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Including Software Aspects in Green IT: How to Create Awareness for Green Software Issues

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Book cover Green IT Engineering: Social, Business and Industrial Applications

Part of the book series: Studies in Systems, Decision and Control ((SSDC,volume 171))

Abstract

While counteracting the increasing demand for natural resources and especially energy of ICT, first successes have become apparent by activities comprised by the term “Green IT”. Nowadays, many of the current activities lay emphasis on the hardware side of Green IT. However, software issues play a significant role in defining system and hardware requirements as well as the amount of energy consumed by ICT devices and the underlying infrastructure. Thus, the following chapter introduces the idea of green software and its engineering. Complementary to definitions and models in the addressed field, a more practical insight is given by illustrating exemplary energy measurements of software products. While these aspects show that the research is increasingly dealing with software issues of Green IT, these mainly scientific ideas have hardly reached practical relevance, so far. Hence, following the life cycle perspective of software products, we present two exemplary concepts on how to increase awareness of green software: addressing especially software engineers, we propose to implement continuous energy efficiency measurements during the development phase. With regards to software users, we propose to create an eco-label for software products to inform about their environmental issues and thus create more transparency in this context. To do so, we present and evaluate criteria and indicators, upon which a label could be based. The chapter concludes with a summary and proposes future activities in the addressed field. Overall, the aim of the chapter is to point out solutions that might lead to a more environmentally friendly way of developing software, a well-informed procurement behavior regarding software products, and a more sustainable user behavior concerning ICT.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org.

  2. 2.

    http://green-software-engineering.de/en/projects/ufoplan-ssd-2015.html.

  3. 3.

    http://green-software-engineering.de/criteria-catalog.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Universitätsallee 1, 21335, Lüneburg, Germany

    Eva Kern

  2. University of Applied Sciences Trier, Environmental Campus Birkenfeld, Birkenfeld, Germany

    Eva Kern

  3. University of Applied Sciences Trier, Environmental Campus Birkenfeld, Institute for Software Systems, Birkenfeld, Germany

    Achim Guldner & Stefan Naumann

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  1. Eva Kern
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  2. Achim Guldner
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  3. Stefan Naumann
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Correspondence to Eva Kern .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Systems, Networks and Cybersecurity, National Aerospace University "KhAI", Kharkiv, Ukraine

    Vyacheslav Kharchenko

  2. Department of Intelligent Information Systems, Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, Mykolaiv, Ukraine

    Yuriy Kondratenko

  3. Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland

    Janusz Kacprzyk

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Kern, E., Guldner, A., Naumann, S. (2019). Including Software Aspects in Green IT: How to Create Awareness for Green Software Issues. In: Kharchenko, V., Kondratenko, Y., Kacprzyk, J. (eds) Green IT Engineering: Social, Business and Industrial Applications. Studies in Systems, Decision and Control, vol 171. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00253-4_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00253-4_1

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