Interview with Hendrik Loesch, software architect at ZEISS Digital Innovation
Sustainability means thinking about tomorrow already today – not only society, but also companies and, last but not least, industry. Digitization has a dual role to play here, because it offers both opportunities and challenges for a sustainable future. On the one hand, it enables more efficient processes, resource conservation and access to new technologies. On the other hand, it also brings environmental pressures due to increasing energy consumption and demand for digital infrastructure.
In the following interview we talk with Hendrik Lösch, software architect at ZEISS Digital Innovation. He is an expert in the field and has been involved in resource-efficient software development for several years. Recently, he has been an author of the Bitkom guide “Resource Efficiency in the Software Lifecycle”.
We will discuss how the software development process can affect the sustainability goals of companies and how important it is to integrate sustainability into digital planning from the outset.
Hendrik, you prefer to use the term resource efficiency rather than sustainability, why?
Resource efficiency is more concrete and measurable than the broad concept of sustainability. Sustainability involves a comprehensive approach with environmental, social and economic dimensions. In contrast, resource efficiency focuses on the targeted use of resources and is therefore more practice-oriented. It can be used to derive clearer action steps that bring both environmental and economic benefits without overloading the complexity of the whole concept of sustainability.
What are the specific resources involved in software development and where can resources be saved everywhere?
The main resources considered are the energy and hardware used. All the others can be reduced to this or can be derived from it. If we exchange hardware early, for example, this will have an impact both financially and environmentally. Financially, this can easily be quantified via the necessary investment costs; ecologically, it is somewhat more difficult, since the CO2 equivalent used must be taken into account, which is bound in the existing and newly acquired hardware.
The situation is similar with regard to the data transmitted and processed. The more data we process, the more energy and hardware we need. This statement is somewhat misleading: the considerations do not only aim at the sheer amount of data transmitted and the computing power required for this. Resource-efficient software development is particularly about identifying ways to start in the life cycle of software, in order to create leaner and more efficient solutions. Be it in the development itself, in the software test, but also in operation and maintenance.
Why is it worth addressing sustainability aspects early on and taking action?
The development process of a digital solution can be divided into the following areas of responsibility in a simplified manner: order clarification, concept work as well as development and operation. In the first step, the order clarification, the overarching perspective adopted there enables the fundamental question of resource consumption to be integrated directly into the vision.
In practice, this is too little if you just ask yourself what software needs to do, but not how it should do it. For example, I see projects being commissioned that focus primarily on low development costs and that subsequently have unnecessarily high operating costs due to inefficient use of resources. Therefore, if one considers the expected production costs already during the order clarification, this influences the concept work and automatically leads to a more efficient implementation and a more favorable operation. In this case, a low carbon footprint is more of an enjoyable side effect, which is set automatically.
You have contributed to a Bitkom guide. What do you want to achieve with it, what is your motivation?
As mentioned above, the software development process is divided into different task areas. In reality, these are often associated with different ways of thinking and working realities of the respective stakeholders. One could casually say: Sales sells, architects design, developers build, testers test, and IT operates. The question of the sustainability of a software is thus answered differently for each of these areas, the answers having a reinforcing effect on each other.
If the contract declaration does not even talk about sustainability aspects, these can only be taken into account to a limited extent in the design and thus cannot lead to sustainable solutions. The costs of this waste, however, are then increasingly incurred in the company, where they are accepted as given.
The three parts of the guide are intended to illustrate this path and demonstrate how multifaceted and complex the interconnections are. There are countless starting points to save resources and thus costs; however, the approach only becomes long-term stable and inherently sustainable when implemented in an interdisciplinary manner. We have therefore purposely addressed the respective target groups in our own guidelines to outline general measures in their language and problem areas, which should help in the creation of resource-efficient solutions.
The guide mentions interdisciplinary collaboration as the key. Who is needed to develop resource-efficient digital solutions?
First of all, all parties involved must be aware of the topic. However, requirements engineers, product owners, and software architects have the most significant influence. Requirements engineers and product owners are crucial in the clarification of tasks and work closely with stakeholders to identify requirements and formulate a clear product vision. They must continuously question the impact of the expressed requirements and understand how these requirements interact with each other.
Software architects, in contrast, are responsible for designing solutions based on these requirements. They must also provide feedback to the contracting authorities/entities on the requirements and raise awareness of their implications beyond the purely functional level. Their responsibility does not end with the design; they support the developers in the implementation and must protect the technical vision of the product from harmful influences. This includes working closely with testers and operations to verify the actual behavior of the digital solution and to determine how resource consumption is represented in practice.
What challenges do you see when implementing sustainable practices in software development?
In the past, the movement of “Sustainable Software” or “Green Software” aimed more at reducing the carbon footprint of software. This is an immensely important topic, but it also has the problem that CO2 savings is hardly an active business driver for any company. However, this situation is gradually changing due to rising electricity costs and CO2 pricing. The latter makes it possible to convert environmental costs into economic ones and thus to convert them into a primary driver. This pricing is politically conditioned and highly controversial, leading to investment uncertainty. As a result, companies often find it difficult to take appropriate savings measures.
In addition, many of the technologies we use are designed specifically to hide complexity. Cloud computing in particular is a very good example here. With just a few clicks, you can build a solution that scales globally. A lack of awareness of the real use of resources then leads to solutions being built more complex than they possibly would have to be. The environmental impacts are then outsourced to the cloud provider, but they are also paid for, via increased maintenance costs and operating costs. Since these relationships are very abstract and the considerations of the operating costs often occur subsequently, these are quickly considered to be given and then not sufficiently taken into account in future projects, as a result of which a cost cascade can arise.
Where do you think a change in mindset is still necessary to raise awareness and overcome challenges?
From the perspective of sustainable software development, it is crucial to keep both ecology and economy in mind in order to develop long-term stable and cost-efficient solutions. However, this interaction is often very abstract, which makes it difficult to communicate and to identify the actual cost drivers. For example, my previous statements did not suggest that the cloud was a bad thing. It is an excellent tool that, due to its flexibility and built-in monitoring, offers many opportunities to use only the resources that are actually needed. However, you have to be aware of these opportunities and your own needs in order to work in a truly sustainable way.
Companies can address this problem by following the ISO 25000 approach at all stages of the software development process and clearly communicating to all stakeholders the conditions under which the systems under consideration are to function. Only in this way can programmers develop solutions that consume resources in a reasonable framework and thus avoid unnecessary costs, regardless of their nature. So, rather than searching for entirely new theories, it is often enough to follow existing theories correctly and reward long-term action rather than short-term savings.
How do you see the future of software development in terms of sustainability? Which trends will be decisive in the coming years?
The saving of CO2 equivalents remains a very important issue, but due to the changing world situation it is overshadowed and increasingly enriched by other issues. This includes the integration of economic aspects and considerations on resilience and sovereignty.
Resilience is becoming increasingly important due to increasing cybercrime and the emergence of digital disruptions, as their impact can threaten the livelihood of companies. Sovereignty, in turn, is important because it influences the independence of digitized solutions and the decision-making processes associated with them. Not least because of political developments in the USA, European companies are increasingly concerned about the extent to which they themselves or their external service providers have real sovereignty over the emerging digital systems and related data.
I see this very clearly, for example, in the fact that our customers are increasingly focusing on optimizing their existing systems instead of starting new ones.
To what extent does resource efficiency play a role in these trends?
It reinforces efforts and provides a wide range of information on possible solutions. Consider data economy. This is a concept that plays a role both in the context of resource efficiency and in the sovereignty and security of software systems. The basic idea is that we should, if possible, only collect data that we can process effectively and that represent demonstrable added value for our core processes. The less data we collect, the less effort we have to store, manage, and secure it. This not only reduces energy consumption, but also minimizes potential security risks and facilitates compliance with data protection regulations.
What practical tips would you give companies that want to make their software development and the associated operation more sustainable?
Resource efficiency is not a new concept, nor is it a short-term trend. It’s about doing the right things in the right way. To this end, it is important to be clear about what these “right things” are and how to implement them effectively.
One of the easiest ways to achieve this is to pay more attention to quality features of the software when developing new products, which go beyond pure functionality. In addition, it is crucial to take into account possible operating costs in detail in the order clarification and in the design in order to adapt the solutions to the actual requirements.
These considerations can also be applied to existing systems, where changes are often more complex and difficult to justify. Unless significant savings are expected. These savings will eventually have to compensate for the cost of the changes required. However, given the typical lifetime of business software, the cost of such an analysis is at least manageable. Some of the aspects to pay attention to can be derived from the previously mentioned guidelines.
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