Gitlab, which sells software coding tools used by more than half of Fortune 500 companies including Nvidia and Goldman Sachs, is adding artificial intelligence features across its product portfolio and using them to improve productivity.
Environmental considerations were integrated into both plans, and Gitlab adopted guidelines in 2025 that define what AI software vendors should disclose as part of sales contracts. Gitlab’s chief information officer helped write those rules.
“We don’t want to discourage AI use,” said Stacy Cline, senior director of sustainability at Gitlab. “Our goal is to encourage intentional use, since efficient prompts and workflows reduce both cost and energy consumption. It’s important that employees understand the energy and resources behind the tools they’re using every day.”
Gitlab’s “Green DevOps” policy, which incorporates sustainability considerations into software app design processes, considers factors such as the carbon footprint associated with different cloud computing services used for training or to run queries.
“Within sustainable AI, we focus on understanding its carbon cost, encouraging responsible use, getting the right data and systems set up to measure our emissions and being transparent about our work,” Cline said.
Gitlab’s direct emissions are negligible. Its top sources of greenhouse gas emissions are purchased goods and services, especially cloud software from Amazon Web Services and Google, and business travel.
These categories account for 52 percent and 43 percent of Gitlab’s overall carbon footprint, respectively, according to its 2025 sustainability report. (Based on past publishing dates, Gitlab’s next report is due in mid-July.)
Gitlab pledged to get 70 percent of its biggest-emitting suppliers to set science-based emissions reduction targets by 2029. It hasn’t provided a recent progress report about that goal, but is talking about next steps with more than 85 of its closest partners.
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