Energy efficiency parameters of software development components and tools, and preliminary work on establishing a label for energy-efficient software

The project known under the acronym SoftAWERE ("Software Architecture Tools for Energy-Efficient and Resource Efficient Development"; German: “Software Architektur-Werkzeuge für energieeffiziente und ressourcenschonende Entwicklung”) aims to provide more transparency in the energy and resource consumption of software and to develop measurement tools to minimise environmental impacts already during development. The SoftAWERE project, commissioned by the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) and led by the SDIA ("Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance e.V."), focusses on the following challenges: Development of tools that support software developers in programming energy-efficient and hardware-saving software, evaluation of the energy and resource efficiency of software, testing the feasibility of labelling energy- and resource-efficient software, raising awareness within the software developer scene and initiating a broader discourse on the sustainability of software. Oeko-Institut supports the project in developing methods for the environmental assessment of software and in the scientific evaluation of the measurement tools.