In March 2024, I founded Green Software Ireland to create a place where people could meet, exchange ideas and learn about making software more environmentally sustainable.
The community grew to 443 members on Meetup. We ran eight online and in-person events, brought together speakers from industry and academia, and developed a core audience of people who were genuinely interested in the field.
I’m very proud of what we achieved.
Where the idea came from
I was head of engineering at an Irish startup. I had always been interested in using computing resources efficiently, particularly in a startup where every unnecessary service, database instance or oversized system eventually appeared on the AWS bill.
I came across green software towards the end of 2023. One story that caught my attention was that of Dutch developer Danny van Kooten. He removed 20 KB from a WordPress plugin used by two million websites. It was a tiny change applied at enormous scale, producing an estimated reduction of 59,000 kilograms of CO₂ each month. The work reportedly took him about two hours. WIRED covered the project in 2020.
That example made the potential of green software feel tangible. Software does not appear to consume physical resources in the same way as transport or manufacturing, but it depends on data centres, networks and devices that consume energy and require physical infrastructure.
Estimates vary considerably, but the environmental footprint of digital technology is in the same broad order of magnitude as aviation. The OECD places information and communications technology at approximately 1.5% to 4% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, depending on what is included. Aviation produces around 2.5% of global CO₂ emissions, with a larger overall contribution to warming when its other effects are considered. OECD, Our World in Data
Inside the startup, I introduced a project to examine the environmental impact of our infrastructure and identify where we could use fewer resources. The engineering team was interested in the environmental side. The people responsible for the finances were understandably interested in reducing the AWS bill.
Using the Green Software Foundation’s Impact Framework and its Software Carbon Intensity methodology, we measured the system before and after making changes. The work reduced both its measured software carbon intensity and our monthly AWS bill by approximately 40–50%.
The SCI methodology is now published as the international standard ISO/IEC 21031:2024. It provides a consistent way to calculate the carbon intensity of a software system and compare improvements against a baseline.
That experience showed me that green software did not have to compete with commercial priorities. Efficient systems can use less energy, produce fewer emissions, and cost less to operate.
Creating an Irish community
When I looked around my team and wider network, very few people were talking about any of this. It was not on the radar of many experienced technologists, and people coming out of college appeared to have had little exposure to the environmental impact of software and tech.
I had also wanted to build a professional community for some time. Green software was new, important and poorly understood. It seemed like an opportunity to bring people together around a subject that needed greater visibility.
The Green Software Foundation had a programme supporting people establishing local communities. They accepted my proposal to create and run Green Software Ireland. The Foundation helped establish the group by providing the Meetup.com infrastructure and supplying some of the initial graphics. I began publicising it, finding speakers and organising the first event, which took place online on 29 May 2024.
Interest was strong from the beginning. The online format also produced an unexpected result: people joined from outside Ireland. Many green-software meetups were in person, so people without a group in their own city or country had few opportunities to participate.
The headline membership number only tells part of the story. Behind it was a core of people who came to events because they were genuinely curious about the subject. Discussions regularly filled the available time. People who initially attended to listen later returned to present what they or their organisations were doing.
Speakers over the two years included Wilco Burggraaf, Karl Kyck, Alan Carolan, Conor Muldoon, Michael Bane, Nathalie Pavone and Adriana Ignat. They brought perspectives from engineering, academia, product development and environmental research.
Some of the most interesting conversations anticipated issues that have since become much more prominent. Conor Muldoon and Michael Bane from Manchester Metropolitan University presented research on the public-health impact of data centres. Other talks examined responsible AI, data minimisation, software-engineering culture and the environmental costs of the products we build.
The community gave people an opportunity to encounter ideas they might not otherwise have considered - and, if they wanted to, to take those ideas back into their own work.
Establishing a presence in Dublin
In March 2025, AnneMarie at Toast contacted me through LinkedIn. Toast was preparing a sustainability week and invited Green Software Ireland to participate.
The first event at Toast’s offices on St Stephen’s Green took place on 16 April 2025. AnneMarie and Toast’s wider sustainability team provided the venue, food and practical support needed to bring everyone together. Toast subsequently became a co-sponsor of the community.
Moving into a central Dublin venue made the events feel more visible and established. People could meet one another properly, continue conversations afterwards and experience something that an online call could not reproduce.
There was a trade-off. Online events had allowed people from outside Dublin - and outside Ireland - to participate. We could not offer a hybrid format, so the move to in-person events inevitably reduced that wider access. At the same time, it created a stronger experience for the people in the room.
There was no perfect format, but both showed that a real appetite existed for serious discussion about technology’s environmental impact.
Focusing on Thrive 2050
Running the community required a meaningful amount of time from the beginning. As I started building Thrive 2050, that time became increasingly difficult to find.
Building a company is not only about developing the product. It includes speaking with customers, attending events, building relationships, managing the company and handling the steady stream of administrative work that surrounds all of it.
Thrive also gives me a direct opportunity to put some of these principles into practice. We still face normal commercial constraints. If a greener technical approach costs substantially more or requires time we do not have, that has to be considered honestly. But efficiency, responsible resource use and avoiding unnecessary infrastructure remain part of how we think about the product.
More importantly, Thrive 2050 is being built to help nature and carbon-project teams manage environmental data, evidence, and certification workflows. I find that work deeply engaging because it connects the technology directly to projects protecting and restoring the natural environment.
As the demands of Thrive increased, I explored whether Green Software Ireland could continue under new leadership. In August 2026, I decided it was time to step down as co-organiser. Events are now paused.
The early days
I hope Green Software Ireland continues. I would love this to be the end of my part in running it rather than the end of the community itself.
The past two years were exciting and fulfilling. The community grew. Attendees became speakers. Researchers and practitioners shared work that deserved a wider audience. People gave up their evenings because they genuinely wanted to understand and improve the environmental impact of technology.
I believe founding the community and helping it establish itself was worthwhile.
If people look back on the development of sustainable technology in Ireland in a few years, I hope Green Software Ireland will be remembered as one of the places where an organised community began to take shape - and that what we built during these first two years gave others something useful to continue.