ECO:DIGIT - Understanding the impact of software on the environment

ECO:DIGIT is a research and development project with the participation of adesso, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. The aim of the project is the development and standardisation of a uniform and open methodology for the automated life cycle assessment of distributed software systems as well as the implementation of a corresponding software system that makes the methodology easily accessible and productively usable. The overarching goal is the standardisation of a technology-independent methodology for the uniform, comparable and holistic recording of the environmental impacts of software.

Automated life cycle assessment of distributed software systems

ECO:DIGIT records all relevant environmental impacts (life cycle assessments) associated with the operation of software. In addition to CO2 emissions, these include environmental impacts such as the mining of rare earths for IT hardware, those caused by electronic waste and the water footprint of data centres. ECO:DIGIT provides a holistic life cycle assessment of digital services, from the production of the required hardware to power consumption during operation and the disposal of servers and end devices.

In contrast to existing approaches and tools for measuring the sustainability of software, ECO:DIGIT not only looks at individual processes, clusters or client-server systems - but also at distributed software systems of any complexity. The methodology is technology-independent - for web applications or distributed apps as well as for AI systems - and platform-independent, i.e. for cloud data centres, edge devices, mobile networks and client end devices.

The life cycle assessment is fully automated and users do not need to develop their own plugins or connectors for their use case. Those who use ECO:DIGIT for life cycle assessment of their software also do not need their own hardware product data sheets and do not have to carry out any physical measurements. At the same time, ECO:DIGIT is so flexible that users can store their own data at any time.

Motivating examples

ECO:DIGIT shows its strengths in decision support. Developers can often influence not only design decisions in the source code, but also, for example, the choice of technology or the configuration of the operating environment. Practical experience shows that, in contrast to small changes in the source code, it is primarily these major structural decisions that determine the sustainability of software. ECO:DIGIT provides the necessary insights to make decisions with high ecological effectiveness. Two examples are

Recognising conflicting goals

In many regions, there is a trade-off between energy efficiency and water efficiency. Put simply, good energy efficiency can come at the price of poor water efficiency. Previous solutions for quantifying software sustainability do not make such conflicting goals visible and therefore too often implicitly incentivise energy efficiency without addressing all relevant conflicting goals. Since ECO:DIGIT does not only consider CO2, such opposing and often unintended interactions become directly visible.

Offloading problem

Cloud servers are generally more energy-efficient than mobile devices. At the same time, data transmission between the cloud and the end device also has an environmental impact. The question arises as to the circumstances under which the efficiency gains of the hardware are cancelled out by the transmission of the necessary data to the hardware. ECO:DIGIT can be used to simulate how big the difference in efficiency between the two platforms actually is and what impact data transmission has. This enables a decision to be made for or against the outsourcing of workloads to more efficient or less utilised hardware with the necessary data.

Utilisation and methodology

The ECO:DIGIT implementation developed by adesso is used as follows:

• 1. users provide the description of their test context once, which consists of three elements: a. software artefacts such as source code or binary files:

  • a. Application scenarios such as surface tests or load scripts and test data.
  • b. Infrastructure on which the software is executed. This means the type and number of devices as well as the technical requirements necessary to run the system.

This first step is carried out for the initial setup and can subsequently be automatically integrated into existing development workflows via programming interfaces.

• 2. ECO:DIGIT generates a digital twin based on the inputs, in which the software is executed and brought under real load.
• 3. During execution, the resource consumption of the digital twin is monitored as a complete image of the distributed system.
• 4. After execution, a complete evaluation of the environmental impact caused by the execution of the system is provided. The evaluation can be broken down into many categories such as life cycle phases, system components or hardware components.

The necessary life cycle assessment data is collected during the course of the project and is incorporated into the ECO:DIGIT implementation. Based on a novel combination of existing hardware LCA data, electricity market data and energy consumption profiles, the relevant environmental impact categories can be estimated in accordance with the ISO 14040:44 LCA standard. The orientation towards the standard minimises the risk of greenwashing and ensures a high level of acceptance of the results.

Challenges in the project

The first and main challenge is the objective life cycle assessment, i.e. the quantification of the actual state. This is the basic prerequisite for targeted evaluation, decision-making and optimisation. However, the subsequent evaluation and optimisation is not the subject of the project. Life cycle assessments alone already help companies to collect important sustainability indicators and, based on this, to plan and implement measures and monitor their effectiveness. In addition, statements on the sustainability of software products can be made for their marketing, the quality and performance of systems can be optimised and positive interactions between sustainability and operating costs can be exploited.

The second major challenge is the accessibility of the technical solution. As it is very powerful and technically complex, users must be well guided and guided through the setup in order to avoid errors, obtain reliable results and continuously integrate ECO:DIGIT into their work processes. An excellent methodology alone will not realise its full potential if it is not easily accessible and applicable and can therefore become established in practice. During development, particular emphasis is therefore placed on clear communication and a good user experience.

Working together for greater digital sustainability

ECO:DIGIT is a joint project between adesso, Siemens, the Open Source Business Alliance (OSBA), the Öko-Institut and the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI). adesso identified the need for research, initiated the project and is responsible for the basic software in the project. Siemens is contributing its expertise in the field of edge computing and mobile networks. OSBA is mainly involved in the cloud work package, while the Öko-Institut is providing scientific support for the project with expertise in life cycle assessment and is responsible for the methodology. The GI is the consortium leader and is responsible for project coordination and standardisation of the methodology.

The idea for ECO:DIGIT was born in August 2022 by adesso after it was discovered in customer projects that the limitations of existing tools did not enable targeted decision-making. The project officially started in July 2023 with funding from the BMWK and will run until June 2026. The first results are expected in 2025.

You can find out more about the current status of the project at ecodigit.de.

Would you like to find out more about exciting topics from the world of adesso? Then take a look at our previous blog posts.