A few decades ago, sustainability was considered just a buzz word, thrown about at a few marketing meetings. Today however, it has become a hot topic in the business world. As consumers are becoming more aware, there is a rapid surge in adoption of sustainable practices in today’s business environments.
Enterprises have now realized the economic, as well as social importance of being eco-friendly and responsible for the future generations.
A common factor between Cloud Computing and Sustainability is that both have gone from just being a trend to core value maximizing business practices.
Forward-thinking businesses have realized that Public Cloud infrastructures not only provide scalability and flexibility, but also help improve the environment by cutting down their carbon emissions.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has pointed out that private data centers in USA are consuming 1.5% of electricity, and there are about 680 million tons of annual carbon emissions. Cloud Service Providers (CSP) use power much more efficiently, as they run fewer servers. This in turn also reduces the overall carbon footprint.
The following points show how Cloud Computing can help businesses “go green”.
Improved Infrastructure
The data centers of cloud providers are generally planned in closed proximity to power generation facilities. This drastically reduces energy loss during the transmission process, especially over long distances. Mostly, enterprises that opt for private data centers do not have a lot of flexibility regarding this.
Reliable CSPs have a superior hardware setup and large-scale data centers, which utilize lesser electrically for cooling purposes and power back-ups.
Increased Utilization Rate
Enterprises, having their own data centers, will have to setup and purchase the entire thing, in case there is a spike in server usage. As the machine sits idle, it still depreciates at a very steep rate, and lowers the IT hardware utilization rate.
The CSPs, on the other hand, have well planned and utilized infrastructures and consequently, it has a positive impact on the overall environment.
Environmentally Friendly
Fewer carbon emissions mean reduction in the negative impact on climate. Amazon Web Service (AWS) states that large-scale Cloud-based data centers have much lesser dirty power mix, as compared to the private corporate data centers.
The carbon-intensive power mix is 28% less in CSP’s data centers, as compared to the private ones. The energy efficient equipment of Cloud based setups enables CSPs to seamlessly run their machines, while reducing wasteful spending.
Decreased Electricity Use
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory did a case study, which found out that in the USA, if all businesses deploy just their software in the Cloud, it can save electricity that would be enough to power Los Angeles for a year.
Cloud-based infrastructures are not very high maintenance, and they also do not demand tons of electricity for cooling purposes.
Conclusion
Cloud Computing has not only revolutionized the IT world, but it has also helped customers slash their carbon emission by 88%, and reduce wattage by another 84%.
Today, businesses have realized that to stay relevant over the mid to long run, they need to adopt a corporate social responsibility mindset across their business models.
If you wish to embrace environmentally sustainable business practices with minimal efforts, please Contact dinCloud, an ATSG company. We provide Cloud-based services and solutions that can enable this transition in a seamless manner.
