SPECIFICATION LIFECYCLE
Every GSF specification follows a rigorous seven-stage lifecycle, ensuring quality, consensus, and real-world applicability.
Requirements gathering from diverse stakeholders, defining scope and objectives, validating requirements.
Research and analysis, composing a preliminary technical specification draft.
Full specification with structured sections: introduction, scope, objectives, requirements, design, metrics, and compliance.
Peer reviews, stakeholder feedback, and iterative refinement of the document.
Working group review, broader feedback incorporation, and formal sign-off.
The Steering Committee officially approves the specification for public release.
Public release, ongoing feedback, and maintenance. The standard is available for adoption.
Specifications at every stage of the lifecycle — from early proposals to internationally recognised standards.
Published A specification that describes how to calculate a carbon intensity for software applications.
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Ratified Extending the Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) to Artificial intelligence (AI). Addressing the challenges of measuring Artificial intelligence carbon emissions
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Draft Extending the Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) to the Web. Addressing the challenges of measuring website carbon emissions
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Ratified A framework for decision-making during the development, implementation, and operation of technology applications by incorporating all available methodologies and instruments.
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Published Establish a benchmark for measuring carbon emissions.
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Draft Standardized data coordination between computational workloads and energy infrastructure
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Pre-draft Methodology for calculating the energy consumption rate of a software system
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Pre-proposal Methodology for calculating the water consumption rate of a software system
Traditional standards take 3+ years. GSF's AI-facilitated assembly process brought 14 experts from 15 organisations to full consensus on SCI for Web in just 10 weeks. Structured questions feed into LLM synthesis, with human-in-the-loop review, iterative refinement, and explicit decision gates at every stage.
Assemblies are dedicated workshops — public or member-only — where experts collaborate on a specific challenge. Whether the goal is exploration, knowledge sharing, developing a new standard, or gathering feedback, assemblies bring the right people together to move from problem to solution.
Every GSF standard is evaluated against eight quality characteristics drawn from our standards playbook.
Unambiguous language that leaves no room for misinterpretation.
Covers all necessary aspects without leaving critical gaps.
No internal contradictions; aligned with other GSF specifications.
Requirements can be verified through objective testing or measurement.
Every requirement links back to a stakeholder need or objective.
Structured for easy updates as technology and understanding evolve.
Technically achievable with current or near-term capabilities.
Critical requirements are clearly distinguished from nice-to-haves.
