The manufacturing, usage, and disposal of hardware has a direct impact on the environment. Often overlooked is that it is software that determines for how long and how efficiently hardware is used. In this talk I will discuss the inherent sustainability benefits of FOSS in enabling customizability, efficiency, and longevity of software -- and thus hardware.

Specifically I will cover the work of the KDE Eco project, which aims to assess and reduce the ecological footprint of the desktop environment and applications. In particular, I will present my Google Summer of Code Project entitled 'KEcolab' which is a tool that allows developers to measure their software's energy usage using the CI pipeline in Gitlab. KEcoLab automates the entire measurement process, including data analysis with OSCAR (Open source Software Consumption Analysis in R). The analysis enables both data-driven decision making in software development as well as eco-certification with the Blue Angel ecolabel, the official environmental label of the German government.

Through examples of active FOSS Sustainable projects, I will conclude my talk by demonstrating how the FOSS community is taking responsibility to mitigate the environmental impact of computing and providing concrete ways we can all get involved in adopting sustainable practices in software development which can result in long hardware life.