The ‘Green DiSC’ initiative is the first open access, free certification scheme for institutions aiming to mitigate the environmental impacts of their computational research.

High-performance computing, AI and large datasets have a negative environmental impact due to the large volumes of greenhouse gas emissions they produce.

The scheme is hosted by the University of Edinburgh’s software sustainability institute (SSI) and has been developed in partnership with University of Cambridge over the past two years.

Guidance includes initial steps researchers can take to embed sustainability into team activities – including training resources, hardware, data storage and computing infrastructure.

To date, six research groups have become the first recipients of the certification, including the Breast Cancer Research Data Science Team.

The next deadline to apply for certification is 19th November.

Dr Kirsty Pringle, project manager, Software Sustainability Institute, University of Edinburgh, said: “Digital research has a growing environmental footprint, but there’s not a lot of guidance on how to reduce it. The Green DiSC certification gives researchers clear, practical steps to improve the sustainability of their work.”