Doing for sustainability, what open source did for software
summary
Impact Framework is an open source CLI that converts observable telemetry (CPU utilization, page views, installs, prompts) described in a YAML manifest file into auditable environmental impacts (energy, carbon, water) using a pluggable pipeline of plugins (examples: TDP→energy curve, Wattime grid-carbon lookup at ~369 gCO2/kWh, operational-carbon multiplier). Manifests grow large (examples: 13–48 MB across thousands of servers), a recent hackathon produced 50–60 plugins (water, social cost, displacement, even estimated deaths), and the Software Carbon Intensity work is moving to ISO standardization. Impact Framework yields transparent, diffable, reproducible impact claims.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction and welcome
- 1:14Power and its asymmetry
- 3:00Measurement as a tool of power
- 10:04Historical examples of measurement
- 15:45Carbon footprint and power shift
- 19:02Introducing the Impact Framework
- 21:29How the Impact Framework works
- 27:10Standards and open source impact
- 30:24Sci-Fi Day and open source future
- 32:53Call to action and conclusion
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