Green Computing in Distributed Environments: Trends and Challenges

Abstract:As energy consumption and carbon emissions rise due to expanding digital infrastructure, green computing has emerged as a vital approach to creating sustainable and energy-efficient computing solutions. This paper explores the integration of green computing principles in distributed environments such as cloud computing, edge computing, and grid systems. It examines current trends like virtualization, energy-aware scheduling, and carbon footprint monitoring, while highlighting significant challenges including scalability, heterogeneity, and energy modeling. The study also reviews techniques such as Dynamic Power Management (DPM), renewable energy integration, and the role of AI and ML in energy optimization. Furthermore, it discusses edge and fog computing, serverless architectures, and future directions toward sustainable distributed ecosystems. The paper concludes with recommendations for developing standard metrics, adopting carbon-aware schedulers, and promoting eco-friendly digital infrastructures. Keywords: Green Computing, Distributed Systems, Energy Efficiency, Cloud Computing, Edge Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Sustainability