Computing is an essential component of modern science, and it comes with significant, but not always well-understood, environmental impacts. The global carbon footprint of data centres alone is estimated to be equivalent to the entire US commercial aviation. Meanwhile, 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.
The Cambridge Sustainable Computing Lab aims to address these issues by empowering computational scientists, organisations, and funders to understand and mitigate the environmental impacts of their work.
The Lab is highly interdisciplinary, addressing computing impacts across disciplines (from physics, biology and AI to Human-Computer Interaction, environmental science and the humanities). Some of what we are working on include:
- Tools for environmental impacts estimation, with the flagship Green Algorithms Initiative and the Green Algorithms Calculator,
- Frameworks for Environmentally Sustainable Computational Science (e.g. the GREENER principles),
- Community building through the ESCS Community, and
- Policy work to engage with funders, governments, and policy makers.
We also lead the Green DiSC sustainability certification framework hosted by the Software Sustainability Institute.
For a more complete (and up-to-date) overview of what we do, check out our website.