Sustainable computing

Computing viewed in the light of sustainability has spawned multiple concepts: Frugal computing, permacomputing, salvage computing, sustainable computing, radically sustainable computing, computing within limits, to name some of them. Each of them puts emphasis on slightly different elements, but all of them addresses how we can approach computing sustainably in a world with constrained resources.

I have chosen to use «sustainable computing» as an umbrella term for these topics. Unfortunately, that term has come to be associated with greenwashing, because research using that label has not taken the issues seriously. Terms like «radically sustainable computing» have been suggested1 to indicate that the goal is to genuinely respect the resources available in the ecosystems we live in. While it may be a good idea to ensure differentiation against diluted concepts, I want to resist the misuse of the word «sustainable» a little longer, and try to claim it back.

On this page I gather resources and links for anything related to sustainable computing.

Table of contents

Permacomputing and frugal computing

Websites:

Articles and blog posts:

Sustainable web technology

Computing and (de)growth

Research papers

Conferences

Research institutions and groups

Blogs

Tools and software

Web technology


  1. http://viznut.fi/texts-en/permacomputing_update_2021.html