Sustainable Tech: How to Create Mobile Apps with Care for the Environment

Relying on eco-friendly practices, mobile app developers create long-term value for business, society, and the environment. Apps based on these practices produce fewer CO2 emissions. This approach allows offering a more efficient and competitive IT solution to the client while improving user experience. There are many ways to achieve this; let’s take a look at some common sustainable approaches in mobile app development.

Sustainable Technologies: What It Is

This is software that meets the needs and values of users and produces a lower level of carbon emissions during operation.

The sustainable approach is a relatively new trend that was overlooked for many years. It was believed that energy consumption was related to physical devices, not software. But nothing happens in isolation: the demand for software largely dictates hardware development.

Moreover, unoptimized code leads to wasted device work and, consequently, unnecessary carbon emissions. Software developed without considering energy-saving requirements can become a real problem for the environment.

According to the Green Software Foundation, there are three ways to reduce carbon emissions from software operation:

• Consume the minimum possible amount of electricity;

• Use efficient hardware (for example, energy-efficient servers, low-power devices);

• Do more when electricity is “clean” (produced with limited greenhouse gas emissions or without environmental pollution) and less when it is “dirty.”

  
  

These principles are independent of the technology stack. On the Green Software Foundation website, you can learn more about how they work and enable the development of more environmentally friendly software.

Sustainable Approaches in Mobile App Development

To develop energy-efficient mobile apps, it is necessary to reduce unnecessary operations, visual effects, API calls, etc. Some optimization is handled by smartphone operating systems, but much depends on developers, too. There is no universal method to make a solution energy-efficient. In each case, it is important to consider individual requirements, goals, and needs to maintain app usability, flexibility, and ease of maintenance. Let’s look at some of the most common eco-friendly practices in mobile development.

Location Tracking Optimization

Every mobile app developer knows that one of the features that consumes the most battery is location tracking. In this case, the smartphone constantly searches for and receives signals from satellites, Wi-Fi access points, and cell towers, then processes this data. This concerns not only the device battery but also the large amount of traffic and data stored and processed in the cloud. Many business cases require tracking the user’s location, but each has its own needs regarding update frequency and location accuracy. It is crucial to use these needs as potential for optimizing such resource-intensive operations.

Often, product owners request the development team to continuously track the user’s location. The only correct answer in such cases is: “Why do you need this functionality?” Often the answer is something like: “To find out if the user has approached a specific store.” Or they want to know when the user leaves the office. Continuous tracking is not necessary for such cases. Mobile platforms have a special geofencing feature, optimized at the hardware level, that runs the app only when the user enters/exits a specific region.

This is not the only way to configure location tracking and optimize resource use. For each business case, developers should consider options such as reducing location accuracy, subscribing only to significant location changes, tracking location under certain conditions (e.g., only when the phone is moving in a car), etc. This allows balancing energy efficiency and business requirements.

Networking Optimization

Performing network operations in your app consumes electricity. This is because network hardware must be powered on and remain active for some time after operations, which drains the battery.

Energy consumption features to consider for eco-friendly development:

• Cellular networks consume more energy than Wi-Fi.

• Weak signals may lead to retransmission of data.

• Limited bandwidth causes prolonged receiver activity.

• The user’s location and service provider can affect energy consumption.

Efficient networking in apps can prolong battery life.

Several strategies exist for network optimization. The first—minimization—helps eliminate unnecessary traffic by reviewing business requirements and system design. For example, caching, compressing transmitted data, reducing media quality, and file size. A software example of this concept is video conferencing software that dynamically adapts streaming quality.

Transaction batching is also worth considering. Gradual content loading keeps radio modules active, leading to energy consumption. Therefore, when possible, your app should combine network operations. For example, if the app shows ads, load several ads at once.

Another networking optimization strategy is deferring operations. Here, deferrable background sessions in iOS can help. Such operations run outside the main process, making the app more responsive and not requiring constant activity. The system can also automatically optimize the operation (e.g. run it later when a good connection is available). This can be useful for backup or synchronization functions.

Finally, it is advisable to limit network activity when using mobile internet, especially for high-traffic operations. For example, do not download a full library of full-size images via cellular data unless explicitly requested by the user. This is not only energy-inefficient but can also frustrate users with wasted data.

Incorrect Use of Timers

When it comes to server energy efficiency, avoiding idle states is important. But for personal devices, idle states cannot be avoided. The developers’ task is to ensure that this state is not interrupted unnecessarily. Waking a system from standby consumes additional energy.

Using timers for repeated actions, such as synchronization, content download, or location updates, forces the system to wake up, resulting in energy consumption (and sometimes unstable operation). Apps often use timers without real necessity. It is recommended to review their appropriateness for each product.

You may need to change the approach: instead of focusing on fixed time intervals, consider event-triggered actions, as in the geofencing example in the location tracking section.

Design

If your app primarily uses standard design elements, you may worry less about unnecessary content updates since system APIs are specifically designed for energy efficiency. However, most real projects want to stand out and use attractive custom designs. To ensure energy efficiency, it is advisable to:

1. Ensure that content is rendered only when actually visible (not covered by other views or off-screen).

2. Reduce the use of transparency, especially blur effects, or use it only when the underlying view is not highly dynamic.

3. Add dark mode. Implementing dark mode can be a design trend or good design choice, but it also reduces screen brightness, saving device resources.

   
   

Native or Cross-Platform?

The choice between native and cross-platform development depends on project goals, requirements, and constraints, including cost, time, and technology compatibility.

Native solutions usually offer better performance, responsiveness, and energy efficiency since they are specifically optimized for the target platform. This provides smoother user experience and longer battery life, aligning with sustainability goals. In contrast, cross-platform apps require more resources.

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Although we did not cover all possible strategies, we hope this article provides some insights and inspires further exploration. After all, this is not only about contributing to a brighter future we can actively create but also about increasing your product’s appeal by improving usability, marketing efficiency, and more.