GoCodeGreen Reduces IT Emissions by Up to 60%

Every sector of the global economy is under pressure to decarbonise, but one of the biggest polluters is hiding in plain sight. Information and communications technology accounts for an estimated 1.5 to 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to various studies, a range that at the upper end exceeds the aviation sector’s contribution. By 2030, ICT is expected to consume more than 20% of all global electricity. Yet most organisations have no idea how much carbon their software produces. GoCodeGreen, a London-based ClimateTech company founded in 2021, has built its business around closing that measurement gap.

GoCodeGreen’s Founder and Mission

The company was born from a deceptively simple question. Eric Zie, a career technologist with more than 30 years of experience in software design and architecture, was collaborating on a new web application for a financial services organisation when he asked whether the team should be measuring the carbon impact of the software they were building. The answer, after some investigation, was that they should, but that no adequate measurement tool existed on the market.

Zie, who holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics, had previously worked across Europe and Asia Pacific for large corporations and digital startups, winning a Google Brain award for his work in artificial intelligence and intelligent automation. He channelled that experience into founding GoCodeGreen with the explicit mission of decarbonising the digital world.

Today, Zie also serves as a Visiting Professor in Digital and ICT Sustainability at the University of Suffolk and is vice chair of TechUK’s Climate Council.

How the GoCodeGreen Platform Works

GoCodeGreen has developed what it describes as the world’s first product lifecycle-based measurement and decisioning platform for software carbon emissions. The company’s suite of diagnostic tools assesses the carbon footprint across the full technology stack, covering desktop infrastructure, network systems, cloud hosting, and the software development lifecycle itself.

Its flagship assessment tool, CEDAR, conducts detailed lifecycle analyses of software applications and platforms, measuring emissions in both the build phase (designing and writing code) and the operate phase (running and maintaining software in production). A complementary tool called ATLAS provides estate-wide screening estimates, giving organisations a top-level view of the scale of their digital carbon impact. All measurements are aligned to international standards including the GHG Protocol ICT Sector Guidance and ISO 21031.

The company says its pilot work has revealed opportunities to reduce build-phase emissions by up to 60%, with operating emissions reductions typically ranging from 15 to 25%. Those headline figures, however, represent the upper bound of what is possible in specific engagements. The broader picture is more modest: across all clients assessed in 2024, GoCodeGreen identified an average 14.3% decrease in digital carbon impact, unlocking average cost savings of approximately 20%. The company has worked with more than 50 organisations to date, identifying carbon reduction opportunities ranging from 26 to 53% depending on the client. “We are too used to cheap limitless computing power and our software development has become lazy as a result,” Zie has argued. “We need to stop claiming success in the short term. We have hard decisions, choices and actions to take.”

Bootstrapped and Independent

In a technology sector awash with venture capital, GoCodeGreen stands out for its approach to funding. The company remains self-funded, a deliberate choice by Zie to maintain independence and keep the business firmly aligned to its founding mission. “I’ve been 100% focused on keeping our solution independent,” Zie has explained, adding that different options for scaling will “inevitably be required” as the company seeks to maximise its impact.

According to PitchBook data, GoCodeGreen has approximately 10 employees and operates as a fully remote business headquartered in London. Despite its modest headcount, the company has attracted attention from some of the largest names in professional services and financial technology.

Clients and Strategic Partnerships

The company’s client roster tells the story of growing enterprise demand for digital sustainability measurement. KPMG UK partnered with GoCodeGreen in early 2024 to launch a Sustainable IT Programme, one of the first initiatives of its kind at a major professional services firm. The programme established a comprehensive ICT emissions baseline and developed a Digital Carbon Reduction Plan that put KPMG on track to reduce its ICT-related emissions by 23% by financial year 2026. The firm reported that Scope 1 and 2 emissions had already fallen by 34%, with Scope 3 emissions down 16%. KPMG and GoCodeGreen subsequently won “Major Project of the Year” at the National Sustainability Awards 2025.

In the financial services sector, GoCodeGreen has worked with a global banking software provider over three years to assess its core banking platform, and partnered with G+D Netcetera to conduct a digital product lifecycle assessment of its Click to Pay solution. The company has also partnered with Zuhlke, the digital engineering consultancy whose clients include HSBC and NHS England, to bring software measurement and decarbonisation capabilities to a broader enterprise audience.

Awards and Global Ambitions

The accolades have come quickly for a company of GoCodeGreen’s size. Gartner recognised it as a 2024 Cool Vendor, a designation reserved for innovative companies driving real change in their sectors. Zie personally received the TechUK President’s Award in the Planet category for his commitment to reducing the carbon impact of software. The company has also been nominated twice for the Earthshot Prize, the prestigious environmental award championed by Prince William and Sir David Attenborough, in the “Fix Our Climate” category.

Beyond the private sector, GoCodeGreen has established a partnership with the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations’ specialised agency for ICT, working to engage less developed nations on sustainable digital transformation. The company is also a member of the Government Digital Sustainability Alliance, reinforcing its role in shaping public sector decarbonisation efforts in the UK.

GoCodeGreen holds certified B Corporation status, reflecting its commitment to balancing profit with social and environmental impact. The company also runs a Learning Academy offering courses in sustainable software engineering, green design, and sustainable IT leadership for developers, product teams, and technology executives.

What’s Next for GoCodeGreen

The challenge GoCodeGreen is attempting to address is vast. ICT already consumes roughly 4% of global electricity, a figure projected to exceed 20% by 2030, yet few organisations have begun to measure, let alone reduce, the carbon footprint of their software and digital services. As artificial intelligence workloads and high-performance computing demand ever more energy, the gap between corporate net-zero commitments and digital reality is widening.

Zie has been candid about the scale of the task. “We have to face the truth,” he has said. “We are often telling organisations things they did not know and adding to their challenge to achieve net zero.” Yet the commercial logic is becoming harder to ignore. GoCodeGreen’s assessments consistently demonstrate that reducing digital carbon emissions also reduces costs, a message that resonates with chief technology officers and chief financial officers alike.

Whether the company can maintain its independence while scaling to meet global demand remains an open question. But in a world where every industry is under pressure to decarbonise, GoCodeGreen has identified a problem that few others were willing to measure, let alone solve.