Sustainability in Digital?
What it is, why it’s important, what the industry is doing and how to get involved.
About me
Ishmael Burdeau, MA, MBA, CMgr FCMI
Lead Sustainability Business Architect, DWP
What I am going to talk about
Early days
My first IT encounters
The time of the Webmaster
Why this something we need to talk about.
Legislation.
2030
2040
2050
Defra and STAR
Emission scopes
Up to 87% of DWP’s emissions fall under scope 3.
Scope 1
Scope 2
Understanding scopes
Scope 3
Carbon intensity.
Useful links.
The UK is complicated…
London - 201g CO2/kWh�South Scotland - 55g CO2/kWh�Dublin - 361g CO2/kWh
https://www.carbonintensity.org.uk/ on October 9 2023
Is cloud always cleaner?
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/duncanaustinuk_microsoft-esg-activity-7197550825605349376-rJro and https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-15/microsoft-s-ai-investment-imperils-climate-goal-as-emissions-jump-30 and https://itchanneloxygen.com/microsoft-wants-to-have-its-cake-and-eat-it-channel-digests-copilot-pc-launch/
"We did the thing. We grew oysters, we removed carbon, and we increased the world's understanding of the ocean"
Activity.
1) Which European country has the highest/lowest intensity and why?��2) How does the UK’s intensity today compare with the past 12 months?��3) Which region of the UK has the most complex energy mix?��4) What is the carbon intensity for your postcode today?
Embodied carbon.
What’s worse, creating or using?
Activity.
1) How many cheeseburgers would equal the CO2 of your laptop?��2) Find the impact of an AWS C1.Large. What happens if you move it from the USA to France? What is the impact of changing the lifespan or server load? ��3) Estimate the CO2 of the last 2 laptops you had��4) What is the impact of having 2 monitors?
Cloud computing.
https://www.ft.com/content/e597a8b5-f71a-4099-9add-d0e3c1613348?accessToken=zwAGBwjvB2UgkdPll6i19xpAmdOa3dDjwWEzSA.MEUCIG_KsRRtZhFKIzyKCCoWL1VFFN3rBmOnYO8iPmMNAyUrAiEAmcAQUxGC9BNAfYrGWMFk70-k5CRb8PEFNJWUesPtM3o&sharetype=gift&token=b6ced04b-ecbc-42bc-ba77-a8ee8d4220bc
Beyond carbon.
https://www.lesnumeriques.com/pro/microsoft-dans-la-tourmente-apres-avoir-sous-evalue-la-consommation-d-eau-d-un-de-ses-datacenters-neerlandais-n190041.html and https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/facebook-parent-meta-officially-kills-zeewolde-data-center-after-pushback-in-the-netherlands/
“Meta has had to resolve to abandon his huge datacenter project to 'eewolde'. Facebook's parent company planned to build the largest centre in the Netherlands, with an area equivalent to 1,300 Olympic swimming pools.”
“Lead times are extending to three to seven years, resulting in operators land and power banking to secure future development. In addition to power concerns, land prices have been doubling year on year due to a lack of suitable sites and competition with other asset classes.”
Who Has The Greenest Cloud?
B+
B
C-
AI.
“It’s fair to say the majority of the growth is due to AI.”
ChatGPT gulps up 500 millilitres of water every time you ask it a series of between 5 to 50 prompts or questions.
One kilogram of CO2 emitted costs 15 kilograms of glacier ice.
That’s 231 ChatGPT queries.
Discussion.
Green software.
SCI =(E*I)+ M per R
SCI = Carbon per Request
Measuring your impact
“Co-Doc: We don’t have access to the numbers of developers/engineers needed to maintain and translate that code into cloud friendly technology quickly and efficiently. We are therefore exploring how Gen AI can do this for us using legacy code to generate up-to-date documentation and creating modern code from documentation.”�DWP Digital Group Hub
Discussion.
Break.
Practical exercise 1: basic evaluation tools
Carbon tools for websites
The following is a list of websites that try to estimate the carbon footprint of a web page or website.
Browser extensions
Activity.
1) Test 3 of your favourite sites with a browser-based tool. Test GOV.UK. What surprised you (if anything)?��2) What are the limitations of this approach? � �3) Use the GreenIT Inspector on a website you visit frequently. How many best practice issues did it pick up? ��4) Compare the same website using the GreenIT Inspector and Globemallow. What are the similarities and differences?
Practical exercise 2: carbon intensity
Activity.
1) What is the best time of day to run your batch process for your area in the next 48 hours?��2) Which region has the highest carbon intensity right now? Which has the lowest? ��3) Have a look at /intensity/factors. Which country has the lowest CO2 for imports? ��4) What was the carbon intensity for your most recent birthday for your region?
Practical exercise 3: CO2.js
Activity.
1) Install CO2.js��2) Look at the documentation for the index.js file – what can you do with this tool?��3) What are the methodologies and variables that affect the carbon estimates with this tool? What are their strengths and weaknesses? ��4) What could be a possible use case for a current or past project you have worked on?
Practical exercise 4: Impact Framework
Activity.
1) Install the IF��2) Look at the sample .yml file – what do you think are the most important inputs to consider?��3) Run the IF and open the outputs file. What is the embodied carbon per request? What SCI figure do you have? ��4) What could be a possible use case for a current or past project you have worked on?
Further learning.
Today’s slides.
Thanks.