About

Hello! I’m James, and I’m passionate about making technology more responsible, and less impactful đź’š

How do I do that? Through training, speaking, consulting, writing… and volunteering!

Training

I have conceived and present two courses, with pioneering sustainable tech collective GreenIT.fr:

  • Frugal AI: State of the Art (1 day) looks at the true impacts of AI today and how you can reduce them. Launched in September 2025, it has since welcomed trainees from Sopra Steria, Groupe La Poste, Groupe CovĂ©a (MAAF, MMA, GMF), Groupama, The Shift Project, LeSaffre and more
  • Responsible AI: State of the Art (1 or 2 days) takes the environmental and social impacts of “Frugal AI”, adds eight key (ethical) risks of AI for organisations today, and filters them through the three pillars of CSR – People, Planet Profit. It was launched in spring 2026.

The above courses’ content is adaptable to meet the needs of specific audiences and companies; you can find out more about them here.

Consulting

I also advise companies and organisations on Responsible & Frugal AI – such as France’s VINCI and Sopra Steria (above), Holland’s ABN-AMRO and the UK’s Association for Science Discovery Centres. Projects to date have included speaking, putting in place and sharing best frugal and responsible AI practices, animating workshops and briefing top management.

If your organisation needs help on these subjects, feel free to write to james (at) bettertech (dot) blog 👋🏻

Speaking

“A well-timed word is better than a long speech”, as the French like to say. I’d say both are good, as long as the latter isn’t too long! My priority here is always to spread the word about digital responsibility as far and wide as possible, to reach new, beyond-tech audiences and help them understand how critical these issues are. So events like climate conference ChangeNOW are great for that, not forgetting music events like MaMa, or even more straight-up tech events like VivaTech or IT Partners (click to watch, listen to or read about these sessions). I’ve loved speaking at them all, with ChangeNOW 2025 a particular highlight, cf. this edit:

You can check out more conference videos on my YouTube channel, and my full speaker profile with Chartwell Speakers.

Writing

I began my career as a music and tech journalist, then founded this blog in 2018, which is about when we all realised big tech does have a (really) dark side, thanks to the Cambridge Analytica scandal (remember that?!) My conviction, then as now: alerting people to these potential harms is key; but providing alternatives and mitigations is even more important.

You’ll find all sorts on here, but most recently about my pet topics, i.e. how to make AI more responsible, and less impactful. Some stand-out posts:

Frugal AI:

Responsible AI:

Not forgetting my Green IT white paper: “How can engineers make IT more sustainable?” (Scaleway, 2024).

Volunteering

It’s not all about the money! I also devote my spare time to a number of responsible tech-related causes, including:

  • Association Green IT: the volunteer arm of the Green IT collective helps organisations to adopt greener IT, both through active advocacy and through studies like this 2025 AI Lifecycle Analysis, which I’m currently helping to update for 2026
  • EcoLogits: the increasingly-global reference for measuring the environmental impacts of AI is an open-source, volunteer-led initiative now adopted by some pretty big companies. I’m a founding member of the group that created it, which is now part of CodeCarbon. It’s the devs who work the magic, though!
  • IEEE AI & DC Committee: coordinated by the IEEE, which developed a few standards you may have heard of (like, y’know, wifi?) this group is working towards reducing the impacts of generative AI
  • AI and Sustainability Network: created by the ENS’ ThĂ©ophile Lenoir, with Climate Collective’s Anna Lerner Nesbitt, this group gathers some of the world’s best thinkers – and doers – in the sustainable AI space
  • Data for Good: an NGO which gathers tech workers like data scientists to help projects for the common good; what’s not to like? This is where EcoLogits was born. And president ThĂ©o Alves da Costa put me on the path of AI sustainability a few years ago now. Hats off to them!

That’s all for now! To find out more, please feel free to connect on LinkedIn, or to drop me a line at james (at) bettertech (dot) blog. Cheers 👋🏻