Mark Buss, a seasoned Software Engineer turned Digital Sustainability advocate, speaks about his journey from backend development to driving greener tech practices and shares insights on pivotal career moments, the power of community, and why digital sustainability is set to be a growing focus in 2025.

Can you share a bit about your background?

I was a Software Engineer for the majority of my career of over 15 years now, primarily working with backend technologies but I have also dabbled with front-end as well over that time. More recently I have started a role overseeing digital sustainability at my organisation. My remit is decarbonising our tech estate, collaborating with our tech supply chain on measuring and reducing our carbon footprint, advocating for best practice in the tech industry and also thinking about how tech can help with decarbonisation at a higher level.

Did you come up through a “traditional” techie route or has your career taken twists and turns along the way?

I can pinpoint the moment where my career got mapped out for me. I was in secondary school and had an interview with one of the teachers from our local college. I was planning on studying psychology at college and the teacher said “You’re good at maths, why don’t you try computing”, I shrugged and said “OK”! I went on to enjoy programming at college, study Software Engineering at the University of Manchester, got a job as a developer straight out of uni, and haven’t looked back! It was quite a standard route into and through the career until recently. Since my role has changed I’m excited to be working not just on code now but also doing some data analysis, building dashboards and thinking about how I can educate the tech team at our organisation to try and have a positive impact on the planet through software.

Reflecting on your career, is there a specific moment that stands out as pivotal or defining?

I suppose it has been more recently for me, having worked as a quiet developer, getting on with my work through most of my career, I surprised myself with the passion I felt for digital sustainability. So much so that I ended up putting together a business case for a brand new role at my organisation to look at it full time and presented it to our CTO. This was very out of character for me but putting the work in and making that happen was a real turning point and felt great. It feels like the start of a new direction in my career where I want to be a voice for green software and try to maximise the impact I can have in this field, not just in my organisation but in the wider tech industry.

What piece of advice would you give your younger self as you embarked on your professional journey?

Don’t be afraid to talk to people in a higher position than yourself. I had convinced myself for a lot of my career that I was a lowly software developer and that I shouldn’t be bothering people outside of my immediate team or peers. My recent experience has proved to me that CXOs are all human too, it’s OK to reach out and raise things that are important to you and if they are a good leader, they will make the time to talk to and listen to their employees, regardless of their position in the organisation.

Looking ahead, what’s your big prediction for the tech landscape in 2025?

I think that the conversation around digital sustainability will continue to grow, and more tooling and resources will come about to help tech workers understand and reduce the environmental impacts of the software they are developing. I don’t see AI going anywhere in 2025 as it is on such a crazy trajectory, but I hope the environmental implications of using AI down to the enormous electricity requirements, are made clearer to the consumers using it so they can make sensible choices around their relationship with tech and the planet.

Considering your involvement in Silicon Brighton and community-building, what does the concept of ‘community’ mean to you personally? How important is it in the tech industry?

I see community as people coming together from different backgrounds and working towards a common goal together, and having fun along the way. Over the last few years, with remote-working becoming the norm across a lot of tech companies, I think community is perhaps more important than it has ever been. For me it’s important to get out there and meet people in real life, some people may not have the luxury of doing that with their work colleagues. It’s great that communities such as Silicon Brighton exist to offer tech folk the opportunity to socialise and learn about different subjects. With Green Software Brighton I truly believe we are building a community that cares and has the power to make a positive impact.

How do you balance staying updated with the latest industry trends while ensuring continuous personal and professional growth? Any specific resources or practices you find particularly valuable?

I’m embarrassed to say this is something I rarely did earlier in my career, I’d learn about technologies on the job when I needed to but I wasn’t actively going out to learn about the latest shiny thing. Now, however, I can’t get enough knowledge about digital sustainability and green software. My top recommendations in this field are the Green Software Foundation (sign up to their newsletter, listen to their podcast ‘Environment Variables’), GreenIO – another fantastic podcast as well as hosting conferences on the subject around the world (including London). ClimateAction.tech is a great slack space which connects people on the intersection of tech and climate. I know not everyone is a fan but I’ve actually discovered quite a lot on LinkedIn in the couple of years since I signed up, there are loads of people on there talking about digital sustainability so it’s worth following them to learn more.

As someone who has contributed significantly to the community, how do you see mentorship playing a role in the development of the next generation of tech professionals?

It is an interesting time to think about this question as the software development landscape is changing with the advent of GenAI starting to help developers write code. Although AI can help accelerate development it will still be necessary to teach the importance of well architected systems, and what constitutes well-written code. With regards to digital sustainability I think it’s really important to teach the next generation about the potential impacts of tech on the planet and get everyone thinking about this as early as possible in their learning and career paths, if everyone is aware of it and thinking about it, I believe the industry will organically start to make changes in the right direction.

Anything else you would like to promote to our community?

Please look out for more Green Software Brighton events and come and join our great community!

Is there any additional wisdom, experience, or anecdotes you’d like to share with our audience?

I believe in the benefits of marginal gains. Don’t be disheartened if you feel you haven’t made a big impact, small steps in the right direction can lead to big things. Keep chipping away at the things you believe in and celebrate the wins, no matter how small.