Is Codeberg carbon-neutral? #856

HexagonCDN commented 2022年12月30日 02:50:44 +01:00

I was discussing with a GitHub repo owner about mirroring to Codeberg. The owner asked if Codeberg is hosted with renewable or non-polluting energy sources.

GitHub has been carbon-neutral since 2019, but Codeberg doesn't seem to mention this anywhere.

The owner values the environment. Almost all of their projects that the owner host on their own servers are using 100% renewable energy sources, or they are offset by carbon credits the owner purchase themselves.

I was discussing with a GitHub repo owner about mirroring to Codeberg. The owner asked if Codeberg is hosted with renewable or non-polluting energy sources. GitHub has been [carbon-neutral since 2019](https://github.blog/2021-04-22-environmental-sustainability-github/), but Codeberg doesn't seem to mention this anywhere. The owner values the environment. Almost all of their projects that the owner host on their own servers are using 100% renewable energy sources, or they are offset by carbon credits the owner purchase themselves.

fnetX commented 2022年12月30日 15:23:15 +01:00

Excellent question.

No, we are certainly not climate-neutral. This would be a false claim, as we'd need to calculate and offset all expenses, and especially calculating the environmental of e-waste is a big problem without knowing all of the supply chain.

Companies that claim to be climate-neutral often take an estimate, and depending on who certifies them, this can be quite optimistic or pessimistic.

Regarding Codeberg: Our two hosting providers both claim to use renewable energy. Our current main datacenter is advertising itself as "The Green Datacenter" on the landing page and "Since 2004, exclusively green electricity generated from water, wind and sun. We do not trade in certificates. Our electricity is truly green."

I would not say this makes Codeberg green, because in order to save our basis of life, we also need to reduce our energy consumption.

Some notes on the subject:

• From https://wimvanderbauwhede.github.io/articles/frugal-computing/ I take that we should not buy new "energy efficient" hardware, but try to re-use when possible
• Codeberg is currently powered by one new server, but we have two used (donated) servers and are currently setting them up
• we invested in some new hardware (as said above), including new disks and spare parts for the old servers
• we are trying to use as many used parts as possible, and I think we should also try if e.g. hard disks are possible to reuse, e.g. for CI builds
• the systems we deploy (e.g. Gitea) use a magnitute less energy than other systems, e.g. GitLab CE, but still can and should be optimized
• the biggest point for optimization IMHO is better caching for CI builds, they use much more energy than the code hosting itself
• in https://blog.codeberg.org/community-maintenance-matters.html I explain that with more users, Codeberg will become more efficient, also in regard to energy usage
• overall, hosting the systems on our own and allowing to disagree to "industry standards" in regards to hardware lifetime allows us to operate more sustainably than other platforms, although we are not completely there yet
• money donated to Codeberg does not go to shareholders etc which might damage the environment. Only indirect money flow into fossil fuels is possible (e.g. by paying to hardware vendors which pay to their customers / shareholders)

Excellent question. No, we are certainly not climate-neutral. This would be a false claim, as we'd need to calculate and offset all expenses, and especially calculating the environmental of e-waste is a big problem without knowing all of the supply chain. Companies that claim to be climate-neutral often take an estimate, and depending on who certifies them, this can be quite optimistic or pessimistic. Regarding Codeberg: Our two hosting providers both claim to use renewable energy. Our current main datacenter is advertising itself as "The Green Datacenter" on the landing page and "Since 2004, exclusively green electricity generated from water, wind and sun. We do not trade in certificates. Our electricity is truly green." I would not say this makes Codeberg green, because in order to save our basis of life, we also need to reduce our energy consumption. Some notes on the subject: - From https://wimvanderbauwhede.github.io/articles/frugal-computing/ I take that we should not buy new "energy efficient" hardware, but try to re-use when possible - Codeberg is currently powered by one new server, but we have two used (donated) servers and are currently setting them up - we invested in some new hardware (as said above), including new disks and spare parts for the old servers - we are trying to use as many used parts as possible, and I think we should also try if e.g. hard disks are possible to reuse, e.g. for CI builds - the systems we deploy (e.g. Gitea) use a magnitute less energy than other systems, e.g. GitLab CE, but still can and should be optimized - the biggest point for optimization IMHO is better caching for CI builds, they use much more energy than the code hosting itself - in https://blog.codeberg.org/community-maintenance-matters.html I explain that with more users, Codeberg will become more efficient, also in regard to energy usage - overall, hosting the systems on our own and allowing to disagree to "industry standards" in regards to hardware lifetime allows us to operate more sustainably than other platforms, although we are not completely there yet - money donated to Codeberg does not go to shareholders etc which might damage the environment. Only indirect money flow into fossil fuels is possible (e.g. by paying to hardware vendors which pay to their customers / shareholders)

HexagonCDN commented 2023年01月02日 03:51:42 +01:00

I think I'm satisfied with the answer. So close the issue then? I think you should add this to documentation, too.

I think I'm satisfied with the answer. So close the issue then? I think you should add this to documentation, too.

wimvanderbauwhede commented 2023年01月09日 11:28:19 +01:00

Hi @fnetX , I am Wim Vanderbauwhede, author of the article you link above (which is now actually https://wimvanderbauwhede.codeberg.page/articles/frugal-computing/

I just want to clarify that using equipment for longer is primarily advice for end users. For data centres, the emissions from use are high because the servers are runnin 24/7, and therefore the relative importance of the embodied carbon is lower. If your data centre replaces say every 6 years, it would benefit from energy savings that would offset the embodied carbon. For the exact figure you'd need to look at the energy measurements of the data centre and the product life cycle assessment of the servers.

In terms of embodied carbon, the dominant contribution is from the disks (https://hotcarbon.org/pdf/hotcarbon22-tannu.pdf), so the most effective action is to limit repository size or have a quota per account, or any other measure that minimises your need to increase storage capacity.

Hi @fnetX , I am Wim Vanderbauwhede, author of the article you link above (which is now actually [https://wimvanderbauwhede.codeberg.page/articles/frugal-computing/](https://wimvanderbauwhede.codeberg.page/articles/frugal-computing/) I just want to clarify that using equipment for longer is primarily advice for end users. For data centres, the emissions from use are high because the servers are runnin 24/7, and therefore the relative importance of the embodied carbon is lower. If your data centre replaces say every 6 years, it would benefit from energy savings that would offset the embodied carbon. For the exact figure you'd need to look at the energy measurements of the data centre and the product life cycle assessment of the servers. In terms of embodied carbon, the dominant contribution is from the disks ([https://hotcarbon.org/pdf/hotcarbon22-tannu.pdf](https://hotcarbon.org/pdf/hotcarbon22-tannu.pdf)), so the most effective action is to limit repository size or have a quota per account, or any other measure that minimises your need to increase storage capacity.

fnetX commented 2023年01月09日 11:49:06 +01:00

Hi @wimvanderbauwhede thank you for checking by, and thank you for the clarification. Codeberg is currently rather small, we're running on a single physical machine. Many people in the infrastructure team are pushing to add new machines for redundancy / failover. They would not be properly used.

Instead of having bought our first server, I suppose we should have started with used hardware in order to achieve the goal of redundancy earlier without the need to buy more hardware that only runs mostly idle then.

Currently, my dream setup would be a total of about six nodes: Three running in a Datacenter for high availability reasons, three running somewhere else for backups and Continuous Integration runs, which don't always need the HA guarantees. I'd love to re-use their heat, or at least save the energy used to cool the air in the DC. We're also considering to buy solar panels and adapt the computing power for the CI machines based on how much energy is available for them.

I think the hardest part of this is not exactly the technical part, but convincing people to trade in some convenience in order to accept that our setup does not fully meed the "industry standards" of big proprietary cloud platforms.

Hi @wimvanderbauwhede thank you for checking by, and thank you for the clarification. Codeberg is currently rather small, we're running on a single physical machine. Many people in the infrastructure team are pushing to add new machines for redundancy / failover. They would not be properly used. Instead of having bought our first server, I suppose we should have started with used hardware in order to achieve the goal of redundancy earlier without the need to buy more hardware that only runs mostly idle then. Currently, my dream setup would be a total of about six nodes: Three running in a Datacenter for high availability reasons, three running somewhere else for backups and Continuous Integration runs, which don't always need the HA guarantees. I'd love to re-use their heat, or at least save the energy used to cool the air in the DC. We're also considering to buy solar panels and adapt the computing power for the CI machines based on how much energy is available for them. I think the hardest part of this is not exactly the technical part, but convincing people to trade in some convenience in order to accept that our setup does not fully meed the "industry standards" of big proprietary cloud platforms.

fnetX commented 2023年01月19日 21:27:39 +01:00

In Codeberg e.V., we started the creation of dedicated teams (e.g. a team for infrastructure, moderation). I'd like to expand this concept, and next to a team for Awareness, I'd love to add a team for sustainability.

I think this could help to bring in more weighted decisions when discussed with the public. And it would help justify certain decisions which do not meet expectations, because we derive from industry standards (e.g. "Our CI is currently slow, because I added some used disks instead of buying new ones"; "Certain actions are longer in a queue, because instead of adding more headroom machines, we spread load over the rest of the day").

Last but not least, it could help to be more transparent (and questions like asked here) can be answered by looking into it. Also, while Codeberg is currently still small, I often read that scientific data for calculation of x is not available. When we share some data (e.g. how much energy do our servers consume (peak hours, average), and how many requests do we serve, how much energy is consumed for the creation of software (for example). Given that Codeberg continues to grow, this data can be used (also when instances of the same type become available via federation).

If feedback to this idea is positive, I'll create a dedicated repository and issue tracker for discussion and sharing of information.

Also, I'm very open for name suggestions. While "sustainability" is fine for me, it could be confused by the use of sustainability as in "financial sustainability", e.g. like Forgejo is using it.

In Codeberg e.V., we started the creation of dedicated teams (e.g. a team for infrastructure, moderation). I'd like to expand this concept, and next to a team for Awareness, I'd love to add a team for sustainability. I think this could help to bring in more weighted decisions when discussed with the public. And it would help justify certain decisions which do not meet expectations, because we derive from industry standards (e.g. "Our CI is currently slow, because I added some used disks instead of buying new ones"; "Certain actions are longer in a queue, because instead of adding more headroom machines, we spread load over the rest of the day"). Last but not least, it could help to be more transparent (and questions like asked here) can be answered by looking into it. Also, while Codeberg is currently still small, I often read that scientific data for calculation of x is not available. When we share some data (e.g. how much energy do our servers consume (peak hours, average), and how many requests do we serve, how much energy is consumed for the creation of software (for example). Given that Codeberg continues to grow, this data can be used (also when instances of the same type become available via federation). If feedback to this idea is positive, I'll create a dedicated repository and issue tracker for discussion and sharing of information. Also, I'm very open for name suggestions. While "sustainability" is fine for me, it could be confused by the use of sustainability as in "financial sustainability", e.g. like [Forgejo is using it](https://codeberg.org/forgejo/sustainability).

rdwz commented 2023年01月20日 18:59:06 +01:00

In Codeberg e.V., we started the creation of dedicated teams (e.g. a team for infrastructure, moderation). I'd like to expand this concept, and next to a team for Awareness

I have a strong feeling codeberg needs some balancing as decisions seem to be adressed from a too technical centered point of view.

And just for the records: To me it seems as 'GiveUpGitHub' isn't a thing at all, is it? Maybe I'm wrong but who's actually aware of this movement and what this is a chance we're sleeping on.

when time has come. let me know if you need an advocate for awareness 😏

> In Codeberg e.V., we started the creation of dedicated teams (e.g. a team for infrastructure, moderation). I'd like to expand this concept, and next to a team for Awareness I have a strong feeling codeberg needs some balancing as decisions seem to be adressed from a too technical centered point of view. And just for the records: To me it seems as 'GiveUpGitHub' isn't a thing at all, is it? Maybe I'm wrong but who's actually aware of this movement and what this is a chance we're sleeping on. when time has come. let me know if you need an advocate for awareness 😏

fnetX commented 2023年06月20日 18:49:28 +02:00

Hi all,

I'm sorry for not getting back to this earlier. I considered the main reason not to start with this group, and I listed it here: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg-e.V./Sustainability

Anyone who wants to join a sustainability group, please let me know.

We should especially discuss how to connect. The easiest option would likely be to use a Matrix chat, because most Codeberg-related groups are currently using Matrix. However, I think that the environmental impact of this chat system is relatively high compared to other options. An issue tracker might also work, but having vivid discussions is also a good option.

Hi all, I'm sorry for not getting back to this earlier. I considered the main reason not to start with this group, and I listed it here: https://codeberg.org/Codeberg-e.V./Sustainability Anyone who wants to join a sustainability group, please let me know. We should especially discuss how to connect. The easiest option would likely be to use a Matrix chat, because most Codeberg-related groups are currently using Matrix. However, I think that the environmental impact of this chat system is relatively high compared to other options. An issue tracker might also work, but having vivid discussions is also a good option.