A computing system performs an environment-aware cache flushing method. When a processor in the system receives a signal to flush at least a portion of the caches to the system memory, the processor determines a flushing mechanism among multiple candidate flushing mechanisms. The processor also determines one or more of the active processors in the system for performing the flushing mechanism. The determinations are based on the extent of flushing indicated in the signal and a runtime environment that includes the number of active processors. The system then flushes the caches to the system memory according to the flushing mechanism.