San Francisco, May 25 (IANS): Top tech companies Microsoft, Accenture, GitHub and ThoughtWorks on Tuesday announced the formation of The Green Software Foundation – a nonprofit to help address the global climate crisis.

The foundation aims to help the software industry contribute to the information and communications technology sector's broader targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.

The nonprofit, announced at the Microsoft's annual (virtual) Build Developers Conference, has been established with the Linux Foundation and the Joint Development Foundation Projects, to build a trusted ecosystem of people, standards, tooling and leading practices for building green software.

"The scientific consensus is clear: the world confronts an urgent carbon problem. It will take all of us working together to create innovative solutions to drastically reduce emissions," said Brad Smith, President, Microsoft.

The foundation will create and publish green software standards, green patterns and practices across various computing disciplines and technology domains.

"Sustainability is our greatest responsibility, and this is the decade that organisations must deliver on their promises to improve our communities and our planet," said Paul Daugherty, group chief executive, Technology and chief technology officer at Accenture.

The foundation will encourage voluntary adoption and help guide government policy toward those standards for a consistent approach for measuring and reporting green software emissions.

"We are happy to support the Green Software Foundation and its mission to build a neutral ecosystem for collaboration on standards, tooling and best practices for green software," said Mike Dolan, general manager and senior vice president, the Linux Foundation.