Sustainable Software Engineering 🌱

Edition of 2025/26
MSc Computer Science and MSc Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Technology, Delft University of Technology

Sustainable Software Engineering is an overarching discipline that addresses the long-term consequences of designing, building, and releasing a software project. By definition, sustainability covers five main perspectives: environmental, social, individual, economic, technical. This course focuses on the first three.

Software Engineering (SE) has long addressed sustainability by narrowing it down to economical and technical sustainability. However, our society is facing major sustainability challenges that can no longer be overlooked by software engineers and computer scientists. It was estimated that, by 2040, the ICT sector will contribute to 14% of the global carbon footprint. Hence, environmental, social, and individual ought to be part of the equation when it comes to design, build, and release software systems. The problem is far from simple, but we need expert computer scientists to bring sustainability into the core values of the next generation of tech-leading organisations.

This course covers a set of competencies needed to leverage sustainable software systems. It has a strong component on Green SE, covering techniques to measure and improve the energy-efficiency at any stage of the software lifecycle. Students learn state-of-the-art practices on energy efficiency and apply them in real software projects. Moreover, the course will cover core principles of empirical software engineering, and social and individual sustainability.

Organisation

Course code	CS4575
Brightspace 🔒	Brightspace
Instructors	Luís Cruz, Carolin Brandt, Enrique Barba Roque
Schedule	Mondays 8:45, Wednesdays 8:45, Thursdays 10:45. 🔗 MyTimetable.
Mattermost	Sign Up Link.
ECTS	5.0
Quarter	Q3
Format	Classes are optimised for in-person attendance.
Examination type	Group Project 1 (40%); Group Project 2 (60%).
Target audience	Students of the MSc Computer Science and the MSc Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Technology.
Requirements	- Intermediate understanding of OOP languages; - Basic understanding of data analysis techniques.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• LO1. Explain the fundamental sustainability principles and their relevance to software engineering.
• LO2. Assess the energy consumption of software systems using measurement and testing techniques.
• LO3. Create actionable strategies to address sustainability issues within software organisations.
• LO4. Evaluate solutions for sustainable software systems based on their effectiveness in achieving sustainability goals and their potential impact on various stakeholders.

Outline

⚠️ Please note: The following outline is subject to changes; Recordings are available through Collegerama. Please refer to the timetable for times and up-to-date lecture locations.

Week	Day	Date	Summary	Slides
1	Mon	09-02-2026	Lecture. Course introduction. Sustainable Software: What, Why and How.	📊Slides
1	Wed	11-02-2026	Lecture. Social and Individual Sustainability.	📊Slides
1	Thu	12-02-2026	Lab. Measuring software energy consumption. Introduction to Project 1.	📊Slides
2	Mon	16-02-2026	Lecture. Green Software Engineering — Part I: Scientific guide for reliable energy measurements.	📊Slides
2	Wed	18-02-2026	Lecture. Green Software Engineering — Part II: units of energy.	[📊Slides][tbd]
2	Thu	19-02-2026	Project. Project 1 - steering meeting and formative assessment.
3	Mon	23-02-2026	Lecture. Green Software Engineering — Part III: Energy efficiency in mobile computing; carbon-aware data centres.	[📊Slides][tbd]
3	Wed	25-02-2026	Guest Lecture. GreenPT
3	Thu	26-02-2026	Project. Project 1 - steering meeting.
3	Fri	27-02-2026	⏰ Deadline for Project 1 Friday, Feb 27.
4	Mon	02-03-2026	Lecture. Green AI.	[📊Slides][tbd]
4	Wed	04-03-2026	Hands-on Workshop. Sustainability Awareness Framework	[📊Workbook][tbd]
4	Thu	05-03-2026	Project. Project 2 - Workshop Topics
5			Project 2 - steering meeting 1.
6			Project 2 - steering meeting 2.
7			Project 2 - steering meeting 3.
8			Project 2 - steering meeting 4.
8	Thu	02-04-2026	⏰ Submission Deadline Project 2 – April 2.
9	Tue/Wed	07-04-2026/08-04-2026	Presentations + Q&A Project 2 – April 7 + 8.

Assignments

Below the description of each project.

🛠 Project 1 – Measuring Software Energy Consumption

• Goal: Compare energy consumption in common software use cases.
  • Examples:
    • Different versions of the same app;
      • Same use case but different apps
      • Same version, same app, but different user settings (e.g., enable/disable GPU optimisation)
      • Same version, same app, but different running environment
• Blog-style report (markdown, approx 2500 words).
  • Bonus if you can automate the experiment and there is a replication package.
• Groups of 4, randomly assigned. Sign up to our Brightspace course until Feb 9 to be assigned a group
• Submission by pull request to the website. Instructions for Project 1 here.
  • Deadline for initial pull request with topic description: Feb 12
  • Blog-style report (markdown, approx 2500 words).
  • Replication package.
  • Buddycheck for P1 (via Brightspace)
• Weight in final grade: 40%
• Deadline Friday, Feb 28

🛠 Project 2 – Hacking Sustainability

• Goal: Solve a Sustainable Software Engineering problem.
  • Identify/Describe 1 problem that should be fixed to help enabling sustainability in the software engineering industry/community. You can reuse ideas from the slides.
  • Propose a solution. It can be a tool, framework, guidelines, etc.
  • Implement the solution.
  • Validation. (Depending on the idea)
  • Dissemination/social impact. (E.g., solution should be open source, welcome contributors, post on social media, tool website, available in package managers, etc.)
• Groups of 5, self-chosen. Join the Workshop in Week 4 to find / finalize your group and topic idea.
• Steering meeting/formative assessments: Every week from week 5 to 8.
• Submission by pull request to the website. Instructions for Project 2 here.
  • Deadline for initial pull request with topic description: Mar 5
  • Deliverables in final submission.
    • Paper-like article. (Min 4 pages, max 10)
    • Online git repo with open source codebase and/or replication package.
    • 3 minute vertical video as presentation + 5 min Q&A
• Weight in final grade: 60%
• Deadline Thursday, April 2, 2026
  • Paper + Artifact Submission (via pull request)
  • Video Submission (via Brightspace)
  • Buddychcek for P2 (via Brightspace)
  • Presentation & Q&A: Tuesday & Wednesday, Apr 7 and 8.

Further reading (optional)

• Cruz, L., de Bekker, P. (2023) All you need to know about Energy Metrics in Software Engineering.
• Wohlin, C., Runeson, P., Höst, M., Ohlsson, M. C., Regnell, B., & Wesslén, A. (2012). Experimentation in software engineering. Springer Science & Business Media.
• Cruz, L., & Abreu, R. (2017, May). Performance-based guidelines for energy efficient mobile applications. In 2017 IEEE/ACM 4th International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems (MOBILESoft) (pp. 46-57). IEEE.
• Cruz, L., & Abreu, R. (2019). Catalog of energy patterns for mobile applications. Empirical Software Engineering, 24(4), 2209-2235.
• Stol, K. J., & Fitzgerald, B. (2018). The ABC of software engineering research. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), 27(3), 1-51.
• Spinellis, Diomidis (2017). The Social Responsibility of Software Development. IEEE Software.

Interesting pointers

• EnergiBridge - Tool to measure energy consumption from almost any device.
• Principles of Sustainable Software Engineering
• CAT community
• Energy Patterns for Mobile Apps.
• Branch Magazine.
• Green Software Lab
• Website Carbon Calculator
• Carbon Tracker
• Greenpeace — Europe’s Green Recovery As if the planet mattered
• Green TU