A while ago, a Modo user was inquiring about Modo’s power consumption and asserting that the 3D viewport was updating more frequently than required. My initial reaction led to a train of thought of how responsible, we, as software developers, are at limiting the amount of energy consumed by our creations.
As our reliance on technology grows, so does the environmental impact associated with it. The software industry is a significant contributor to global energy consumption, largely due to the rise of machine learning (ML). ML requires substantial power, which is to be expected, but what about the applications we contribute to? Are we attempting to compute results that have already been computed? Are graphics viewports redrawing at a specific frequency without need? As is pointed out by Modo users, yes, we are guilty of needlessly contributing to the global energy crisis.
This was my introduction to “green coding”. Green coding addresses these issues by focusing on creating more energy-efficient software, ultimately reducing the overall environmental footprint of our code. By optimising code and improving performance, we can significantly decrease energy usage, making a credible difference in the fight against climate change.
Businesses do not concern themselves with the destructive impact on the environments from our softwares, but they will be responsive when they realise that these efforts to make our code more environmentally friendly, can lead to substantial cost savings for them, after all, efficient software consumes less energy.
As developers we need to be aware of environmental issues and how the rigour we apply to our discipline can either be constructive or destructive.