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What Is Green Coding & Carbon-Conscious Coding?

Alexandra Schirn
Illustration of green coding and ISO 14001 principles, showing energy-efficient software development, reduced carbon footprint, and sustainable tech practices.

In today’s fast-evolving digital world, sustainability in software development is just as critical as energy-efficient hardware. The rise of green coding—also known as carbon-conscious software development—reflects the growing demand for environmentally responsible technology solutions. Green coding is the practice of designing and building energy-efficient software that reduces carbon emissions, lowers data center energy usage, and supports compliance with international sustainability standards, such as ISO 14001 and ISO/IEC 30134. Whether you are developing mobile apps, cloud-based applications, or embedded systems, adopting sustainable coding practices plays a crucial role in creating a greener, low-impact tech ecosystem.

What Is Green Coding?

 Today, computing and IT are responsible for between 1.8% and 3.9% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Green coding provides the foundational principles for writing energy-efficient code and building sustainable digital products. The goals of green coding include:

As digital infrastructure grows, the importance of green coding becomes critical in achieving global sustainability and climate goals.

Why Carbon-Conscious Coding Matters

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), data centers accounted for around 1.5% of the world’s electricity consumption in 2024, or 415 terawatt-hours (TWh)—and this number is expected to grow with the rise of AI, IoT, and cloud computing. The carbon footprint of computing has therefore become a growing concern as the demand for computing power continues to increase.

Carbon conscious computing is a strategy within green coding that involves building software that is aware of the carbon intensity of energy and actively shifts its workload to run when or where electricity is cleaner, thereby minimizing carbon emissions. Carbon conscious computing can involve a range of strategies, including reducing energy consumption, using renewable energy sources, improving the efficiency of hardware and software, and turning to low code alternatives.

Why Writing Efficient Code Matters: Performance, Battery Life, and Cost Optimization

For developers, code does far more than just make an application function—it directly influences system performance, battery usage, data consumption, and backend infrastructure. Poorly optimized code can cause a central processing unit (CPU) to run at high performance longer than necessary, leading to overheating, reduced hardware lifespan, and laggy user experiences.

On mobile devices, inefficient background tasks, unnecessary animations, or frequent sensor usage can drastically reduce battery life, frustrating users and increasing app uninstalls. Furthermore, excessive or redundant network requests can consume large amounts of bandwidth, slowing down app performance and increasing costs for users on metered connections. On the server side, unoptimized logic or heavy database queries can trigger autoscaling, resulting in higher cloud expenses and a larger carbon footprint.

Writing efficient, performance-aware code is not just good practice—it is essential for building scalable, energy-efficient, and user-friendly applications.

Green Coding and Sustainability Standards

ISO 14001:2015, ISO/IEC 30134-1:2016, and ASTM E3012-22 provide critical frameworks that support sustainability efforts across industries, and each can be linked to the growing practice of green coding, which aims to minimize the energy consumption and environmental impact of software.

ISO 14001:2015 – Environmental Management Systems

ISO 14001:2015 provides a comprehensive framework (Environmental Management System or EMS) that organizations can use to manage and reduce the environmental impacts of their operations, including software development activities like green coding. Organizations adopting ISO 14001:2015 can include software energy efficiency as part of their environmental impact reduction plans. Green coding practices are thereby a practical tool to help achieve the objectives and continuous improvement required by ISO 14001:2015.

ISO/IEC 30134-1:2016 – Data center Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

ISO/IEC 30134-1:2016 provides the foundational framework and common objectives for Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for data center resource usage effectiveness. The KPIs defined under the ISO/IEC 30134 series help quantify the “effectiveness of the IT load” within a data center, aiming to maximize IT output with minimum energy consumption. In essence, ISO/IEC 30134-1:2016 provides the language and metrics to measure if a data center is operating efficiently, and green coding is one of the methods used within the IT load to help achieve that efficiency. 

ASTM E3012-22 – Standard Guide for Characterizing Environmental Aspects of Manufacturing Processes

ASTM E3012-22 provides the structured framework and data models (like the UMP model) that software developers and suppliers use to build tools for sustainable manufacturing. These tools, which might include simulation and optimization software, rely on efficient code to perform complex analyses and predictions of environmental impacts.

The goal of ASTM E3012-22 is to make the data handling and analysis of environmental aspects more efficient and reliable. “Green coding” principles (writing lean, efficient code with optimized resource management) would assure the software implementing this standard is not itself consuming unnecessary energy or computational power when performing these analyses. Essentially, ASTM E3012-22 provides the methodology for assessing manufacturing sustainability, while green coding provides a practice for assuring the digital tools used in this assessment are run in an environmentally responsible manner. 

What Are the Best Practices for Green Coding?

Green coding best practices focus on writing efficient code, optimizing data usage, selecting sustainable architectures and tools, and leveraging renewable energy to minimize software’s environmental impact. These practices collectively help minimize the environmental impact of software systems.

Optimize Code for Energy Efficiency

Choose Sustainable Cloud Services

Reduce Data Transfer & Storage

Design with Efficiency in Mind

Green coding is not just about writing efficient code—it is about writing responsible code. As developers, engineers, and organizations strive for net-zero goals, adopting carbon-aware software practices is a powerful way to contribute.

ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Standards Packages

Standards packages are curated collections of individual technical standards grouped by a specific industry, process, or application area. They are bundled together at a discounted rate for easier access and application.

ISO 14001:2015 standards packages cover requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an Environmental Management System (EMS). They are beneficial for green coding because ISO 14001:2015 standards packages provide a framework to identify, manage, and reduce the environmental impacts (e.g., carbon footprint and energy use) of software development. By directly focusing on tangible environmental improvements throughout the software lifecycle, complying to the standards within ISO 14001:2015 standards packages can directly support green coding goals.

ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Standards Packages are available on the ANSI Webstore and include:

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