Chris Adams

Over the last few years, the idea of a carbon aware, fossil free internet by 2030, has become more than just interesting idea, and instead something that is socially and economically plausible, as well as desirable and inline with the latest climate science.

In this talk we’ll cover some of the key drivers to make this possible, and what key policy changes can accelerate our transition from fossil fuels in the technology sector.

We’ll cover some of the most promising ideas from the Internet Architecture Board’s recent workshops to explore how to reduce global ICT emissions inline with the science around staying within 1.5 degrees of warming. We'll give an overview of how new open source software like Ecovisors can do for on-site power what hypervisors have done for virtualisation of computing, how carbon-aware Computing schedulers and carbon aware networking routers can lead to an internet that can complement a shift to a grid powered by more variable renewable sources of energy, and we will also cover how a shift to hourly carbon accounting for electricity with new standards like Energy Tag’s Granular Certificates can cut through existing greenwash.

Finally we'll talk about some of the the regulatory drivers on the horizon can help technologists argue for more ambitious climate action, from the European Corporate Social Responsibility Directive to recent changes in international accounting standards from the IFRS (international financial reporting standards) Foundation.

Participants will leave with a good grounding of the progress made in the Greening of IT, the challenges facing us for the rest of the decade, and better idea of their role in the coming energy transition, particularly in the tech sector.

In this short talk, we'll present a way to see the discourse around digital sovereignty through a climate lens - understanding how the concepts that support having a vibrant diverse set of cloud providers can result in a healthy ecosystem climate wise , and also in terms of values alignment too.

We'll introduce a useful model, known as the Green Web Triangle, for talking about the trade-offs we currently make when choosing digital services that can help technologists have productive conversations with budget holders and policy makers.

Finally we'll explore how competing on transparency with open source is a valid strategy where existing incumbent cloud providers cannot do the same - organisations with legally binding carbon reductions are now required by investors and policy to report on efficiency and sustainability in ways that are currently impossible with most incumbent providers, but doing so will be a legal necessity, as new laws around sustainability reporting come into effect in 2024. We'll end with Q and A to explore these new developments and how to make the most of the changing policy landscape to move towards a more open, diverse ecosystem of companies building the cloud platforms we need for a sustainable, pluralistic diverse internet.

It's 2021, and we are in a climate emergency.

If you're a web professional, you've probably figured out that if the internet runs on electricity, and a lot of electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, there are steps we can take as technologists to make our use of the internet measurably more sustainable, by changing how we use digital infrastructure.

In this talk, we'll cover some of the levers available to you as a maker of digital services, and how we can extend open source tools to help design greener, more accessible, more performant websites.

We'll show examples from companies you've heard of doing this in production right now, and give clear next steps for those beginning their climate journey.

In this talk, you'll learn about the environmental impact of the digital products and services you build, why this matters. You’ll be introduced to a mental model, known as Platform, Packets, Process, for measuring and identifying emissions hotspots in digital products, and the steps you can take to reduce them.

You might have heard stories about how bitcoin, or the internet itself, is responsible for an ever-growing share of global carbon emissions. But it doesn’t need to be this way. Did you know that just by switching AWS regions in the US, you can wipe out a huge chunk of the carbon footprint from running your tech infrastructure? Most people don't, and we need stuff like this to be common knowledge in our industry - we need to know how to build digital products without needing to emit carbon, the same way we expect people in automotive industries to how to build cars with without needing lead in the fuel. In this talk, you'll learn about the environmental impact of the digital products and services you build, and a about a mental model, known as Platform, Packets, Process, for measuring and identifying emissions hotspots in the way you build them. You’ll also see how to use skills you already have to make meaningful, measurable improvements to the environmental impact of the digital products and services you build, and the open source tools available to support you in your efforts to green your stack.