Leadership Update: Janardan Misra elected Co-Chair of the Software Standard Working Group

We’re excited to announce a new leadership position within the Green Software Foundation: Janardan Misra, Innovation Research Principal Director at Accenture, has been elected co-chair of our Software Standard Working Group (SSWG) and joins our Steering Committee. Succeeding Navveen Balani as co-chair, Janardan joins Henry Richardson, Senior Analyst at WattTime, to advance our mission of developing baseline specifications for green software and ensuring they can be applied consistently across the computing platforms organizations rely on worldwide. 

#Can you tell us more about your current role? 

I am an Innovation Research Principal Director at Accenture, based in Bengaluru, India. With over two decades in AI research and industrial deployment, my current focus spans sustainable AI, green software, AI governance, software carbon measurement, and enterprise-scale technology.

#What motivated you to join the GSF as a Co-chair of the SSWG and a member of the Steering Committee?

GSF’s work is shaping how the industry moves from sustainability intent to measurable technology practice. I wanted to contribute to that transition by bringing an enterprise implementation perspective—especially around AI, software measurement, and adoption at scale. My motivation comes from the belief that green software standards are most valuable when they help organizations translate sustainability ambition into engineering and operational decisions.

#How will your experience, especially around Green AI, shape your approach to this position?

My experience at Accenture gives me a strong appreciation for the adoption side of standards. Much of my work has focused on connecting measurement, software carbon approaches, AI optimization, governance, and enterprise implementation. That perspective will shape my approach by keeping the Working Group grounded in real-world constraints: how teams measure impact, how they implement guidance in software and AI delivery lifecycles, and how standards can support both innovation and practical decarbonization at scale.

This experience aligns closely with GSF’s mission to build shared standards, practices, and an ecosystem for green software.

#What does green software mean to you in your day-to-day work?

For me, green software means making sustainability a normal part of technology decision-making—not a separate afterthought. It means designing, building, operating, and optimizing software and AI systems with explicit attention to energy, carbon, resource efficiency, cost, and measurable outcomes.

#What do you see as the major challenges to advancing green software standards being adopted at scale?

I see three major challenges. The first is making standards simple enough for broad adoption without losing technical credibility. The second is ensuring that measurement approaches can work across different technology stacks, cloud environments, data availability levels, and organizational maturity levels. The third is helping organizations see standards not only as reporting mechanisms, but as decision tools that can influence architecture, engineering practices, optimization choices, and business value. Bridging that gap between specification and day-to-day adoption will be critical.

#Can you share more about your plans and priorities in these new roles?  

I hope to help strengthen the bridge between standards, practical tooling, and real-world adoption. As a co-chair of the WG in particular, I would like to support focused and inclusive discussions, strengthen alignment across contributors, and help ensure that standards remain technically rigorous while also being usable by practitioners. My priority is to help move promising ideas into clear, practical, consensus-based specifications.