Green IO Newsletter - June 2026

Building a greener digital world, one byte at a time

Hello responsible technologist!

Picture five very different people in one room: an MIT researcher studying urban planning, an author writing about Web sustainability, an IT procurement lead from a major city, a couple of open-source maintainers, and an ex-GAFAM worker in sustainability.

Beyond all speaking at a Green IO event this year, here's what they share: they struggle, they stay lucid, and they keep moving.

Those three verbs are exactly how I'd sum up the first half of the year — and Green IO Munich, which wrapped last week, proved all three at once.

Struggling: GenAI is crowding out sustainability, in real time

We all know this in theory. Seeing it in Singapore or the US makes it visceral. AI is in the subway ads, in every deck, in every official's opening line. Every speaker pointed to the same shift: attention and budget moving from sustainability to AI, fast. Big Tech's own sustainability reports show the disengagement plainly. Here's the number that should worry us: a 20% year-on-year increase means Big Tech's emissions double by the end of this decade — and multiply tenfold by the end of the next one.

Staying lucid: context matters more than ever

• Geographically: Europe is debating how to scale Tech sustainability, while the US and Singapore debate how to make AI "sustainable enough." Meanwhile other regions are raising a different alarm entirely — unequal access to compute, yet another global inequality.

• On use cases: GenAI was forced down our throats, and many responsible technologists have rejected it radically as a result — arguing that GenAI is inherently bad and should be stopped. But the dust is settling, and some "AI for good" use cases genuinely hold up. We owe it to the field to assess them properly: full lifecycle impact (training included), rebound-effect analysis, and science-based scrutiny of the claimed benefits — not marketing math. And we owe it to the planet to discard the others.

• Economically and technically: a financial crash and a technological crash aren't the same event. Will the GenAI bubble burst? Yes, eventually — because much of the demand doesn't actually exist; because business models keep ignoring model commoditisation and the pattern we've seen before (open source starts behind, then wins on infrastructure — see Kubernetes, or Linux, now running over 60% of Azure's compute cores); and because every stock valuation is, ultimately, a claim on energy we don't have enough of. Will the underlying technology disappear? No — its potential in IT is real and worth taking seriously. And we already have the tools to run these models far more efficiently and rein in the rebound effect: not every line of code needs writing, not every video needs generating.

Moving forward: some battles are being won

Responsible technologists are not retreating — quite the contrary — but we don't advertise this enough. The data is improving, thanks to researchers and analysts doing the unglamorous work of creating knowledge and commons. Plenty is happening inside organisations — it's just not being talked about. Greenhushing means real progress goes unannounced. Finding allies matters more than ever, and there are more of them than it feels like. Reasons for hope keep showing up: new, more efficient models; token prices finally rising to reflect real costs; users pushing back on features nobody asked for; communities pushing back on data centres near them.

A personal note

How am I doing with all of this, running Green IO?
Same as above: I struggle, I try to stay lucid, and I keep moving.

I went through burnout this past quarter. I didn't recognise it at first — it wasn't one big blow, it was more "death by a thousand cuts". And there were plenty: friends stepping away from the sustainability field, a podcast pipeline that broke down, a steady rise in LinkedIn messages and emails to answer, another conference added, etc. None of it dramatic on its own. All of it, added together, was a lot.

In hindsight, it was foreseeable: better automation, streamlined processes, and asking for help earlier would have caught it sooner. This is now ongoing, with positive effects.

Where I am now: tired, but carried by this community's support — and refocusing on what's next: resuming the podcast and delivering our two biggest conferences of the year, London and Paris. Paris especially — with its European track welcoming speakers from 20+ countries — is the moment for the whole European ecosystem to gather in one place.

Still time to be part of it — our CFP is still open.

Gaël

PS. The next newsletter is scheduled for the end of August. (Almost) time for the summer / mid year break!

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What’s been happening lately in the Green IO community?

🎙️ Podcast episodes

#E79 AI & Sustainability: follow the money! with with Boris Gamazaychikov and Sasha Luccioni Watch | Listen

#E78 Can AI be applied for Sustainability? It’s complicated… with Jeremy Tamanini Watch | Listen

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🔔 Never miss an episode!

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🎤 Green IO conferences in 2026

Got something to share? We welcome inspirational talks, new research, latest use cases, new tools … CFP are still open for Green IO London and Paris!

London, Sept. 30^th - Oct. 1^st
“Follow the energy” is this year’s theme for the n°1 Green IT conference in the UK. Save the date! Apply to be a speaker here, get your early bird tickets here.

Paris, Dec. 2^nd - Dec 3^rd
Big news! Green IO Paris doubles its size in 2026 with 2 tracks: an English-speaking and a brand new French-speaking one. Two languages. One mission. Expect another edition with a wide European line-up as well as the entire French ecosystem. The call for speakers is now officially open - apply here! Early bird tickets are available here.

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Do you want to volunteer at Green IO?

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# Couldn’t attend? # Listen # Read # Tools # Study # Participate # Attend

What else has popped up on our Tech & Sustainability radar?

Listen… We’re all ears

Another couple of great TWiGS episodes this month : E147 TWiGS Turning Green Standards into Code; and TWiGS E146 Watts that Smell exploring how sustainability can be built directly into the software development process. Plus, EV E149 gives the low down on how modelling can help build a fossil free internet and power grid.

O+O E368 digs deep this month, asking thorny questions on who is really paying for the AI datacenter boom.

# Read… Our coffee-break reading this month

The Tech Sovereignty package is a timely release from the EC, as the US hits the ‘kill switch’, restricting foreign access to Anthropic’s AI systems, and OpenAI staggers the release of GPT 5.6. This package includes two legislative proposals: the Chips Act 2.0 and the Cloud and AI Development Act as well as the the EU Open Source Strategy and a Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy.

The UNU INWEH has released a sizeable report on the Environmental Cost of AI : Carbon, Water and Land footprints, on the back of which UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative, to push major AI companies (private sector) to publicly disclose all environmental impacts of their systems, and commit to powering all data centers with renewable energy by 2030. And the Pro-Human AI Declaration is an interesting approach from the American NFP Future of Life Institute, whose goal is to reduce extreme large-scale risks from transformative technologies. The Climate Action Coalition report Net Benefit AI: Scaling Solutions, Opening Opportunities. Defining the responsible role for AI in the energy transition was launched at London Climate week. Plus, an interesting pitch for an AI Sustainability Rating framework.

In the mean time, China moves forward on a wind powered underwater datacenter (but what about the marine footprint?), plus an analysis by The Guardian newspaper confirms that the majority of new data centers in the US are built in drought zones - if you are interested in tracking US data centers (and power projects) from the first permit to final completion, the Cleanview website is a good place to start.

Google has published its new water stewardship commitments, plus NVIDIA unveiled its Rubin generation of AI infrastructure, claiming it is the world’s first to achieve 100% liquid cooling for datacenters. So, if energy efficiency will be up & water use will be down, only time will tell whether this development will generate a massive rebound effect or not…

And lastly, a very sobering reminder of the impacts of global supply and demand, as the mining of rare earth minerals is linked to increased outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus.

# Tools… Skill-up for a sustainable future

The collaboration GenAI Footprint Alliance has released an open source methodology for assessing the environmental footprint of AI-generated videos.

# Study… We’re never too old to learn

Several studies well worth the read, including those hot off the press from recent Green IO conference presentations :

• The full TNO / Resilio report : Assessing the life cycle environmental impact of Dutch ICT in 2024: baseline and intervention modeling;

• AI-Powered Microgrids - The Path Toward Coupling Economic and Environmental Benefits;

• Counting own goals: High-level assessment of the economic relationship between the ICT and the Oil and Gas sectors and its environmental implications.

# Participate… One byte at a time

Should we have infrastructure that follows the cleanest grid ? The Shift Project launches a survey asking why most cloud workloads continue to run in regions with dirtier grids - participate here.

Share your thoughts via a CAT survey about which climate problems and solutions are most worth their attention. Results will be used to determine public-facing positions that CAT takes on climate issues.

Learn more about the GSF Software Water Intensity Project, which aims to develop a consistent way to measure and reduce software’s water footprint - contact the Working Group via : standards-wg@greensoftware.foundation.

# Attend… Meet fellow responsible technologists

Agilists4Planet, 9-10 July 2026, Online

ICSCSS 2026 22-24 July 2026, Coimbatore (IND)

GWF Environmental Impacts of AI, July 29 2026 (on-line)

Green IT Days, 10 September 2026, Montpellier (FR)

SuSI Summit, 7 October 2026, Munich (DE)

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One last positive thought!

A battery powered by bacteria, using microbes in the soil to generate power. May the force of nature be with you ⚔️.