Toward a Sustainable Software Architecture Community: Evaluating ICSA's Environmental Impact
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Abstract (arXiv)
Generative AI (GenAI) tools are increasingly integrated into software architecture research, yet the environmental impact of their computational usage remains largely undocumented. This study presents the first systematic audit of the carbon footprint of both the digital footprint from GenAI usage in research papers, and the traditional footprint from conference activities within the context of the IEEE International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA). We report two separate carbon inventories relevant to the software architecture research community: i) an exploratory estimate of the footprint of GenAI inference usage associated with accepted papers within a research-artifact boundary, and ii) the conference attendance and operations footprint of ICSA 2025 (travel, accommodation, catering, venue energy, and materials) within the conference time boundary. These two inventories, with different system boundaries and completeness, support transparency and community reflection. We discuss implications for sustainable software architecture, including recommendations for transparency, greener conference planning, and improved energy efficiency in GenAI operations. Our work supports a more climate-conscious research culture within the ICSA community and beyond
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References · 12
- 2019Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLPcited by 1,242
- 2021Carbon Emissions and Large Neural Network Trainingcited by 561
- 2023Large Language Models for Software Engineering: Survey and Open Problemscited by 178
- 2025How Hungry is AI? Benchmarking Energy, Water, and Carbon Footprint of LLM Inferencecited by 73
- 2021Compute and Energy Consumption Trends in Deep Learning Inferencecited by 61
- 2023Generative Artificial Intelligence for Software Engineering -- A Research Agendacited by 23
- 2024Can LLMs Generate Architectural Design Decisions? -An Exploratory Empirical studycited by 19
- 2025Generative AI for Software Architecture. Applications, Challenges, and Future Directionscited by 15
- 2024Swiss Cheese Model for AI Safety: A Taxonomy and Reference Architecture for Multi-Layered Guardrails of Foundation Model Based Agentscited by 13
- 2026GPTZero: Robust Detection of LLM-Generated Textscited by 10
- 2025LLMs for Generation of Architectural Components: An Exploratory Empirical Study in the Serverless Worldcited by 8
- 2025EdgeMLBalancer: A Self-Adaptive Approach for Dynamic Model Switching on Resource-Constrained Edge Devicescited by 5
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