgian Institute for Sustainable IT since 2020. Together with the French and the Swiss institutes, they spearhead a lot of the research on Digital Sustainability while grouping both academics and professionals.
We dive deep into the thought process behind digital cleanup day, how to get buy-in for digital cleanup, how best to do digital cleanup, and who are the targets of this ambitious project.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#13 - Lucile Vannier - Being the voice of IT Sustainability in a large corporation
February 21, 2023 • 51 MIN
In this episode, Gaël Duez stayed home in France to discuss gender equity in IT and building sustainability teams in large companies. His guests Lucille Vannier is one of the strongest voices in the French IT sector for gender equality. She is also the Strategy Deputy Director of the Sustainable IT Institute, which is the academic body spearheading most of the research in France on Digital Sustainability.
She provides serious advice for anybody who wants to follow her lead in advocating for a sustainable and equitable future in the IT space, with lots of resources to check out too! 🤓
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#12 Vineeta Greenwood and Gavin Shinfield - Digital Sustainability: The view from Agencyland
February 9, 2023 • 61 MIN
In this episode, Gaël Duez went to Argentina (or did he?) to discuss digital agencies. Guests Vineeta Greenwood and Gavin Shinfield share a passion for communicating sustainability in ways that their clients can connect to. Veterans of the B-Corp movement, they also prize collaboration and honesty, two keys to their success, and indeed our collective success in reaching our sustainability goals. Gaël invites them to play a short game that leads to long and meaningful answers … stay tuned 🤓
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#11 - Elin Hauge and Héloïse Nonne - How to tackle AI true environmental cost?
January 25, 2023 • 69 MIN
In this episode, Gaël Duez went to both Oslo and Paris. Elin Hauge and Heloise Nonne never met before but still they have a lot in common. Same huge experience in AI and Data management … and more important - the very reason you will enjoy having them on the show - same despise for buzzwords and lazy short-cutting thinking. A candid discussion where you can expect metaverse buzz being slashed and rule of three providing more answers than deep learning 😮
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#10 - Sören Enholm - How to navigate toward more sustainable digital equipment?
November 1, 2022 • 32 MIN
In this episode, we went to Stockhölm to meet Sören Enholm, TCO Certified CEO 🏷️. For 30 years, TCO has been assessing IT products reaching a whopping 10'000 references today 🤯. We discussed the environmental footprint of digital devices, natural and urban mining, how to secure a qualitative certification process, the current momentum in Digital Sustainability and much more.
#9 - Tim Frick - Confessions from a trailblazer in Sustainable Design
October 12, 2022 • 50 MIN
In this episode, we went to Chicago to meet a legend: Tim Frick 🧙. The author of “Designing for Sustainability” and a relentless advocate of the B Corp movement told us about being a trailblazer in Digital Sustainability 🌱 for more than a decade. He also took the challenge to answer 10 questions on Sustainable Design in 20 minutes + an 11th “low-ball” one ☑️ . Eventually, we discussed how his company created an “impact business model” because “sustainable design can be a really broad topic” covering all the way to business model through Corporate Digital Responsibility principles and the B Corp labellisation 🏷️
#8 - Anne Faubry and Tom Jarrett - Sustainable Design from the trenches
September 27, 2022 • 46 MIN
In this episode, we took a virtual Eurostar between Paris and London and met Anne Faubry, a Board Member of Ethical Designers ⚖️, and Tom Jarrett, a seasoned designer involved in the ClimateActionTech community where he designed its Branch online magazine 📰. Both are recognized thought leaders in the Sustainable Design field because they implement Sustainability from the trenches 👩💻. Based on their hands-on experience, we discussed demand-responsive design, Anne's guide to digital eco-design and how designers juggle today between many requirements from accessibility to security and sustainability 🤹.
#7.b - Cameron Casher and Benjamin Davy - Cloud Sustainability beyond carbon emission
September 14, 2022 • 30 MIN
In this episode, we stay in Denver and Montpellier with Cameron Casher, Clean Tech Strategist at ThoughtWorks, and Benjamin Davy, Sustainability Director at Teads. Being both hands-on engineers 👨💻 and well-known voices in Cloud Sustainability 🌱, we decided to have this extra episode to go "beyond carbon" and talk about hardware, water consumption, recycling and resources exhaustion. The next challenges for any responsible technologists using Cloud services.
❤️ Subscribe, follow, like, ... stay connected the way you want to never miss an episode!
#7.a - Cameron Casher and Benjamin Davy - Measuring the Carbon Footprint of Cloud computing from CCF to AWS, Azure and GCP sustainability dashboards
September 6, 2022 • 41 MIN
In this episode, we go to both Denver and Montpellier to meet Cameron Casher, Clean Tech Strategist at ThoughWorks, and Benjamin Davy, Sustainability Director at Teads. Being both hands-on engineers 👨💻 and well-known voices in Cloud Sustainability 🌱, they were the perfect match to assess the Sustainability dashboards provided by AWS, GCP and Azure as well as pro and con of Cloud Carbon Footprint, the open-source tool. Which one can truly help responsible technologists to assess 📏 their GHG emissions ?
#6 - David Mytton - Bringing reliable and transparent information to Green IT
August 25, 2022 • 40 MIN
In this episode, we go to London and meet David Mytton the co-founder and CEO of Console and also an academic doing his PhD on sustainable computing in Oxford University 🎓. All David’s work follow a consistent thread that could be described as “Effective Sustainability requires reliable and transparent information”. Under this angle, we discussed the environmental impact of datacenters and why the estimates vary so much, the accuracy of carbon footprint calculators for websites as well as the choice of language and CI/CD when we aim to develop greener code 👩💻.
#4.b - Chris Adams - An overview of initiatives and latest trends in Digital Sustainability
July 18, 2022 • 48 MIN
In our April’s episode, we went to Berlin and meet Chris Adams, an "environmentally focussed tech generalist" as he likes to describe himself. From the early days of Rail Europe to the Green Web Foundation of which he is the executive director, Chris has always been passionate about environmental topics. In the Digital Sustainability field, Chris is such an old-timer that we decided to split our interview in two parts!
In this second part, we discussed Digital Sustainability in general, past trends as well as expected developments. Chris also shared with us a mountain of references and people to follow in order to learn more about how to green the Web and beyond.
#5 - Hannah Smith - Greening WordPress: it's not all black and white
June 29, 2022 • 45 MIN
For this episode we went to South England, near Exmoor national park, to meet Hannah Smith aka hanopcan. She is one of the most vocal sustainability advocates in the WordPress community as as in many others from Climate Action Tech to the Green Web Foundation. She will blow your mind with her pragmatic and efficient approach and will help you make almost 40% of all the words websites greener.
#4.a - Chris Adams - A fossil-free internet by 2030? How to deploy Green Hosting and Cloud Sustainability to achieve it?
June 7, 2022 • 33 MIN
In our May’s episode, we went to Berlin and meet Chris Adams, an "environmentally focussed tech generalist" as he likes to describe himself. From the early days of Rail Europe to the Green Web Foundation of which he is the executive director, Chris has always been passionate about environmental topics. In the Digital Sustainability field, Chris is such an old-timer that we decided to split our interview in two parts!
In this first part, after taking the time to know Chris a bit better and how he burnt 20M$ in VC, we discussed at length about Green Hosting and Cloud Sustainability. And we deep dived in a step by step approach to green ops greatly helped by the questions coming from the Tech community following Green I/O. A warm thank you to them.
#3 - Elisabeth Mouchy - From hackathon to sprints: how to reduce the carbon footprint of a dating app
May 3, 2022 • 36 MIN
In this episode, we went to Paris and met Elisabeth Mouchy. In 2013, Elisabeth co-founded Delighted, the Spotify for art in San Francisco. Now, she is now Product Director at Meetic, the multi-awarded dating service. She is super open to provide feedback and insights on Digital Sustainability, a topic she has helped ramp-up at Meetic. We will see how to make sustainable the move toward greener product management. And the way Meetic has tackled painpoints ranging from "Where do I start" to "How to avoid the end-of-the-world versus end-of-the-month dilemna?".
This episode has benefited from the support of a dozen of digital product experts across Europe. A warm thank you to them.
#2 - Sandra Sydow - Using collective intelligence to raise awareness
March 31, 2022 • 35 MIN
For the second episode of Green I/O, I met Sandra Sydow. She is a natural-born European: borned French, having studied in Sweden, worked in Germany where she married and now living in the UK for almost 10 years.
Sandra has an impeccable track record at PHD as a Managing Partner where she thrived making complicated things easy to understand in digital marketing and working for global brands like Airbus, HP or Expedia. 2 years ago, she decided to dedicate her communication and pedagogical skills to fight climate change. She co-founded the climate pitch and became a Board member at the Digital Collage.
In this episode, we did not deep dive into a specific area like Green Hosting or Green AI but we focused on the most important asset in any Digital Tech company: humans! And the challenges we face when it comes to raising awareness about the increasing ecological footprint of our digital world. And transform it into concrete actions.
#1 - Fershad Irani - Using website performance to green the web
March 3, 2022 • 34 MIN
For the first episode of Green I/O, I interviewed Fershad Irani a web performance expert and restless advocate for a low carbon web in his newsletter "Optimized".
He helps environmentally conscious companies ensure their websites are fast, optimised for performance, and have a low carbon impact. Based in Taipei after graduating in Sydney, Fershad also contributes to open-source projects like OpenSpaceData and is an active member of the climateaction.tech community, where I discovered his work. He has recently launched 'Are my third parties green?' a much-needed tool to give some visibility to the sustainability of third-party requests on the web.