System Engineering: The Role of AI and Software in Emissions Reduction

Tackling climate change isn’t just a moral imperative - it’s an optimization problem. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), the gold standard for measuring environmental impact, has historically been slow, expensive, and data-starved. But AI can change that. By automating data collection, predicting missing inputs, and scaling complex calculations, “life cycle LLMs” can make LCA fast, accurate, and actionable. With better system-level visibility, organizations can identify emission hotspots, avoid false trade-offs, and make decisions that genuinely move the needle on net-zero goals.
Software itself is part of the problem, but also a powerful lever. As computing’s carbon footprint grows, developers can embed sustainability into their work through efficient algorithms, leaner data flows, and low-carbon infrastructure choices - what some call “green coding.” More importantly, software can multiply impact: powering smart grids, optimizing logistics, or modeling entire supply chains. This talk makes the case that the biggest climate wins won’t come from treating sustainability as charity - they’ll come from treating it like the ultimate systems engineering challenge.

Speaker: Johanna Behm, Envire.AI

Attend in person or online (see weblink)