Toward a Sustainable Software Architecture Community: Evaluating ICSA's Environmental Impact
It addresses the environmental impact of software architecture research and conferences, offering incremental insights for the ICSA community and broader research fields.
This study conducted the first systematic audit of the carbon footprint for the IEEE International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA), estimating emissions from GenAI inference usage in research papers and from conference activities like travel and venue energy. It reported separate carbon inventories to support transparency and provided recommendations for greener practices.
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