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Lieven Eeckhout is a Professor at Ghent University, Belgium, and will deliver a LOCOS Seminar on Sustainable Processor Design.

Sustainability and climate change is a major challenge for our generation. In this talk I will argue that sustainable development requires a holistic approach and involves multi-perspective thinking. Applied to computing, sustainable development means that we need to consider the entire environmental impact of computing, including raw material extraction, component manufacturing, product assembly, transportation, use, repair/maintenance, and end-of-life processing (disassembly and recycling/ reuse). Analyzing current trends reveals that the embodied footprint is, or will soon be, more significant compared to the operational footprint. I will present a simple, yet insightful, first-order model to assess and reason about the sustainability of processors in light of the inherent data uncertainty. Applying the model to a variety of case studies illustrates what computer architects and engineers can and should do to better understand the sustainability impact of computing, and to design sustainable processors.

Lieven Eeckhout is a Professor at Ghent University, Belgium, and will deliver a LOCOS Seminar on Sustainable Processor Design.

Sustainability and climate change is a major challenge for our generation. In this talk I will argue that sustainable development requires a holistic approach and involves multi-perspective thinking. Applied to computing, sustainable development means that we need to consider the entire environmental impact of computing, including raw material extraction, component manufacturing, product assembly, transportation, use, repair/maintenance, and end-of-life processing (disassembly and recycling/ reuse). Analyzing current trends reveals that the embodied footprint is, or will soon be, more significant compared to the operational footprint. I will present a simple, yet insightful, first-order model to assess and reason about the sustainability of processors in light of the inherent data uncertainty. Applying the model to a variety of case studies illustrates what computer architects and engineers can and should do to better understand the sustainability impact of computing, and to design sustainable processors.

LOCO Seminar Sylvia Wenmackers: "A Philosophical Exploration of Frugal Computing" In response to the unsustainable rise in materials and energy required for current and projected computations, Vanderbauhede (2021) argued that we urgently need to adopt a more frugal approach to computing. To develop this proposal, this talk explores related ideas from economics and philosophy. For instance, Schumacher’s (1973) Small Is Beautiful gave rise to the notion of ‘appropriate technology’, which suggests supplementing frugal computing with a people-centered focus. In addition, environmental virtue ethics can be used to refine a question that frugal computing already poses: in light of human flourishing, which computations are worth doing in the first place? Finally, we may wonder whether the study of what needs to be done should ever take precedence over the investigation of the facts themselves. Vermeersch (2001) argued that our current environmental problems do indeed warrant such priorities.