Computing is an essential component of modern science, and it comes with significant, but not always well-understood, environmental impacts. E.g. the global carbon footprint of data centres is estimated to be equivalent to the entire US commercial aviation, and individual scientific projects commonly reach tonnes, if not kilotonnes, of CO2e (for context, the IPCC target to keep global warming under 1.5C is 2 TCO2e/year/person).
Our group aims to address this issue by empowering computational scientists, organisations and funders to understand and mitigate the environmental impacts of their work.
- Tools for environmental impacts estimation, with the flagship Green Algorithms Initiative (www.green-algorithms.org)
- Frameworks for Environmentally Sustainable Computational Science (e.g. the GREENER principles)
- Community building through the ESCS Community (www.escs-community.org).
- Policy work to engage with funders, governments and policy makers.
We also support the Green DiSC sustainability certification framework hosted by the Software Sustainability Institute (https://www.software.ac.uk/GreenDiSC).