Green AppDev: Secure the code, save the planet

Make AppDev greener by reviewing your energy consumption points and development processes

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Eldad Assis
Eldad Assis
11/28/2024

Green technology

Application development (AppDev) is a significant energy consumer, from vast data centers to the countless individual machines used by engineers worldwide to build cutting-edge software. To reduce carbon footprint while sustaining innovation, it’s pivotal to examine not only the physical and virtual infrastructure but also the organizational strategies in AppDev processes.

To make your applications greener, you need to consider both your energy consumption points and your development processes to address your footprint comprehensively.

In this article, we’ll delve into three areas – dependency and build management, tool consolidation and security and efficiency – where organizations can cut down their energy use while speeding up software delivery.

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Building greener foundations with build management

An often-overlooked part of the software development life cycle (SDLC) is the extensive and sometimes intricate software supply chain that supports development. For instance, developers frequently use free and open-source software (FOSS) libraries for efficiency, which can increase energy demand. How? Some development teams work on the same software and repeatedly pull the same transitive dependencies multiple times a day. FOSS libraries often include transitive dependencies ranging from one to hundreds of components, leading to significant bandwidth, storage and utility usage for repetitive tasks.

Moreover, most current software development relies on continuous integration (CI) tools, which also ingest both direct and transitive dependencies for building software, further consuming bandwidth and energy from external resources.


Watch Sangeeta Krishnan, seniir analytics lead at Bayer, discuss consolidating tools for better efficiency


A simple solution

If repeatedly pulling from external sources is inefficient, using a centralized binary and dependency management tool can reduce this need and allow teams worldwide to share binaries. More companies are adopting a binary-first approach to software development, enhancing the consistency and speed of getting new applications into production. This straightforward step ensures all team members and CI tools use the same set of dependencies, reducing the total number of dependency pulls and their resulting energy demand at both organizational and individual levels.

Enhancing energy efficiency by reducing security tool sprawl

In a typical company, you may find that different divisions use various application security tools either due to choice, legacy systems or lack of communication and alignment between departments and teams. This siloed approach leads to tool sprawl, causing maintenance issues and consuming unnecessary energy. According to the JFrog State of the Union Report, nearly half (47 percent) of IT professionals use between four and nine security tools today.

To avoid redundancy and rising IT and energy costs, developer team leaders should consider tool consolidation or having a third party manage their developer tech stack. Using multiple tools requires regular maintenance, patching, upgrading and scaling machines, consuming human and energy resources.

By having a holistic view of all software development pipelines, developers can ensure their code meets security and sustainability standards. The shift-left approach acts as a powerful magnet, catching any issues before they enter the development process.


Watch Lisa Williams, global operations talent strategy and employee experience director, manufacturing and engineering operations at Dow, reflect on embracing new technology


Secure software development for a greener future

Inefficient code and AppDev processes consume excess energy within organizations today. The mantra of “build once, use many” remains relevant as developers streamline their code to be efficient and environmentally friendly, saving resources during the different stages of the SDLC. It’s crucial to remember that outdated approaches not only impact the environment but also increase security risks and slow innovation.

Implementing key green coding concepts will have varying levels of impact, amplified by the scale of adoption. New approaches and considerations, especially with emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) operations (AIOps), will take time to assess for their full energy requirements and security risks before the industry can confidently offer new guidelines for green coding compliance.

Ultimately, it’s up to software innovators, developers, security teams and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) officers to be mindful of the cause and committed to making it a goal for their organizations, leading to meaningful change.

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