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Introduction
Computing is becoming an increasingly integral part of our lives. At the same time, information and communication technology (ICT) is currently responsible for 4% of global carbon emissions as well as other detrimental environmental impacts (water usage, electronic waste, …).
“Sustainable Computing Systems” (SCS) is a course designed to introduce computer science students to two things: a) environmental impacts of computing systems as well as b) approaches to reduce and mitigate these impacts.
(Preliminary) Curriculum
The course covers three major areas, giving you practical and theoretical knowledge to create, maintain, and advance sustainable computing systems, which are essential for today's world. We will answer the following questions (among others) in this course:
- Fundamentals of Sustainability
- What do we care about and why should you care?
- How do we get to sustainable action?
- General Sustainable Computing
- How do computing systems have an environmental impact?
- How are computing systems organized and where do these impacts happen?
- What are the important metrics? e.g. Time, Energy, Carbon, PUE, SCI, ...
- Practical Approaches to Make Computing Sustainable (Again)
- How can we make software development produce more sustainable software?
- How can we green AI and web applications?
- What has to change with respect to hardware?
- How can networked applications become more sustainable and what do we need from the operating system for that?
- How can I trade dependability for sustainability? Can I have a bit of both at the same time?
Organization
- Credit Points: 6 CP
- Audience: Students at any stage in their studies who want to know about computing's sustainability
- Passing Criteria: Written Exam
- Schedule:
- Presence Period: Mo, 7th until Fr, 25th September 2026 (three full weeks)
- Active Plenum:
- Every morning in E1.3 HS003 at 10:00 s.t. - 11:30
- Come with reading done and questions prepared - this is NOT a lecture, except for the very first slot.
- Office Hours:
- Every afternoon in E1.3 SR016 13:00 s.t. - 14:30
- Join an open space to work on the material, collaborate with others, and ask questions.
- Exam
- When? Soon after the presence phase.
- How? Written. Allowed materials are pens and (to be confirmed) a pocket calculator.
- Material / Language:
- Material is in English and provided in the form of a web-based living coursebook (including code fragments, videos, etc.)
- Instructors and tutors speak German (gerne bei Problemen auf Deutsch Fragen stellen und Antworten bekommen)
- Requisites:
- No prior sustainability knowledge is needed.
- Elementary programming skills required (e.g., Programmierung 2 or comparable).