Impact Framework (GSF)
An open-source tool to measure the environmental impacts of software.
Overview
The Impact Framework (IF) is an open-source measurement tool from the Green Software Foundation. It is designed to calculate a software application's environmental impacts, including carbon, energy, water, and more. It works by taking observable data about a running system (like CPU utilization or API calls) and converting them into environmental impacts using a transparent and extensible pipeline of plugins. The results are stored in a manifest file, ensuring the calculation is auditable, replicable, and verifiable.
✨ Key Features
- Calculates multiple environmental impacts (carbon, energy, water, etc.)
- Extensible plugin-based architecture
- Takes simple, observable metrics as inputs
- Produces a transparent and auditable manifest file
- Decentralizes measurement, allowing for custom models and plugins
🎯 Key Differentiators
- Measures more than just carbon (energy, water, etc.)
- Highly extensible and transparent plugin model
- Focus on auditable and verifiable calculations via the manifest file
Unique Value: Provides a transparent, verifiable, and extensible open-source framework to measure a wide range of software's environmental impacts, beyond just carbon.
🎯 Use Cases (4)
✅ Best For
- Used in hackathons (like Carbon Hack 24) to measure project impacts
- Calculating carbon emissions from CPU utilization data
💡 Check With Vendor
Verify these considerations match your specific requirements:
- Enterprise-wide, automated ESG reporting (it's a component-level tool)
- Users who want a simple, out-of-the-box dashboard without configuration
🏆 Alternatives
Unlike tools focused only on cloud carbon, IF is designed to be a universal, multi-impact measurement framework for any software component, based on a transparent, verifiable calculation process.
💻 Platforms
✅ Offline Mode Available
🔌 Integrations
💰 Pricing
Free tier: Fully open-source and free to use.
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