Three questions for Yelle Lieder
Yelle Lieder is product manager for adesso SE at ECO:DIGIT.
What role does adesso play in the ECO:DIGIT project and what tasks are associated with it?
adesso plays a central role in ECO:DIGIT due to its expertise in software development and its competence in the design and development of large software systems. The main tasks include the development of the core system that performs measurements, analyzes data, and provides results. Additionally, we have extensive experience in the area of Green IT and Green Software, particularly in measuring and evaluating the sustainability of software and the existing tool landscape. As the initiator of the project, adesso responded to the shortcomings of existing tools in customer projects and decided to develop its own solution.
What are the (technical) challenges involved?
There are many challenges we need to address. On the one hand, the scientific question is, of course, important, but user experience (UX) also plays a significant role. We want the solution to integrate seamlessly into existing workflows so that users can make quick and informed decisions. This includes considering interfaces with existing tools, the format for data provision and maintenance, as well as the design of a user-friendly graphical user interface. Furthermore, the results must be presented in a way that they can be understood by the relevant stakeholders and make transparent which data has been measured in order to avoid greenwashing. The support of different operating environments – such as cloud and mobile – as well as the lack of transparency in the infrastructure between client and server devices also presents certain challenges.
And what makes ECO:DIGIT unique?
The project is unique because of its combination of automated life cycle assessment and consideration of distributed systems. Most existing tools on the market fail to address one of these dimensions (automated, complete life cycle assessment, distributed systems) properly. Our solution, however, looks at entire systems, not just individual components or processes. It automatically creates a complete life cycle assessment of distributed systems, including all components, and also considers the ecological production costs of the underlying hardware, as well as the environmental impact of the involved network infrastructure. In short: the automated life cycle assessment of distributed software systems makes ECO:DIGIT unique.
