The problem

Staff paste whole documents into prompts and accept long, padded answers by default, and every token is paid for in compute.

The fix you can use today

• Teach short, structured prompts that ask for exactly what is needed.
• Set output length limits in applications you build.
• Summarise or retrieve relevant parts instead of pasting everything.

A UNESCO report found that shorter prompts and answers can cut AI energy use by over 50%. GreenCode's own AI reads only what it needs for the same reason.

Tools that help

• AI Energy Score (Hugging Face): comparable energy ratings for AI models on common tasks
• CodeCarbon: a Python package that estimates the energy and CO2 of a run from hardware power and regional grid intensity

How GreenCode helps

GreenCode helps tackle this by keeping its own AI lean: small fine-tuned models, retrieval so a model reads only what it needs, and each request sent to the smallest part that can do it. More on this.

Tags

#llm#training

Sources

• What policy makers can do (Delavande, Pierrard, Luccioni 2026)
• Delavande et al., Small talk, big impact: the energy cost of thanking AI (2026)
• UNESCO, shorter prompts and responses can cut energy use by over 50%
• Epoch AI, How much energy does ChatGPT use?: energy rises with input and output length

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