WeAreDevelopers LIVE • Apr 18, 2023

An Architect’s guide to reducing the carbon footprint of your applications

Ricardo Sueiras Sueiras

Treat sustainability as a core architectural requirement, not an afterthought. Discover how right-sizing microservices, leveraging ARM processors, and scaling to zero will drastically shrink your application's carbon footprint.

Pause

Mute

Enter Fullscreen

#1 about 2 min

Introduction to sustainable application architecture

Why tracking application carbon footprints is becoming a critical priority for long-term business compliance.

#2 about 4 min

Decomposing monoliths into optimized microservices

Breaking down large applications enables targeted rightsizing and more efficient runtime technology matching.

#3 about 5 min

Adopting purpose-built storage and compute instances

Matching databases to workloads and transitioning towards Arm-based processors drastically improves execution efficiency.

#4 about 2 min

Evaluating programming language energy efficiency

Reviewing baseline overheads helps teams select leaner backend technologies like Rust for demanding workloads.

#5 about 3 min

Designing for sustainable scheduling and utilization

Distributing cron jobs and employing asynchronous message queues prevents artificially high infrastructure usage peaks.

#6 about 2 min

Extending device lifecycles utilizing open source

Deploying lightweight Linux distributions maximizes the operational lifespan of otherwise obsolete client hardware.

#7 about 3 min

Prioritizing sustainability as a non-functional requirement

Introducing environmental metrics early forces deliberate architectural choices between maximum performance and clean execution.

#8 about 5 min

Leveraging managed hardware and operations natively

Shifting workloads to unified regional cloud data centers instantly provides distinct ecosystem power advantages.

#9 about 3 min

Scaling application nodes dynamically to zero

Eliminating idle system waste by utilizing execution-based compute endpoints that completely deactivate between calls.

#10 about 2 min

Customizing block storage tiers and formats

Selecting appropriate retrieval levels and compressing stored data significantly minimizes your overarching digital footprint.

#11 about 3 min

Rightsizing infrastructure allocations actively with automation

Discarding static over-provisioning setups in favor of tightly mapped autoscaling groups protects empty memory cycles.

#12 about 1 min

Maintaining lean container registries and build repositories

Routinely wiping redundant image versions and discarded build caches preserves physical drive requirements across CI models.

#13 about 5 min

Tracking efficiency utilizing balanced consumption metrics

Correlating gross load directly against active processing cycles reveals genuine progression versus hidden usage regressions.

#14 about 2 min

Applying the well-architected sustainability pillar

Navigating platform models correctly allows builders to bootstrap greener systems incorporating baseline infrastructural guidelines.

#15 about 6 min

Navigating entry paths into developer communities

Uncovering collaborative entry-points into broader technical spheres through dedicated open source contributions and passion-led networking.

#16 about 4 min

Negotiating operational standards with engineering leadership

Presenting environmental priorities natively aligned with corporate cost mitigation goals persuades hesitant decision-makers efficiently.

#17 about 3 min

Modernizing legacy execution and outdated mainframes

Calculating operational metrics correctly before isolating monoliths or porting archaic routines averts unplanned usage regressions.

#18 about 5 min

Acknowledging practical application service-level compromises

Communicating possible availability shifts or extended disaster revival timelines limits friction when lowering base utility inputs.

#19 about 5 min

Understanding the core developer advocate function

Acting as a customer proxy transforms real-world implementation queries into prioritized enhancements applied by central engineering teams.

Matching moments

4:09 min

Implementing architectural best practices for sustainable software systems

Hendrik Lösch

Hendrik Lösch · World Congress 2025

1:49 min

Coding for environmental sustainability in software engineering

Ulrich Irnich

Ulrich Irnich · World Congress 2023

1:57 min

Connecting web performance optimization to ecological sustainability

Andreas Taranetz

Andreas Taranetz · World Congress 2024

3:29 min

Optimizing software architectures to minimize infrastructure resource drain

Hendrik Lösch

Hendrik Lösch · World Congress 2024

3:08 min

Adopting the shared responsibility model for cloud computing sustainability

Sohan Maheshwar · LIVE

2:54 min

Specific sustainability roles across the software development team

Marjolein Pordon · LIVE

More from WeAreDevelopers LIVE

Fake or News - AI Music Detectors, Translating Ancient Languages & Tiny Heads in Teslas - Eddie Jaoude thumbnail

Fake or News - AI Music Detectors, Translating Ancient Languages & Tiny Heads in Teslas - Eddie Jaoude

Chris Heilmann, Daniel Cranney

Fake or News: AI Agents Hire Each Other, Spider-Man Ads in Cars & RAM Thieves - Marc Plogas thumbnail

Fake or News: AI Agents Hire Each Other, Spider-Man Ads in Cars & RAM Thieves - Marc Plogas

Chris Heilmann, Daniel Cranney, Marc Plogas

WeAreDevelopers - Of Agents and Robots thumbnail

WeAreDevelopers - Of Agents and Robots

Chris Heilmann, Daniel Cranney, Marc Plogas

WeAreDevelopers LIVE - How DevRel Makes Tech More Human thumbnail

WeAreDevelopers LIVE - How DevRel Makes Tech More Human

Chris Heilmann, Daniel Cranney

Fake or News: Smart Glasses in Court, Medical Advice Watches & Mushroom Electonics - Jason Torres thumbnail

Fake or News: Smart Glasses in Court, Medical Advice Watches & Mushroom Electonics - Jason Torres

Chris Heilmann, Daniel Cranney

Aliens in Quarantine, Python Deprecates Loops, and AI Buys Old Books - Zbyszek Tenerowicz thumbnail

about 1 month ago

Aliens in Quarantine, Python Deprecates Loops, and AI Buys Old Books - Zbyszek Tenerowicz

Chris Heilmann, Daniel Cranney

Upcoming sessions on this topic

World Congress 2026 North America

September 24, 2026 · 11:00–11:30

Stage 1

Application-Defined Compute: Rethinking Infrastructure for AI Applications

Anurag Goel

Founder and CEO of Render

Anurag Goel

World Congress 2026 North America

September 25, 2026 · 16:00–16:10

Outdoor Stage

public void saveMoney(AI): The Developer's Guide to Unit Economics

Hrushikesh Pokala

Senior Software Engineer Lead at Equifax

Hrushikesh Pokala

World Congress 2026 North America

September 24, 2026 · 14:50–15:20

Stage 9

How to generate business value through performance optimizations

Nikolai Sidiropulo

Software Engineer at Meta

Nikolai Sidiropulo

World Congress 2026 North America

September 25, 2026 · 09:00–09:30

Stage 2

Autonomous Infrastructure: Building AI Agents for Global-Scale Capacity Efficiency

Tommy Tran

Software Engineer at Meta

Tommy Tran

World Congress 2026 North America

September 24, 2026 · 16:10–16:40

Outdoor Stage

When Humans Stop Writing Code: Rethinking Languages, Compilers, and Responsibility

Simon Auer

Organizer of flutter vienna meetup and CEO of marqably

Simon Auer

World Congress 2026 North America

September 25, 2026 · 15:30–15:40

Outdoor Stage

Offloading IoT State: Solving the Memory Crisis on Legacy Hardware

Pravin Nagare

Senior Software Engineer, Roku

Pravin Nagare

Related videos

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Resource Efficient Software thumbnail

World Congress 2025 • about 1 year ago

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Resource Efficient Software

Hendrik Lösch

Green Cloud Computing thumbnail

LIVE • about 3 years ago

Green Cloud Computing

Doreen Sacker

Minimising the Carbon Footprint of Workloads thumbnail

World Congress 2024 • about 2 years ago

Minimising the Carbon Footprint of Workloads

Michael Mueller

Sustainable me. A tale of good design. thumbnail

LIVE • over 3 years ago

Sustainable me. A tale of good design.

Lorenzo Pieri

Building Systems that Last thumbnail

World Congress 2025 • about 1 year ago

Building Systems that Last

Werner Vogels

11 Tips for Greener Code thumbnail

World Congress 2023 • almost 3 years ago

11 Tips for Greener Code

Kent Simonsen

Related articles

DC

Daniel Cranney

Is Software Development Making the Climate Crisis Worse?

The incredible rate at which technology is developing is clear for all to see. Each week here at WeAreDevelopers, we hear about exciting innovations in the realms of hardware, software, devices, in...

over 1 year ago

An AI-generated scene of a rainforest with a laptop in the foreground

DC

Daniel Cranney

How to Avoid Over-Engineering

In today’s software development world, the demand for designing applications that are both robust and easy to maintain is more pressing than ever. Many developers encounter the architectural chaos ...

over 1 year ago

A series of code blocks with 'X's on showing they are incorrect, with one CSS block shown as the correct answer.

BB

Benedikt Bischof

Why You Shouldn’t Build a Microservice Architecture

Welcome to this issue of the WeAreDevelopers Live Talk series. This article recaps an interesting talk by Michael Eisenbart who talks about the pros and cons of microservice architecture.‍About the...

almost 4 years ago

Why You Shouldn’t Build a Microservice Architecture

AB

Andre Braun, GitLab

Now is the time for industrialized software development

Now is the time for industrialized software development Recently, I received a letter from my car’s manufacturer alerting me to a recall. They had discovered a defective part and wanted to replace ...

about 1 year ago

A person developint HTML on a laptop with the sun shining on it.

From learning to earning

Jobs that call for the skills explored in this talk.

about 1 month ago

Staff SoC Performance Architect - Next-Generation Server Platforms

San Diego, CA, United States

Expert $198k–268k SystemC Profiling InfiniBand

Staff SoC Performance Architect - Next-Generation Server Platforms

San Diego, CA, United States

Expert $198k–268k SystemC Profiling InfiniBand

Manager, Solution Architect

Des Moines, IA, United States

Experienced $99k–232k Vue.js Docker DevOps

Manager, Solution Architect

Los Angeles, CA, United States

Experienced $99k–232k Vue.js Docker DevOps

Platform Architect - AGI CPU

Austin, TX, United States

Expert $249k–338k Emulators Data Centers Network Server

11 days ago • Verified

Sr. Solution Architect

Detroit, United States

Expert Remote DevOps Terraform Kubernetes