Member Story
How Sarah Hsu of Goldman Sachs, Chris Lloyd-Jones of Avanade, and GSF members worldwide built and scaled the Green Software Practitioner course — now completed by over 130,000 engineers across the industry.
Organisations involved
130,000+
Engineers who have completed the Green Software Practitioner course
50,000+
Trained in under a year at launch
Free
Available to any practitioner through the Green Software Foundation
The Problem
Organisations had sustainability mandates from the board, net-zero commitments in their annual reports, and growing regulatory pressure from directives like CSRD. But when engineering teams sat down at their keyboards, they had no specialised training in how software choices affect carbon emissions. Engineers couldn’t distinguish genuine emissions reduction from well-intentioned guesswork.
At Avanade, Chris Lloyd-Jones wanted to deliver all client projects using green software engineering practices — but with 60,000 employees, where do you begin? At HCLTech, Sunil Aggarwal identified three fundamental barriers: lack of awareness and understanding of green software, lack of standards and metrics, and lack of tools and frameworks. At Goldman Sachs, Sarah Hsu saw the opportunity clearly: “Sustainability and reliability are different concepts but are closely related and should go hand in hand with one another. We can think of sustainability as reliability over time.” But there was no curriculum to teach this.
The problem wasn’t motivation. The younger generation of engineers, as Sarah Hsu observed, cared deeply about sustainability and it affected their decision-making. The problem was that no shared language, no common curriculum, and no recognised certification existed for green software engineering. Every company was starting from zero, independently.
“We see developing green software as vital for achieving net-zero targets. The software developers of tomorrow, who are being trained today, must acquire the knowledge, skill, and expertise to develop energy and carbon-efficient software applications.” — Dr. Michael Bane & Dr. Ernest Edifor, Manchester Metropolitan University
The Journey
Early years
Led by Sarah Hsu of Goldman Sachs, the Green Software Practitioner (GSP) course was built as a collaboration between GSF founding members. The course covered the core competencies: energy efficiency, carbon awareness, hardware efficiency, and measurement. Released as free, open-source training through the Linux Foundation, it provided the shared language green software engineering had been missing.
Take the Green Software Practitioner course →2022
At Goldman Sachs, Sarah Hsu became the internal champion for green software education. The firm hosted a GSF summit in their London office and made green software education a key focus, building a community of like-minded engineers and sponsors with strong support from leadership. Sarah also chaired the project to revise and extend the Principles of Green Software Engineering to reflect what the field had learnt since 2019.
Meet Sarah Hsu of Goldman Sachs →2022–2023
At Avanade, Chris Lloyd-Jones started by training people on green software principles before the GSP course even existed — reaching 3,200 employees so everyone was speaking the same language. The initial group was just 20–30 people in a company of 60,000. The GSF Global Summit in June 2022, which Avanade co-sponsored, was a tipping point: Chris engaged developers and architects in Sydney, London, Houston, and beyond. By late 2023, close to 1,000 employees held the practitioner certification, and 104 were actively contributing to GSF working groups.
Read Avanade's grassroots story →November 2023
At Decarbonize Software 2023, Asim Hussain reported that the course had successfully trained over 50,000 participants in less than a year — a figure that would more than double in the following year. At HCLTech, Sunil Aggarwal had stood up a Sustainability Centre of Excellence with over 100 engineers trained in green engineering guidelines and a Green Software Engineering Lab in Redmond, Washington. At EPAM, Chris Howard noted that clients were "far more engaged in understanding the level of engineers who have completed the GSP training" — pointing to a growing revenue stream for certified teams.
Read about Decarbonize Software 2023 →2023–2024
At Manchester Metropolitan University, Dr. Michael Bane and Dr. Ernest Edifor launched a Green Software Engineering course for undergraduate students — part of a broader effort to embed green software across UK universities and colleges. Their goal: ensure that the next generation of developers acquires the knowledge to build energy and carbon-efficient software from day one.
Meet Dr. Michael Bane and Dr. Ernest Edifor →We stumbled upon sustainability while seeking efficiency. Now, sustainability as a measurement is here to stay.
Chris Lloyd-Jones, Head of Open Innovation, Avanade
Who came together
Sarah Hsu
Associate / Site Reliability Engineer
Goldman Sachs
Internal champion at Goldman Sachs, building a community of green software engineers and hosting a GSF summit. Chaired the revision of the Principles of Green Software Engineering.
Chris Lloyd-Jones
Head of Open Innovation
Avanade
Drove Avanade's grassroots green software movement from 20 interested people to 3,200 trained — before the GSP course even existed — through consistent messaging, special interest groups, and GSF event sponsorship.
Sunil Aggarwal
Senior Vice President & Global Client Partner
HCLTech
Built HCLTech's Sustainability Centre of Excellence with 100+ engineers, a Green Software Engineering Lab in Redmond, and sustainability training reaching around 100,000 employees.
Chris Howard
Head of the Open Source Program Office
EPAM
Integrated the GSP into EPAM's enterprise learning platforms and aligned it with client delivery processes, establishing green software certification as a client-facing differentiator and revenue driver.
Dr. Michael Bane
Senior Lecturer
Manchester Metropolitan University
Launched a Green Software Engineering course at Manchester Met and worked with Dr. Ernest Edifor to embed green software across UK university curricula.
In their words
"I would like to see green software engineering become an integral part of the educational curriculum for anyone learning to code. "
Sarah Hsu
Associate / Site Reliability Engineer, Goldman Sachs
"Consistent messaging and empowering our people with information and resources has made all the difference. "
Chris Lloyd-Jones
Head of Open Innovation, Avanade
"Clients have become far more engaged in understanding the level of engineers who have completed the GSP training. "
Chris Howard
Head of the Open Source Program Office, EPAM
“The people are driving our green software success today,” so Chris Lloyd-Jones. Avanade is a steering member of the GSF and actively contributes to a number of GSF working groups. How did they succeed in spreading the green software ideology within their corporate walls?
Chris is the Head of Open Innovation at Avanade, and a recipient of the Microsoft MVP Award. In the last two years, Chris has lent his leadership to the Green Software Foundation as Co-chair and member of the Oversight Committee and been instrumental in building a culture of green software at Avanade.
Sarah Hsu is an Associate at Goldman Sachs working on Site Reliability Engineering. She is also chairing the project on revising and extending the Principles of Green Software Engineering to reflect the evolution the field has seen since the original principles were created in 2019.
The aim is to form a new generation of green software and green software practitioners to develop timely and impactful solutions.
On the foothills of COP28, we hosted Decarbonize Software on November 16, a global virtual event that united software sustainability leaders and advocates across the technology, ICT, and energy sectors.
The Green Software Practitioner course is free, open, and takes approximately a day to complete. Join the thousands of engineers already speaking the same language of green software.
Take the course at movement.greensoftware.foundation — or talk to us about embedding it across your organisation.
