In this interview, Chief Technology Officer T. Alexander Lystad explains how Visma brings environmental accountability to its cloud operations.
INSIGHTS: By T. Alexander Lystad, CTO of Visma
It is clear that the tech industry is at a crossroads where digital growth must align with environmental responsibility. In this interview, T. Alexander Lystad, CTO of Visma, explains how the group is pioneering "GreenOps" to ensure that the software powering our society is as sustainable as it is efficient.
To start, Alex, could you explain what "GreenOps" actually means? It’s a term we’re hearing more often alongside DevOps and FinOps.
Think of GreenOps as the practice of bringing environmental accountability to our cloud operations. In the past, software teams focused primarily on performance and cost. GreenOps adds a third, vital pillar: carbon efficiency. It’s about understanding that every line of code we write and every server we spin up has a real-world energy cost. By optimising how we use public cloud providers like AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, we can minimise the carbon footprint of the digital services we provide to our customers.
Why is this so critical for a software group like Visma right now?
Our applications already handle mission-critical processes for more than 2 million customers across Europe and Latam, with annual growth consistently in the double digits. As our global footprint increases, so does our cloud usage. The energy needs of data centres are notable, and that energy isn't always sourced from renewable "green" grids. We have a responsibility to identify inefficiencies — where we are using more computing power than necessary, and where we would have the potential to move operations to grids with greener energy.
You’ve mentioned that GreenOps often goes hand-in-hand with cost savings. How does that work?
There is a powerful synergy here: the cleanest and cheapest energy is the energy you never use. When we reduce wasted computing power, we naturally lower our cloud bill. It’s a win-win where being good for the planet is also good for the budget.
Visma is a group consisting of nearly 180 software companies spread across 28 markets. Can you share some concrete examples of how our companies have successfully implemented these changes?
We’ve seen fantastic initiatives across the group. For example, several teams have focused on right-sizing their infrastructure.
- Visma Group’s machine learning department optimised their "node pools"—essentially the groups of servers running their apps—by switching to more efficient instance types and reducing the number of active servers based on the actual load.
- Nmbrs made a significant impact by transitioning from traditional virtual machines to containers. This allows them to pack their applications more densely onto hardware, ensuring no energy is wasted on idle capacity.
It seems that where you run your code also matters. Can you elaborate on that?
That’s a key part of GreenOps called "Region Hopping." Different regions have different "carbon intensities" depending on their local energy grid.
- InFakt, our Polish accounting platform for entrepreneurs, is a great example; they moved some of their AI model deployments from Poland to Finland, where the energy grid is much greener.
- Visma e-conomic, our Danish accounting platform, achieved a similar improvement in carbon efficiency by moving workloads to regions with better access to cleaner energy. Even moving data storage closer to where it's used can reduce the emissions caused by long-distance data transfers.
What about the smaller, day-to-day operations?
Every bit counts. Therapieland and Pathway Solutions looked at their monitoring systems. They realised they were performing health checks on their apps too frequently or collecting data they didn't actually need. By simply turning off these unused metrics and optimising check intervals, they reduced their footprint immediately. Similarly, Visma Solutions in Finland replaced a heavy automation system with a "serverless" solution that only runs when there is work to be done, rather than staying powered on 24/7.
Beyond optimization, what other strategies can we implement to reduce emissions? For instance, migrating from on-premises or private cloud solutions to public cloud providers?
Public cloud providers are inherently more efficient than traditional on-premises setups. They achieve exceptionally high power usage effectiveness (PUE), maintain rigorous recycling programs for outdated hardware, and invest in renewable energy certificates. Because of this, moving resources to the public cloud can lead to significant emission reductions.
We saw this realized in a recent project with Flex Applications in Sweden. They are currently migrating customers for their Flex HRM solution to Microsoft Azure, primarily to make it more scalable, secure and future proof. However, the environmental impact has been striking: alongside those operational benefits, they are currently having 93% lower CO2 emissions compared to their previous private cloud partner.
When you look at these projects across 170+ Visma companies in 28 markets, what is the broader impact?
While the efforts of an individual company might seem modest on their own, the aggregated potential across a group of our size is massive. Just to give one example, if all our companies aligned their hosting strategies with the cleanest available energy grids, we could see a reduction of over 1000 tCO2e per year - the equivalent of taking nearly 300 petrol cars off the road. This is just the beginning of our journey to build and innovate sustainably.
Looking ahead, where do we currently stand and what are the next steps for GreenOps at Visma?
We have proved that we can reduce emissions while simultaneously achieving cost savings. Moving forward, we are scaling these initiatives and shifting from quick-win improvements to more sophisticated optimisations that improve the core efficiency of our software operations. Ultimately, we want GreenOps to be a standard part of software development—just like DevOps. By refining these practices and demonstrating the clear benefits to our teams, we ensure that sustainable engineering becomes a key pillar of how every Visma company builds and innovates.
