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Authors:
Nelly Nicaise Nyeck Mbialeu
Benjamin Leiding
Keywords: carbon debt; sustainability; technical debt; AI DevTools; green software engineering.
Abstract:
Software engineering is experiencing the impact of AI on its productivity through rapid code generation, code fixes, and workflow automation. However, there is a hidden cost to this convenience, namely a growing double debt of carbon emissions and technical inefficiencies that jeopardise sustainability. Carbon debt is discussed in this paper, referring to the invisible and cumulative environmental damage resulting from the frequent use of AI-driven tools. AI sustainability discussions often overlook the impact of inference phase emissions in this field, where productivity tools lack built-in insights that measure hidden, accumulated environmental burdens. There is a lack of a conceptual and structured method to incentivise carbon debt. This paper conceptually illustrates the negative contribution of AI-assisted development tools, leading to pragmatic mitigation strategies and a preliminary formalization of a measurable sustainability framework for AI-driven development workflows.
Pages: 1 to 7
Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2025
Publication date: October 26, 2025
Published in: conference
ISSN: 2519-8483
ISBN: 978-1-68558-311-8
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Dates: from October 26, 2025 to October 30, 2025