Developers want more efficient software. Here’s what over 1000 GitHub users told us they need.

A survey of 1,039 GitHub users by GitHub and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication reveals that 80% of respondents are interested in tools to help write more energy-efficient code. Nearly the same proportion also expressed demand for best practices to reduce software’s environmental footprint. Almost 75% of developers wanted methods to measure the impact of their software or development processes. The findings highlight a gap between developer awareness of efficiency’s importance and their access to practical tools to act on it.

The survey, drawn from U.S.-based GitHub monthly active users who opted into marketing emails, compared responses to Yale’s nationally representative Climate Change in the American Mind survey. GitHub users showed higher concern about climate change than U.S. adults overall, with 86% acknowledging global warming versus 68% in the general population. They were also more likely to rate climate change as personally important and expect harm to future generations.

Developers emphasized the need for credible measurements and tools that integrate with existing workflows. Open-ended responses highlighted requests for estimating repository footprints, identifying unnecessary GitHub Actions runs, and comparing AI compute demand with other sources. Many cautioned against making environmental claims without evidence, noting that runtime improvements do not necessarily equate to energy reductions.

GitHub’s open-source Daily Efficiency Improver workflow automates the search for efficiency opportunities across code, data, network, I/O, and frontend performance. It prioritizes measurable changes, runs tests, and opens draft pull requests for maintainers to review. The workflow does not merge changes automatically, allowing human oversight to validate evidence and trade-offs before adoption.