Press Release

Deloitte India unveils groundbreaking Enterprise Conscious Code initiative

Leading the way for sustainable, inclusive, and accessible software development

It aims to cut up to 30% of the emissions responsible by software alone.

 

Deloitte India today announced the launch of a revolutionary endeavour, Enterprise Conscious Code (ECC), at the World Economic Forum in Davos. This cutting-edge initiative marks a significant leap towards sustainable and responsible software development, supporting global efforts to reduce carbon footprint, increase energy consciousness, and ensure accessibility for everyone.

The Enterprise Conscious Code combines everything a company needs – the triple Ps of the bottom line – people, planet, and profits. ECC offers ways to build eco-friendly software, promoting the use of techniques that contribute to a greener Planet. Currently, about 3% of the world’s carbon emissions are attributed to the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector[i], equivalent to roughly 1.58 billion tons per year. Within this 3%, ECC has the potential to reduce up to 30% of the emissions attributed solely to software, which is a significant reduction in power consumption and storage, leading to direct cost savings.

On the People front, a crucial aspect that needs increased attention today is building software with the conscious intent to be inclusive of individuals with diverse abilities. These include those with specific challenges such as astigmatism and colour blindness, which can significantly impede software usability. ECC strives to make the sustainable digital revolution accessible to everyone, contributing to organisations’ Profits by efficiently managing costs.

Romal Shetty, CEO, Deloitte South Asia said, “We are proud to introduce this new initiative, as a testament to our commitment towards sustainable growth of the technology industry. Innovation must go hand in hand with our responsibility to minimise the environmental impact of technology. By embracing such conscious practices, we aim to lead the way in creating software solutions that not only meet the highest standards of performance but also contribute to a greener and more inclusive future.”

ECC aims to derive a set of metrics with fully automated tools and frameworks that specifically calculate the carbon footprint of an organisation’s technology ecosystem. Currently, most global organisations do not track or hold themselves accountable for such emissions. ECC will provide automated tools to:

  1. Measure the carbon footprint of the company’s digital landscape,
  2. Analyse the bottlenecks and provide a green health score/index/debt and accessibility score of the company, and
  3. Recommend possible correction measures and the right software code versions to increase savings and reduce emissions.

Overlooked software emissions

Emissions from core software often go unnoticed, quietly adding to greenhouse gases. Globally, for example, there are over 1 billion active websites, with 200 million in India alone. Deloitte India analysed popular Indian websites, revealing that each website emits, on average, CO2 equivalent to a petrol car covering 10km per user, assuming all pages are viewed. This is also equivalent to CO2 absorbed by nearly 20 trees per day.

Software not only means websites, but it also encompasses all the digital assets of the world – enterprise applications, mobile applications, content management systems, the internet of things and more.

Similar metrics can be derived for all such digital assets in totality. The numbers would be exponential.

Employing efficient compression techniques reduces the overall cost of storage either on-premise or on the cloud drastically. We have seen that utilising our techniques of compressing files has resulted in more than 80% lossless reduction in size.

“As digitisation gets more integrated into our day-to-day, the widespread use of software, both active and legacy, can lead to an unmanageable technical debt if not managed well. This also contributes heavily to the carbon footprint. ECC aims to provide techniques to manage this debt responsibly through advanced frameworks and tools specifically engineered to identify energy bottlenecks in the diverse software landscape”, added Romal Shetty.