About the Green Software Foundation

We're a nonprofit building the standards, tools, and community the tech industry needs to make software part of the climate solution — not the problem.

Our Mission

Build a trusted ecosystem of people, standards, tooling and best practices for creating and building green software.

Our Vision

Change the culture of building software so sustainability becomes a core priority — just as important as performance, security, cost and accessibility.

What is green software?

Green software is software built to minimise its environmental impact — not just carbon emissions, but energy consumption, water usage, and hardware lifecycle too. As the digital landscape evolves to encompass cloud infrastructure, data centres, AI systems, and edge computing, our definition has broadened from software alone to the entire digital ecosystem. Our focus remains reduction at source, not offsetting: the most preferable outcome is to never have caused the harm in the first place.

OUR STORY

Founded in 2021

The Green Software Foundation was born out of a mutual desire and need to collaborate across the software industry. In May 2021, Accenture, GitHub, Microsoft, and ThoughtWorks came together under the Linux Foundation to launch a nonprofit dedicated to reducing the carbon emissions of software. What started as four founding organisations has grown into a global coalition of over 60 member organisations — from tech giants to financial institutions, consultancies to academic institutions — all united by the same goal.

Our Values

The manifesto is the public declaration of our policy and aims. It describes the core values that inform and guide every decision we make.

Maximise Trust

If there is no trust in the Foundation's output, it won't have the influence needed to achieve its mission. We maintain a diverse mix of organisations and keep all processes open and transparent.

Engage with Empathy

We listen actively, make space for participation, and acknowledge that everyone is at a different stage on their climate journey. We provide direct, constructive feedback to achieve our shared mission.

Be Inclusive and Open to All

We act with fairness and include diverse perspectives. Our working groups operate via consensus — each member organisation has one vote, regardless of size.

Hold Ourselves Accountable

Accountability builds trust. We assume our colleagues are operating with the best intentions and working towards our shared mission, while ensuring safety, professionalism, and inclusion.

How we're structured

The Green Software Foundation is an accredited nonprofit under the Joint Development Foundation, part of the Linux Foundation family. Our governance is transparent, member-driven, and consensus-based. The Steering Committee provides strategic direction, while our working groups and committees drive the standards and initiatives that move the industry forward.

Meet our Steering Committee & leadership →

What we do

Four functions. Each one driven by member needs. Each one producing results the industry adopts.

Standards

Our members develop vendor-neutral specifications — from SCI to SOFT — through an AI-facilitated consensus process that's achieved ISO certification in record time.

Explore our standards →

Policy & Research

Translating technical reality into regulatory language. Position papers, the State of Green Software report, and a policy radar tracking emerging legislation — giving members the evidence and the voice.

See our policy work →

Education

Building capability at every level. From the free Green Software Practitioner course (130,000+ completions) to advanced certification and cohort programmes — turning commitments into competence.

Start learning →

Community

Champions, meetups, podcasts, and events — a global network of practitioners driving sustainable software forward. The movement that turns individual effort into industry change.

Join the community →