Harmonizing Digital Fortresses with Ecological Integrity: A Multi-Dimensional Performance Analysis of Sustainable Cryptographic Frameworks and the Green Score Metric

Abstract

As the global dependence on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) intensifies, the energy consumption associated with cryptographic protocols has emerged as a substantial impediment to realizing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in relation to affordable energy (SDG 7) and resilient infrastructure (SDG 9). This paper offers a multi-faceted performance assessment of standard cryptographic and hashing algorithms—including AES, RSA, ECC, and SHA variants—scrutinizing their sustainability through a bespoke benchmarking toolkit. The methodology involved quantifying three critical metrics: execution time, memory usage, and CPU load, the last of which served as a direct proxy for energy consumption.  Pivotal findings reveal a pronounced disparity in resource efficiency: symmetric ciphers, notably hardware-accelerated AES, have emerged as the most efficient, maintaining a CPU load of 26.4% in contrast to the 100% utilization mandated by asymmetric operations. Additionally, Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) has been found to yield a 14.6-fold reduction in energy consumption per bit relative to RSA, establishing it as the optimal sustainable option for public-key security. In tests of data integrity, SHA-256 exhibited superior performance compared to SHA3-256 within standard operational environments. A novel, weighted "Green Score" was formulated to synthesize these multi-dimensional metrics into a single, actionable score, allowing for performance evaluation against different operational profiles (e.g., Balanced, CPU-Critical, Memory-Constrained). These insights affirm that judicious algorithm selection can facilitate robust digital security while preserving ecological integrity.