A specification addressing the challenges of measuring Artificial intelligence carbon emissions
Created and managed by the Software Standards Working Group in the Green Software Foundation.
The purpose of this proposed specification is to assist AI practitioners—developers, data scientists, engineers, and decision-makers—in understanding and reducing the carbon footprint of AI systems. By making informed choices about model design, computational efficiency, and deployment strategies, practitioners can minimize emissions while maintaining performance.
We will develop a methodology for calculating the carbon emissions rate (SCI score) of AI software systems, including both classical AI and generative AI applications. This specification aims to provide a reliable, consistent, and comparable measure that practitioners can use to set targets and track progress in reducing carbon emissions throughout the AI lifecycle—from development and training to deployment and inference.
The project is led by:
This is a pre-draft Standard and has not been approved or adopted by the Green Software Foundation. this pre-draft may not be relied upon for any purpose other than review of the current state of development.
This project entered the Green Software Foundation on 20 November 2024 [proposal].
Standard WG projects are copyrighted under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.
Software Standard WG projects are licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.
Software Standard WG projects operate under the W3C Patent Mode.
