Leveraging cloud computing capabilities can help organizations reduce their carbon footprint

As per a report by McKinsey & Company, migration of assets to clouds, globally, became amongst one of the key business priorities during Covid-19. In 2020, amongst many factors that contributed to the sustenance of a larger ecosystem, technology and particularly cloud adoption played an instrumental role. Since the pandemic, business models have pivoted to cater to the new normal consumer needs like online shopping, increased demand for video streaming, doorstep healthcare facilities, online education, and much more. The need for robust yet efficient cloud computing has thus become relevant and meaningful in the overall consumer experience matrix.

Businesses are increasingly adopting cloud technologies for its functional benefits such as pay-as-you-go pricing models, flexibility to scale, security, agility, mobility, data as an asset, collaboration, quality control, disaster recovery, loss prevention, automated software updates, competitive advantage, last but not the least, sustainability. Cloud’s popularity grows as it facilitates intelligent technologies and other tech-extensive solutions, in lieu of on-premise deployments that could be vulnerable to dynamic environmental and business requirements.

Amidst this, while technology proliferation is positive for growth and modern innovations, there is a need to work towards making its impact, less intrusive to the environment. Datacenters are core to our technological needs, but they consume a lot of electricity, which is not limited to computing but also to cool the heat generated from computing equipment’s thereby resulting in CO2 emissions.  As responsible corporates and communities, dedicated attempts need to make to draw electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind. While it takes effort and investment to go carbon neutral, it does pay off. 

According to a forecast from International Data Corp. (IDC) released in March 2021 – “Continued adoption of cloud computing could prevent the emission of more than 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from 2021 through 2024”. Asia Pacific regions in particular utilize coal for much of their power generation across datacenters and account for significant CO2 emissions.  

Cloud computing’s aggregated compute resource is a key driver in reducing carbon emissions as the framework can efficiently utilize power capacity, optimize cooling, leverage the most power-efficient servers, and increase server utilization rates. On the side-lines of switching over to renewable sources of energy, cloud infrastructure is inherently well suited to address energy efficiencies because:

Ø  Efficient resource management as the ‘pay-as-you-go’ model in cloud computing allows individual users to judiciously utilize the services, thereby reducing wastage.

Ø  It helps reduce carbon emissions from multiple physical servers. Virtualization allows cloud solutions to be delivered from a single server which can run multiple operating systems, simultaneously.

Ø  In an automated environment, users can operate on higher utilization ratios and consolidation which reduces input from the physical infrastructure.

Ø  Cloud is also unaffected by multiple users & organizations accessing its common infrastructure as automation can balance the workloads and minimize the requirement for additional infrastructure or resources.

Ø  Modern and efficient cloud data centers are taking the idea of ‘Green IT’ forward in a meaningful way, saving not just the environment but also building a more robust ecosystem.

Ø  The differentiated ability to shift IT service workloads, virtually to any location in the world also creates an opportunity to enable greater usage of any available renewable sources of energy of that location.

Sustainability is frequently viewed from an operational point of view while environmental goals are viewed as a cost center in businesses, risk, or compliance to adhere to. Green datacenter and sustainable cloud infrastructure go beyond the business; they are incredible opportunities to give back to the communities where we operate. 

If datacenters get designed for sustainability which starts with shifting to cleaner, renewable sources of energy like wind and solar power, LED usage across datacenters, then carbon emissions can be reduced. An efficient data center will have energy diverted towards running the IT equipment vs cooling the environment where it resides.

Businesses in several countries are taking lead in shifting their IT system to cloud centers and are deriving immense value from the exercise. They are not only able to tackle the problem of fluctuations in the electricity supply but also take add value to the overall brand image & reputation in being an environmentally conscious entity among stakeholders. Businesses may take measures to become ‘carbon neutral’ through carbon offset efforts or designing data centers with ‘efficiency’ and ‘environmental protection’ as the guiding principles and help accelerate sustainability goals.

Authored by AS Rajgopal, MD & CEO, NxtGen Infinite Datacentre