What is green coding and how is it done?

Green coding is a term in software de­vel­op­ment and describes a set of practices used to create programs that consume as little energy as possible.

What is green coding?

Green coding is a pro­gram­ming approach that aims to create software that is en­vir­on­ment­ally friendly. So, what’s behind it? With in­creas­ing di­git­al­iz­a­tion, software plays a bigger role in almost everything we do. However, software that uses a lot of energy con­trib­utes sig­ni­fic­antly to green­house gas emissions. One way to combat this issue is with green coding.

Green coding isn’t just about creating energy-efficient software, it’s also about sus­tain­able software de­vel­op­ment. This can include using renewable energy to power data centres or cloud systems.

How does green coding work?

Green coding affects every part of the software de­vel­op­ment process. This includes both the software’s ar­chi­tec­ture as well as the de­vel­op­ment behind it. Con­vo­luted end code that hasn’t been optimized should be avoided in green coded programs. The reason for this is simple: code that isn’t suf­fi­ciently optimized will execute commands which aren’t necessary for the program logic. This leads to excess resources being used and energy waste.

When talking about green coding, you’ll often hear about green coding pillars. These form the basis of sus­tain­able software.

What are the four pillars of green coding?

Green coding has four pillars. Each one is crucial to the software de­vel­op­ment process and by using them you can po­ten­tially reduce the amount of energy and resources used.

Green ar­chi­tec­ture

Software ar­chi­tec­ture is the first pillar. This is the basic ar­chi­tec­ture of an ap­plic­a­tion. This can be optimized when it comes to energy use. For example, it’s possible to collate code. This means the hardware isn’t used as much, resulting in a reduction of the power it needs. Having an automatic shutdown system on the software when it’s not being used is also part of green ar­chi­tec­ture and con­trib­utes sig­ni­fic­antly to reduced energy use when using the ap­plic­a­tions.

Green logic

Another key factor in green coding is program logic. Es­sen­tially, this is the op­tim­iz­a­tion of the program code so that programs are not slowed down by the un­ne­ces­sary use of commands. Other factors such as the selection of en­vir­on­ment­ally friendly file types or efficient data struc­tures play a big role when it comes to designing efficient and en­vir­on­ment­ally friendly code.

Green method

This pillar of green coding has less to do with the code itself, focusing instead on the software de­vel­op­ment process. Agile software de­vel­op­ment models are par­tic­u­larly useful for making code and ap­plic­a­tions energy efficient. The in­cre­ment­al de­vel­op­ment and testing used in agile pro­gram­ming ensures that program parts that are not energy efficient are re­cog­nized early on. As a result, they can be changed so that the end product is as efficient as possible.

Green platform

Green coding doesn’t just focus on software though. It also includes hardware. There are a range of methods that can be used to create en­vir­on­ment­ally friendly systems. Server loads are a par­tic­u­larly important factor. Servers operating under lower loads will use more energy than they need. Cloud computing can help here since resources can be scaled flexibly and adapted to in­di­vidu­al needs. Ideally, the cloud computing server also runs on renewable energy.

Which pro­gram­ming languages are energy efficient?

It’s not only the software design that has an effect on the energy ef­fi­ciency of a product. Even the choice of the language used in the project can influence energy con­sump­tion. Pro­gram­ming languages are very different when it comes to their energy, storage and time usage.

The most energy-efficient pro­gram­ming language is C. C is an embedded language and works with little effect on the ab­strac­tion layer, meaning hardware can be used ef­fi­ciently. Storage man­age­ment is another area in which C excels. It allows pro­gram­mers to develop efficient strategies to allocate and deal­loc­ate storage (storage reserves). The object-oriented language C++, which is based on C, is a good option for saving resources.

Alongside C, Rust is another language that is par­tic­u­larly suitable for green coding. The language, which is re­l­at­ively new, has monitored memory man­age­ment, which allows for efficient memory access. This approach helps prevent un­ne­ces­sary and energy-wasting memory op­er­a­tions. The wide range of par­al­lel­iz­a­tion available on Rust helps it to be energy efficient, ensuring that the use of hardware resources is optimized.

Even though Python is one of the most popular pro­gram­ming languages, it has a par­tic­u­larly bad energy ef­fi­ciency rating. This is due in part to the fact that at runtime Python programs are in­ter­preted and not compiled. This means that there is not just one com­pil­a­tion process. However, the dynamic typecast­ing of the language leads to increased run times for programs in Python since the variable types are de­term­ined dy­nam­ic­ally while the program is being run. For similar reasons, JavaS­cript is another language which isn’t very efficient and is also less suited to green coding.

What are some green coding best practices?

If you want to make your program greener, follow the best practices we’ve outlined below.

• In­tel­li­gent software ar­chi­tec­ture: avoid the use of redundant and un­ne­ces­sary code. Avoid un­ne­ces­sary loops. If you need to, build programs so that they auto­mat­ic­ally end when they’re not being used.
• Choose an efficient language: choose an energy-efficient pro­gram­ming language for your project.
• Test con­tinu­ously: test your project’s com­pon­ents at different stages during the de­vel­op­ment in order to identify elements that use a lot of resources.
• Data and networks: reduce data usage and the distance the data needs to move across the network, e.g. from caching.