How to make digital services more sustainable
This article explores what it truly means to make digital services more sustainable and how organizations can take action using a modern, responsible approach.
Executive summary
Digital sustainability is becoming an essential part of future-proofing technology. This article summarizes Trail Openers’ Green Software Playbook—our practical framework to help organizations improve sustainability across design, development, and operations of digital services.
What is digital sustainability?
Digital sustainability means designing, developing, and running digital services in ways that minimize environmental impact and promote long-term value. It encompasses low-emission infrastructure, energy-efficient code, sustainable AI, inclusive design, and responsible data practices.
The concept goes beyond green hosting—it includes ethical tech use, digital well-being, accessibility, transparency, and supporting the circular economy.
What is Green ICT and why it matters
Green ICT refers to environmentally friendly practices in information and communication technologies. It aims to reduce emissions, energy use, and resource consumption by using efficient software, hardware, and cloud services. Green ICT is foundational for building sustainable digital services that align with climate targets.
Understanding sustainability in digital services
Sustainability in digital services involves conscious choices throughout the product lifecycle—from design to deployment. It’s about creating services that use fewer resources, perform better, and last longer.
Key sustainability levers include:
- Using renewable-powered and low-emission cloud regions
- Minimizing data volume and storage footprint
- Designing for lightweight frontend performance
- Promoting energy-aware development across teams
Trail Openers' practical approach
We offer a full-stack methodology integrating sustainability into all layers of development. Our Green Software Playbook helps teams:
- Reduce digital energy and resource consumption
- Lower service-related carbon emissions
- Improve system performance and reliability
- Align with corporate sustainability targets
Our experts embed sustainability into your current workflows—making it an achievable and measurable part of everyday development.
A sneak peek from our Green Software Development Playbook
Our playbook offers tailored guidance by role—from developers to DevOps, architects to product managers. Topics include sustainable infrastructure, energy-efficient UX, AI sustainability, measurement tools, and change management.
Making digital sustainability real doesn’t require starting over—it means making smart, informed adjustments across the stack.
Examples of real impact
In Trail Openers projects, we’ve seen:
- 30–50% lower energy use in cloud workloads
- Load times cut by half through efficient code
- Hosting costs down via smarter infrastructure
- Better UX leading to increased satisfaction
Sustainable digital development is a win–win: better for the environment, better for business.
Want to get started?
Ready to make your digital services more sustainable? We’ll support you with hands-on guidance and access to our Green Software Playbook.
Take the first step toward more responsible digital services.
Contact us today.
About the author
Written by Ville Nordberg, founder and CEO of Trail Openers, advocate for sustainable technology and digital ethics.