"Technology should not cost us the Earth; it should help us protect it." Dr. Mae Jemison, astronaut and environmental advocate

Understanding environmental impact

Every startup, no matter how small, influences the environment. This includes your product’s lifecycle, your energy use, the suppliers you work with, and the footprint of your digital infrastructure.

Embedding sustainability from the start not only reduces your footprint but also strengthens your brand with customers, investors, and partners increasingly focused on resilience and climate readiness.

Environmental effect refers to the impacts your product, service, and operations have on the natural world, including:

• Greenhouse gas emissions
• Energy consumption
• Resource depletion
• Waste and e-waste generation
• Material sourcing and recycling

🛠️ Priorities for early-stage companies

Whether you're building software, hardware, or something in between, early choices matter.

If you're building software

It’s easy to overlook environmental impact if your product lives "in the cloud." But digital infrastructure — especially AI models — can be energy-intensive. Founders can take smart steps early:

• Choose greener cloud providers: Prefer platforms like Google Cloud, Azure, or AWS that have strong renewable energy commitments. Evaluate regional options too, not all data centers have the same carbon footprint.
• Optimize software efficiency: Code and build with performance in mind. Lightweight, efficient software uses less compute, which reduces emissions and costs.
• Understand AI energy use: Training large AI models or using extensive cloud inference can significantly increase energy demand. Track and monitor the environmental cost of your AI infrastructure, even if it’s outsourced.
• Select energy-aware tools and libraries: Prefer ML libraries and frameworks that optimize compute loads or offer lower-carbon training methods.