The Accountability Gap: Who Should Own Software’s Environmental Impact?
Mapping where 800+ technologists stand on accountability at Green IO Paris
For years, we’ve heard the same feedback: everyone agrees software needs to be more sustainable, but questions who has the power to make it happen.
Is it developers making daily trade-offs? CTOs allocating budgets? Policymakers setting standards? This coordination ambiguity slows progress; without clarity on where power sits and who should own this challenge, we miss opportunities to scale impact.
Green IO Paris brings together 800+ responsible technologists: a rare gathering of global expertise in sustainable software. The GSF, an official Green IO partner, is using this opportunity to answer a question the field hasn’t resolved: where does accountability for software’s environmental impact actually sit—and where should it sit.
Using the same approach that helped develop industry standards such as the ISO-approved Software Carbon Intensity specification, we’ll capture the collective perspective on the accountability gap and publish findings in our January 2026 report, identifying where our efforts can have the greatest potential for real change.
How It Works
Over three days, conference attendees participate in a live consensus-building process. Participants will correspond via email to generate a consensus position statement that will update during the conference. An AI-supported system analyzes all responses and uses them to iteratively update the position statement, as well as surfacing disagreements, tensions, patterns, and areas of alignment. Each perspective, along with hundreds of others, shapes an evolving consensus statement that gets refined daily.
By Thursday, we’ll have mapped where the community stands on accountability—revealing where we have common ground to build on and where tensions need addressing.
Why This Matters for Green Software: A Closer Look
At GSF, we use the consensus process to develop specifications. Getting big tech, academia, and NGOs to agree on standards typically requires extended deliberation. The Software Carbon Intensity (SCI), now an ISO-approved standard, represents that kind of cross-stakeholder alignment.
We’ve refined this process using a human-in-the-loop AI-supported system to deliver industry standards in months instead of years. Now we’re applying this enhanced approach beyond our membership, at conference scale with hundreds of independent green software experts, for the first time opening our approach to the broader community.
What This Process Will Surface
- Collective intelligence: The AI-supported process will uncover how hundreds of practitioners think about accountability as it unfolds. Each individual perspective is woven into broader patterns. Anonymous peer insights challenge or reinforce participants’ views.
- Comprehensive report: We’ll map where the community finds alignment, where tensions remain, and what that means for practitioners and decision-makers driving change in their organizations.
- Proven approach at a new scale: This applies GSF’s consensus-building methodology, enhanced with AI support to work at conference scale. The January report will document both the accountability findings and how this AI-supported approach performed with 800 participants.
Get Involved
For Green IO attendees:
Find the GSF booth at CNIT, La Défense, during Green IO, December 9-11, to participate in this consensus-building session. Sign up via email in less than 2 minutes.
Want to attend?
As a non-profit sponsor, we have two tickets left to Green IO Paris to share with the community. Email help@greensoftware.foundation—first come, first served.
For organizations:
To help shape standards through consensus-based governance, consider becoming a member.