[E-impact] Re: Looking for examples of how standards or models allocate responsibility for "shared" infrastructure when designing greener web applications

[Rudolf van der Berg <[e-mail]>]

Hi Chris,

Fundamentally this is a similar problem as with cost allocation in
accounting. Try to use similar methods, but also be clear about the
limitations there are in each method.

https://www.costperform.com/cost-allocation-in-accounting/

All the usual caveats apply, such as that you need some clear cause and
effect between what you're measuring and how you're allocating carbon to
it. Fundamentally hower, I wonder if CO2 is a clear enough metric by
itself. What you want to save is joules..

Don't end up making allocations such as kWh/GB where there is no relation
between what is allocated and to which it is allocated. It is also critical
to understand the level of variability of the thing you're allocating to
the underlying drivers of energy use/costs etc. The simple example is that
for a carpenter building one stair may be almost entirely time and material
related, because all of the tools are already in his workshop and one stair
doesn't fundamentally use his tools too much. However, the moment the
carpenter has to build 100 stairs per month, because it is his main
product, it becomes essential that he understands his underlying costs and
how to allocate them into the stair production.

To put it bluntly, ask this question to economists, not to computer
scientists ;-)

Greetings,

Rudolf



Op wo 16 jul 2025 om 17:07 schreef Chris Adams <[e-mail]>:

> Hi folks,
>
> I’m doing some work with the Green Software Foundation to help lead a set
> of workshops over the summer to design what is being referred to as
> SCI-Web: Software Carbon Intensity for the Web, and I have a query I’d
> appreciate pointers on.
>
> I’ve written a bit here for background (there’s more coming soon):
>
> https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/news/creating-a-standard-for-measuring-software-carbon-intensity-for-the-web/
>
> But the subject of the email ought to explain it - I’m looking for
> pointers to good examples of how people model responsibility for shared
> infrastructure when designing a metric for people to use to build greener
> digital services. If you have seen some ones that do a particularly good
> jobs I’d appreciate the suggestions.
>
>
> *Some further context for *
>
> At present, I’m thinking that it likely makes more sense to prioritise
>
> 1. giving digital teams a metric that ideally incentivises them to take
> reasonable steps to reduce the environmental footprint of digital services
> they build, with a strong focus on what you can reasonably expect a team
> working on building a web application to have influence over, and be
> something you can verify experimentally.
>
> *ahead of *
>
> 2. the metric acting as a comprehensive representation of *all* the
> environmental impacts associated with digital services
>
> My reason for this is that I have had some experience with teams being
> faced with guidelines where there are a set of recommendations that are way
> outside a team’s area of influence.
>
> While, *sure,* you can make the argument that digital teams ought to be
> speaking to procurement depts and so on, and there’s a need across
> organisations to develop new skills particular then it comes to
> understanding and managing the environmental impact of digital services.
> I’m not sure that’s the role of a metric aimed at websites or web
> applications, and there are other standards you might point to instead.
>
> That does raise some other questions though.
>
> *Figuring out appropriate signals for embodied carbon in devices and use
> of shared infrastructure like networks*
>
> *For networking*
>
> This mailing list has had some very lengthy discussions about the
> shortcomings of using data transfer as a proxy for energy usage, as well as
> using time-based models too (which I think are likely to be valid in the
> context above). Right now, I still think there is value in there being
> *some* signal to represent that there is an environmental impact
> associated with network infrastructure, because there are impacts over the
> long-run that would seem strange to discount entirely, but it’s not clear
> to me what people have used successfully to represent slow moving changes
> like this, either in this domain or other ones.
>
> I’ve written a bit here about it in an indirect fashion.
>
> https://rtl.chrisadams.me.uk/2024/01/an-example-of-deliberately-choosing-the-mental-models-we-use-for-thinking-about-resource-use-in-digital-sustainability/
>
> TBH, You might also make this argument for cloud too, but network and data
> transfer is usually the one that gets people heated.
>
> *Embodied carbon*
>
> There’s a similar thorny issue when thinking about the embodied carbon
> from end user devices, because on one level, with software being a driver
> of hardware upgrades, you might want to reward applications and sites that
> run on old hardware.
>
> This is also something seems like it ought to be simple enough to build a
> testing rig to demonstrate that a system works in degraded environments and
> with old hardware - you could have some older reference hardware to use for
> metrics to be considered valid, and you could even “drive" it in an
> automated fashion in some cases.
>
> I’ve written some here in this post too which used existing language
> around accessibility to help us think about embodied carbon:
>
> https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/news/how-do-we-work-out-the-environmental-savings-from-accessibility/
>
> Older devices tend to receive fewer software updates keeping them safe
> though, and I've seen IT security trump sustainability many many times
> within organisations. If you have seen examples of how people navigate this
> tension, I’d love to hear about it too, because I don’t have a good stock
> answer right now when people ask me about examples of good practice here.
>
> Anyway, I’d welcome replies either on-list or off.
>
> Hope you’re having a good week.
>
> C
>
> Chris Adams
>
> Director of Technology and Policy
>
> w: thegreenwebfoundation.org
> e: [e-mail]
> t: @mrchrisadams
>
> German Office
> Naunynstrasse 40
> 10999 Berlin
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>
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>
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>
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