Carbon-aware scheduling moves when work runs, not how much it uses. It can even hide growing energy use behind a falling carbon figure.
The fix you can use today
Track energy per unit of work alongside carbon.
Use scheduling on top of efficiency work, never instead of it.
Check that a 'greener' job hasn't got slower or bigger.
GreenCode researchers found that moving work to cleaner hours cuts carbon, but not always energy.
Tools that help
Carbon Aware SDK (Green Software Foundation): an API and CLI for grid carbon-intensity data, so flexible work can move to cleaner times or places
Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) (Green Software Foundation): the Green Software Foundation's method, SCI = ((E x I) + M) per R, adopted as ISO/IEC 21031:2024
How GreenCode helps
GreenCode helps tackle this by measuring energy before any change and after every optimisation pass, on the same infrastructure under the same load. A saving only counts if quality, security and error rate did not get worse. More on this.
