techUK and Green Digital Skills , Green Software and GreenOps

29 May 2024 01:01 PM

techUK is asking members to get involved with a new focus area on so called 'GreenOps', a topic that has come up more and more recently. This is an open ended ask and we’re keen to get members involved if they have developed ‘green ops’, embedded the green software foundation principles in to practice, or specifically looked at green digital skills.

This started with a member brainstorming discussion which was varied and interesting, with members highlighting the lack of customer interest in this issue (compared to bigger ticket ‘net zero’ items like renewables), or just focusing on broad brush decarbonisation targets. Memebrs shared work they had been doing, sharing their own resources and that retrofitting IT asserts and software to be green is harder than building from new. Members also asked what lessons can be learned from hardware manufacturers (who have been embedding sustainability for years by customers and regulations) on metrics, ratings and ‘selling’ sustainability to customers.

In terms of next steps techUK has agreed to do the following over the coming months and we’re really keen to get members volunteering to shape this exciting agenda:

• Prepare a ‘toolkit’ with measures (following the Green Software Foundation principles) that can be adopted by techUK members.
• A series of ‘masterclasses’ on green IT and how this can work in practice. This includes a basic tickbox for companies who are new to this agenda.
• Members are welcome to volunteer to deliver these and show practically how they’ve deployed green digital skills and developed green tools.
• Blogs and case studies from members on how they have quantified the sustainability improvements that arose from their deployments.
• Collate materials and resources for members. Members pointed out that ‘GreenOps’ (one of the many ways of describing these efforts) has a fair bit of written material, so techUK will collate and make existing resources available. Contact Craig.Melson@techUK.org for access to this!
• Publish a report with CGI on green digital skills within organisations.
• Webinars and sessions. The next one will be with Transform, 12pm 17 June 2024 and you can register here. After that we’ll be running a session on green curriculums for software developers in businesses. Others proposed included one on key metrics (for example the ISO carbon intensity standard), and whether or not software can be subject to an LCA.

Interested in learning more or have some ideas? Feel free to get in touch via my details below.