Member Story
How Jeff Sandquist of Microsoft, Sanjay Podder of Accenture, Erica Brescia of GitHub, and leaders from Thoughtworks and Goldman Sachs discovered they were working on the same problem — and founded the Green Software Foundation to solve it together.
Organisations involved
5
Founding organisations — Microsoft, Accenture, GitHub, Thoughtworks, and Goldman Sachs
70+
Member organisations spanning technology, consulting, financial services, and academia
130,000+
Practitioners trained through the Green Software Practitioner course
17
Active projects spanning standards, tools, frameworks, and training
The Problem
In 2020, multiple organisations were independently trying to figure out how to reduce software’s environmental impact. None of them knew the others were working on the same problem. At Microsoft, Jeff Sandquist’s team had discovered “a deep lack of knowledge specifically regarding software and sustainability.” At Accenture, Sanjay Podder had published in the Harvard Business Review. At GitHub, Erica Brescia wanted every developer to be “green by default.” At Thoughtworks, the view was that “issues like climate change can only be resolved through global solidarity.”
The common thread was clear: no commonly agreed standards, practices, metrics, or tools existed to measure and minimise software-related carbon emissions. Each company was building its own approach in isolation. The problem couldn’t be solved by any one of them alone — and the moment they found each other, it became obvious they needed a coalition.
“Whether you’re a nonprofit with ten people or an organisation the size of Microsoft with 100,000 people, we all carry an equal voice. That is really important to us.” — Jeff Sandquist, Corporate Vice President, Developer Relations, Microsoft
The Journey
2019–2020
Microsoft's Jeff Sandquist launched a dedicated green software team within Developer Relations and published the Principles of Sustainable Software Engineering — the first comprehensive training on the topic. Accenture's Sanjay Podder published "How Green is Your Software?" in the Harvard Business Review. Thoughtworks, GitHub, and Goldman Sachs were exploring the same space. None of them knew the others were working on the same problem. As Jeff Sandquist recalled: "It turned out that a number of other organisations were also looking at the same space. First off Accenture reached out, then Thoughtworks, then our partners at GitHub. We were all talking about the same space."
Read how the Green Software Foundation began →May 2021
The five founding organisations — Microsoft, Accenture, Thoughtworks, GitHub, and Goldman Sachs — established GSF as a non-profit under the Linux Foundation. The structure was deliberately egalitarian. As Jeff Sandquist explained: "Whether you're a nonprofit with ten people or an organisation the size of Microsoft with 100,000 people, we all carry an equal voice." Three working groups were established: Standards (what do we measure?), Community (who builds and adopts?), and Innovation/Tooling (how do we make it easy?).
Bloomberg — Microsoft Teams Up With Accenture, Goldman on Greener Software →September 2021
NTT DATA became the first organisation to join the steering committee beyond the five founders, bringing global technology services expertise and a commitment to sustainable IT delivery.
Meet our steering committee — NTT DATA →2021–2022
The SCI specification development began. The Carbon Aware SDK was conceived. The Green Software Practitioner course was built. CarbonHack22 attracted 395 participants and demonstrated measurable carbon reductions. By the end of 2022, GSF had grown to 38 member organisations.
Green Software Foundation Q1 2022 Report →April 2022
UBS joined as a steering member, bringing the enterprise financial services perspective. UBS would go on to co-lead the Real Time Cloud standard through Pindy Bhullar and deploy the Carbon Aware SDK on production banking systems.
UBS joins the Green Software Foundation as a steering member →June 2023
Google joined the steering committee, adding platform-scale cloud expertise and a deep commitment to carbon-free energy. Google's participation strengthened the foundation's work on AI sustainability and cloud carbon measurement.
Meet Savannah Goodman of Google →October 2023
Siemens joined the steering committee, bringing industrial technology expertise and connecting green software to the operational technology and manufacturing sectors.
Siemens joins the GSF steering committee →April 2024
The SCI specification achieved ISO 21031:2024 status — the first ISO standard for measuring software carbon intensity. This milestone validated the foundation's consensus-based standards process on the international stage.
Read about the SCI achieving ISO standard status →January 2025
NTT DATA's Gadhu Sundaram was elected Chair, succeeding Sanjay Podder. The transition signalled a shift from creation to global adoption. Gadhu brought three decades of technology delivery experience and a personal connection to sustainability: "I had the privilege of growing up in one of the world's top ten biodiversity hotspots, the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. My community has lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years, embodying a sustainable way of life. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of exploring the woods and encountering incredible wildlife — I saw my first leopard at the age of six."
Read about Gadhu Sundaram's election as GSF Chair →March 2025
The Sustainable and Scalable Infrastructure Alliance (SSIA) merged with the Green Software Foundation, bringing Cisco as a new steering member along with additional expertise in infrastructure sustainability.
SSIA joins the Green Software Foundation →Ongoing
At founding, Jeff Sandquist estimated there were "about 100 people in the world who are knowledgeable in the subject." By 2025, 130,000+ engineers had completed the Green Software Practitioner course. HCLTech had reached around 100,000 employees with sustainability training. Avanade had certified ~1,000 practitioners in a 60,000-person organisation. GSF now had 17 active projects, 10,000+ community members across 36 meetup groups in 19 countries, and formal collaborations with W3C and the GHG Protocol.
Introducing the GSF 2025 Annual Report →As large as Microsoft was, we can't do it alone. We need to collaborate with every other organisation out there. That includes our partners, our competitors, our customers, everybody. We all need to get together and work together because this isn't about one organisation reducing its emissions. This is about the whole world reducing its emissions.
Jeff Sandquist, Corporate Vice President, Developer Relations, Microsoft
Who came together
Jeff Sandquist
Corporate Vice President, Developer Relations
Microsoft
Built the first green software team at Microsoft, published the Principles of Sustainable Software Engineering, and co-conceived the foundation after discovering others were working on the same problem.
Sanjay Podder
Managing Director and Global Lead for Technology Sustainability Innovation
Accenture
Published "How Green is Your Software?" in Harvard Business Review, connected with Jeff Sandquist to found GSF, and served as the foundation's first Chair through the ISO milestone.
Erica Brescia
Chief Operating Officer
GitHub
Brought the open source community's perspective and articulated the vision for "green developers by default" — making sustainability a default part of every developer's workflow.
Gadhu Sundaram
Vice President of Application Services
NTT DATA UK
Joined as a founding steering member in September 2021, was elected GSF Chair in January 2025, and now leads the foundation's transition from creation to global adoption.
In their words
"Early in 2021, as I was researching the green software development space, I came across some work from Jeff Sandquist and his team at Microsoft. We connected and quickly realised that we were both asking the same question; trying to solve the same problems. We knew we wanted to collaborate. "
Sanjay Podder
Managing Director, Accenture
"The reality is, every line of code impacts our planet, and a carbon-negative future depends on building carbon-consciousness into software development workflows from the first line of code until decommissioning. "
Erica Brescia
Chief Operating Officer, GitHub
"One critical challenge in developing green software is that there are no commonly agreed standards, practices, metrics and tools to measure and minimize software related carbon emissions. "
Accenture steering committee statement
GSF founding interview
An interview with Jeff Sandquist of Microsoft about the birth of the Green Software Foundation
Being a very new area, skill sets for green software is one of the challenges we face. Many software developers and engineers lack the knowledge or the avenues to learn and develop expertise to put Green Software Engineering into actual practice.
Meet Erica Brescia, the Chief Operating Officer of Github and understand why she wants all developers to become "green developers"
Thoughtworks on green software and working with the Green Software Foundation
Aligning technological innovation and sustainability under new leadership.
We've achieved a big win for green tech: The Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification v1.0 is now an ISO standard.
Whether you are a technology company, consultancy, financial institution, academic institution, or non-profit, GSF provides the neutral ground where competitors collaborate on the standards, tools, and training that reduce software's environmental impact.
Visit greensoftware.foundation/join-us to become a member
