The 1st International Workshop on Low Carbon Computing (LOCO 2024) will bring together researchers and practitioners with a keen interest in low carbon and sustainable computing. The workshop will provide a forum for sharing new ideas, for presenting ongoing work and early results, as well as for bringing forward well-founded criticism.

LOCO 2024 is an initiative of the Scottish Programming Languages Institute (SPLI), supported by the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA), and was inspired by the Programming for the Planet (PROPL) workshop.

The workshop is either on line or in-person both for speakers and attendees. You can deliver your talk either on line or in person.

The workshop will be held on 3 December 2024 at the Advanced Research Centre of the University of Glasgow. The room is designed for hybrid events and well-ventilated. The building entire building has state-of-the-art accessibility provisions and is well-ventilated.

We want to make LOCO an inclusive and welcoming event. Please get in touch if we can do anything to make participation easier for you.

All participants are expected to adhere to the LOCO Code of Conduct.

To ensure wide and flexible access, we plan to record all workshop sessions and make the video recordings available on this website after the workshop has taken place.

The carbon footprint of ICT is rising despite the urgent need to decarbonise society and to stay within planetary tolerance levels. The operational and embodied carbon emissions from ICT are estimated to already contribute 2 to 3 percent of the global emissions – very much rivalling aviation – and ICT’s footprint is expected to rise further over the next decades. This development is due to major computing trends such as AI/ML, Big Data, and the Internet of Things, and this growth in emissions from computing is unsustainable.

The LOCO workshop aims to provide a forum for ideas, work, and criticism that aims to reduce the emissions from computing. We invite researchers and practitioners across research areas and application domains to take part and contribute to our workshop.

The main focus of the workshop is on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from computing. However, computing science research and practice that helps to reduce other emissions or to mitigate the effects of climate change in another way is also in scope.

We welcome submissions that describe new ideas and visions, just as much as reports describing ongoing work, completed projects, and practical tools. In addition, we also welcome work that uncovers and criticises significant problems with established ways and emerging trends.

• Measurements, testbeds, and simulation
  • carbon footprint estimation methodologies for compute resources and software systems
  • testbeds for sustainable and low carbon computing methods (e.g. co-simulation of computing and energy systems, hybrid testbeds, emulation)
• Sustainable software engineering
  • practices and tools for low carbon and sustainable software engineering
• Energy efficiency
  • energy-efficient programming languages and compilers (e.g. resource-aware type systems, low-overhead language implementations, energy-efficient compilation to heterogeneous systems)
  • energy-efficiency of applications, e.g. green AI/ML, big data analytics, search
• Hardware efficiency
  • cloud computing and virtualisation techniques to efficiently share compute resources
  • edge computing and other locality-aware approaches to reduce resource usage, energy consumption, and carbon emissions
  • load balancing, resource allocation, scheduling and placement, as well as other compute resource management mechanisms to improve resource usage
• Carbon awareness
  • carbon-aware and grid-aware load migration, time shifting, and scaling mechanisms
  • energy-efficient and carbon-aware networking
  • carbon-aware data centre design and operation
• Embodied carbon and circular economy
  • methods for extending the useful life of compute resources (e.g. reliable monitoring and early-warning systems for long-living hardware)
  • low-carbon and sustainable data storage and caching
  • circular economy: compute resource reuse and recycling
• Frugal computing
  • frugality/sufficiency, demand reduction, degrowth computing
  • human-computer interaction that encourages considerate use of ultimately limited computing resources
  • sociological and economical aspects of low-carbon computing, e.g. end-user behaviour, business models
• Computing for climate science, other scientific computing, and energy informatics
  • effective programming and efficient execution of software for climate science
  • sustainable scientific computing and workflow management
  • methods and tools for forecasting weather and energy availability

Normal talks: extended abstract with optional post-workshop full paper (SUBMISSION NOW CLOSED)

We follow a post-proceeding model: Authors initially submit an extended abstract of up to 2 pages, plus references. Authors of accepted extended abstracts will be expected to present at the workshop (in person or online) and will afterwards be invited to submit full workshop papers of up to 8 pages, plus references. Full workshop paper submissions will be reviewed again and, where possible, we will assign the same reviewers as for the extended abstracts. Where authors of accepted extended abstracts choose not to submit a full workshop paper, we will include the extended abstracts in our post-proceedings.

Lightning talks: short abstracts

In addition to the normal talks, there will be a lightning talk session with talks of no more than five minutes — back to back. Authors submit a short abstract of no more than 1 page (plus references). These will be reviewed separately from the extended abstracts, and the review criteria are more relaxed. Short abstracts of accepted lightning talks will be included in the workshop proceedings unless authors choose to omit them.

Submission info and and template

All papers should be original work by the authors and use the ACM sigconf double-column format or a similar format, more details here.

If you use the ACM template, please remove the ACM copyright information and CCS concepts. You can find useful instructions on how to remove the ACM branding from the sample-sigconf.tex source code on the website of the LIMITs workshops.

All papers will be made freely available on our website. The copyright will remain with the authors. However, we are encouraging workshop paper authors to include a CC license statement in their paper. If authors submit their paper on arXiv, they will be included in the arXiv-based Proceedings.

Submissions should be made via EasyChair.

Review process and criteria

Reviewing will be non-blind: Authors should include their names, affiliations, and contact information, and reviews will include reviewer names. Each paper will be reviewed by several members of the PC and reviews will be handled via EasyChair. The review criteria are:

• novelty
• rigour
• significance and fit to the topic

Website & Publicity Chairs

• Philipp Wiesner, Technische Universität Berlin
• Demetris Trihinas, University of Nicosia

Local Organization Chair

• Yehia Elkhatib, University of Glasgow

Financial Chair

• Nikela Papadopoulou, University of Glasgow
• Cristian Urlea, University of Glasgow

Hybrid Running Chairs

• Syed Waqar Nabi, University of Glasgow
• Amjad Ullah, Edinburgh Napier University

Lightning Talk Chairs

• Tim Storer, University of Glasgow
• Abdessalam Elhabbash, University of Lancaster

Registration Chair

• Chrissy Sanachan, SICSA

Proceedings Chair

• Jose Cano Reyes, University of Glasgow

Program Committee

• Lorenzo Angeli, Università di Trento
• Mohit Arora, BBC & King’s College London
• Noman Bashir, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Ivona Brandić, Vienna University of Technology
• Matthew Chalmers, University of Glasgow
• Ruzanna Chitchyan, University of Bristol
• Neil Chue Hong, Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre
• Tim Cowlishaw
• Istvan David, McMaster University
• Pierre-Alain Fayolle, The University of Aizu
• Adrian Friday, Lancaster University
• Levin Fritz
• Bruno García A. da V., Universidad de Chile
• Saeid Ghafouri, Queen’s University Belfast
• Paul Harvey, University of Glasgow
• Timo Hönig, Ruhr University Bochum
• Brendan Howell, Independent Artist & Reluctant Engineer
• Anish Jindal, Durham University
• Sven Köhler, Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam
• Loïc Lannelongue, University of Cambridge
• Ulf Leser, Humboldt University of Berlin
• Clarissa Littler, Portland Community College
• Hans-Wolfgang Loidl, Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh
• Anil Madhavapeddy, University of Cambridge
• Lionel Morel, Université de Lyon
• Dominic Orchard, University of Kent
• Nikela Papadopoulou University of Glasgow
• Daniel Schien, University of Bristol
• Mike Sheldon, AgAnalyst Ltd
• Moysis Symeonidis, University of Cyprus
• Demetris Trihinas, University of Nicosia
• Andrew Turner, Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre
• Amjad Ullah, Edinburgh Napier University
• Blesson Varghese, University of St Andrews
• Ismael Velasco, Adora Foundation
• Monica Vitali, Politecnico di Milano
• Laura Voinea, University of Glasgow
• Michele Weiland, Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre
• Kelly Widdicks, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
• Philipp Wiesner, Technische Universität Berlin
• Ekaitz Zarraga, ElenQ Technology
• Noa Zilberman, University of Oxford

Programme of talks

All times are in UTC. Talks in bold are 15 minutes, other talks are 10 minutes, lightning talks are 5 minutes back-to-back.

09:00 Registration and coffee/tea

9:55-10:00 Chair’s Welcome

10:00-10:30 Keynote discussion with Anne Currie. Strategically Green, UK.  (Moderator: Andres La Riva Perez)

10:30-10:50 Session 1: Energy efficiency (Session chair: Jose Cano Reyes)

• Sustainable Systems by Sustainable Methods: A conceptual framework. Istvan David. McMaster University, Canada.
• Rebound GHG Effects in AgriTech. Matthew Broadbent and Oliver Bates. Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) + Lancaster University, UK.
• Session chair: Jose Cano Reyes

10:50-11:20 Coffee/tea break

11:20-12:10 Session 2: Carbon awareness (Session chair: Lauritz Thamsen)

• Carbon-Aware Name Resolution. Ryan Gibb, Patrick Ferris, and Anil Madhavapeddy. University of Cambridge, UK.
• MAIZX: A Carbon-Aware Framework for Optimizing Cloud Computing Emissions. Federico Ruilova, Ernst Grunnar Gran, and Sven-Arne Reinemo. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden + Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway.
• Environmentally-Conscious Cloud orchestration considering Geo-Distributed Data Centers. Giulio Attenni and Novella Bartolini. Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Italy.
• Carbon-Aware Microservice Deployment for Optimal User Experience on a Budget. Kevin Kreutz, Philipp Wiesner, and Monica Vitali. Technical University of Berlin, Germany + Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

12:10-12:15 Short break

12:15-13:00 Session 3: Frugal computing I (Session chair: Wim Vanderbauwhede)

• Lineage first computing: towards a frugal userspace for Linux. Michael Dales, Patrick Ferris, and Anil Madhavapeddy. University of Cambridge, UK.
• Exploring Privacy and Security as Drivers for Environmental Sustainability in Cloud-Based Office Solutions. Jason Kayembe, Iness Ben Guirat, and Jan Tobias Mühlberg. Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
• SlowTech LIFE project: second-hand computing devices under intermittent energy supply Gwen Samain, Olivier Michel, and Émilie Frenkiel. LS2N + UPEC, France.
• The belief in Moore’s Law is undermining ICT climate action. Adrian Friday, Christina Bremer, Oliver Bates, Christian Remy, Srinjoy Mitra, and Jan Tobias Mühlberg. Lancaster University + University of Edinburgh, UK + Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.

13:00-14:00 (Vegetarian/vegan) lunch

14:00-14:30 Keynote talk by Ayse Coskun. Boston University, USA.  (Session chair: Philipp Wiesner)

14:30-15:20 Session 4. Sustainable software engineering (Session chair: Loïc Lannelongue)

• Putting green software principals into practice. James Uther. Oliver Wyman, UK.
• Ichnos: A Carbon Footprint Estimator for Scientific Workflows. Kathleen West, Yehia Elkhatib, and Lauritz Thamsen. University of Glasgow, UK.
• Green Metrics Tool: Measuring for fun and profit. Geerd-Dietger Hoffmann and Verena Majuntke. Green Coding Solutions + HTW Berlin, Germany.
• Increasing Awareness for Energy Consumption in Jupyter Notebooks. Marcel Garus, Sven Köhler, and Andreas Polze. Hasso Plattner Institute, University of Potsdam, Germany.

15:20-15:25 Short break

15:25-16:00 Session 5: Computing for climate science, scientific computing, and energy informatics (Session chair: Michael Dales)

• Emission Impossible: privacy-preserving carbon emissions claims. Jessica Man, Sadiq Jaffer, Patrick Ferris, Martin Kleppmann, and Anil Madhavapeddy. University of Cambridge, UK.
• Cooperative Sensor Networks for Long-Term Biodiversity Monitoring. Josh Millar, Sarab Sethi, Hamed Haddadi, Michael Dales, and Anil Madhavapeddy. Imperial College London + University of Cambridge, UK.
• A Digital Twinning Approach to Decarbonisation: Research Challenges. Blair Archibald, Paul Harvey, and Michele Sevegnani. University of Glasgow, UK.

16:00-16:15 Coffee/tea break  

16:15-16:25 Call for planning future LOCOs (Session chair: Wim Vanderbauwhede)

16:25-16:55 Session 6: Measurements, testbeds, and simulation (Session chair: Nikela Papadopoulou)

• Choosing the Right Battery Model for Data Center Simulations. Paul Kilian, Philipp Wiesner, and Odej Kao. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden + Technische Universität Berlin, Germany.
• On Combining Two Server Control Policies for Energy Efficiency. Jingze Dai and Douglas Down. McMaster University, Canada.
• The Dark Side of Dark Mode. Zachary Datson. BBC, UK.

16:55-17:00 Short break

17:00-17:10 Session 7: Frugal computing II (Session chair: Wim Vanderbauwhede)

• Teaching Sustainable Creative Technologies. Chelsea Thompto. Virginia Tech, USA.

17:10-17:15 Short break

17:15-18:10 Lightning talks session (Session chairs: Tim Storer and Abdessalam Elhabbash)

• Assessing the ecological impact of AI: From Ethics of Technology to Engineering—and back. Sylvia Wenmackers. KU Leuven, Belgium
• Running a DIY assessment against the Web Sustainability Guidelines. James Smith.
• RSS Podcast Feed Inefficiency: trimming climate impact. Damon Hart-Davis. University of Surrey, UK.
• Juice Sucking Servers. Axel Roest Phluxus. the Netherlands.
• Bridging Models and Reality: Real-World-Oriented Methodologies for Estimating ICT Carbon Footprint at Imperial College London. Yurong Yu, Niel Hanham, Harriet Wallace, Jasmin Cooper, and Mark Sinclair. Imperial College London, UK.
• Advancing data center sustainability: carbon-aware computing utilizing AI automation. Imran Latif, Mohtadi Mahim, and Marwan Ruby Brookhaven. National Laboratory + Stony Brook University + SUNY Farmingdale State College, USA.
• Energy-Efficient Computing Using Alternative Architectures (ARM and RISC-V). Emanuele Simili. University of Glasgow, UK.
• Simulating Carbon Opportunity Costs at DESY. Dwayne Spiteri. DESY, Germany.
• Grid site operational techniques to reduce carbon emissions. Gordon Stewart, David Britton, Emanuele Simili, Sam Skipsey, and Bruno Borbely. University of Glasgow, UK.
• Using ILNP to Do More for Less. Gregor Haywood. University of St Andrews, UK.
• Smart Procurements. Dan Protopopescu, University of Glasgow, UK.

18:10 Wrap-up

Places for in person attendance are limited to 50, of which 25 places are reserved for speakers.

An initiative of the Scottish Programming Languages Institute (SPLI) supported by the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA), the 1st International Workshop on Low Carbon Computing will bring together researchers and practitioners with a keen interest in low carbon and sustainable computing. 

The workshop will be a hybrid event hosted at University of Glasgow’s state-of-the-art Advanced Research Centre and will provide an inclusive, accessible forum for sharing new ideas, for presenting ongoing work and early results, as well as for bringing forward well-founded criticism. 

Sponsorship of LOCO 2024 will provide you with exposure to 50 delegates in-person (plus online participants) comprising Computing Science academics, research students and practitioners, as well as the opportunity for up to 2 company representatives to attend the Workshop.  This is an opportunity to contribute to a unique event—the first of its kind—which is delivered purely for the advancement of sustainable computing. Full information on sponsorship can be found below.

Download the sponsorship leaflet. For more information about sponsorship packages or to discuss a custom package, please contact the SICSA Executive Officer.

1. Purpose

We believe our community should be truly open for everyone. As such, we are committed to providing a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion, or country of origin.

This code of conduct outlines our expectations for participant behaviour. We invite all attendees, volunteers, speakers, and other participants to help us realise a safe and positive workshop experience for everyone.

2. Scope

We expect all workshop participants and organisers to abide by this code of conduct at the workshop venue and online.

3. Expected behaviour

• Be considerate, respectful, and collaborative.
• Refrain from demeaning, discriminatory, or harassing behaviour and speech.
• Be mindful of your surroundings and of your fellow participants.
• Alert workshop organisers if you are troubled by the behaviour of another attendee at the workshop, or are concerned that another attendee may be in distress.

4. Unacceptable behaviour

We will not tolerate harassment in any form, or language, imagery, or behaviour that is:

• sexist, racist, or exclusionary or otherwise offensive or derogatory
• intimidating or threatening
• insulting or unpleasant

Harassment includes any unwelcome behaviour directed at another person.

5. Consequences of unacceptable behaviour

Unacceptable behaviour by other attendees, organisers, venue staff, or other patrons of the venue will not be tolerated.

Anyone asked to stop unacceptable behaviour is expected to comply immediately.

If anyone engages in unacceptable behaviour, the workshop organisers may take any action they deem appropriate including expulsion from the workshop without warning or refund.

6. What to do if you witness or are subject to unacceptable behaviour

If you are subject to unacceptable behaviour, notice that someone else is being subject to unacceptable behaviour, or have any other concerns, please notify one of the organisers as soon as possible.

7. License and attribution

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Based on the Code of Conduct of the London Perl & Raku Workshop 2024 and PyCon UK 2024.