Across the globe, enterprises are prioritizing their digital transformations to accommodate work-from-home teams and improve reliability and scalability. Cloud technology allows for accelerated innovation and growth while reducing costs, offering enterprises more opportunities for achieving the agility that promotes superior customer experiences.
Even as they pursue these ambitious goals, there’s another – perhaps even more lofty – objective on the list of priorities. Enterprises are exploring ways to operate responsibly, choosing a cloud footprint that enables them to pursue sustainable technology practices.
Sustainable cloud adoption and the ability to support climate change initiatives is increasingly on the minds of enterprise IT as they choose next steps for their digital strategies. An analysis by Accenture demonstrated that through a sustainable cloud footprint, CO2 emissions could be reduced across the globe by 59 million tons annually, a 5.9% reduction in IT emissions. This is the equivalent of removing 22 million cars from the road.
Cloud providers continue to prioritize clean energy transitions, while enterprises are better equipped to reduce material waste and carbon emissions through advanced data analysis and process improvements. There is also workload flexibility, energy-efficient infrastructure, and improved server utilization that all makes it attractive to move to the cloud in terms of cost-efficiency. Public cloud delivers cost savings because it moves significant computing power off on-premise servers and networks while reducing IT labor as well.
There are three critical ways that enterprises are using cloud to reduce their impact on the environment, and they are easy steps for other organizations to implement:
Choose the Right Cloud Provider: Select a provider that actively measures and improves their cloud footprint. Your provider should be pursuing commitments that dictate how they plan and operate their data centers – as well as how they plan to retire them. Examine how they approach renewable energy generation, how data center hardware is reused or recycled, and how they are utilizing analytics for responsible management of assets and their operation. Choose a provider that embraces transparency in how they report carbon emissions in real time, tracking results against their goals for sustainability.
Prioritize Cloud Optimization: Enterprises can significantly reduce their carbon emissions through cloud technology, but it is critical to have the right level of ambition toward optimization. The enterprise must decide whether they are pursuing a strategic migration without redesign, the application of software engineering practices that embrace sustainability and application optimization. Reducing the cloud footprint is most effective when applications are designed specifically for cloud environments.
Pursue Sustainable Cloud-Enabled Innovation: Companies at the front of sustainable practices are pushing hard when it comes to innovation, looking for improvements beyond the data center. Cloud providers are increasingly working closely with enterprises as they demand longer-lasting hardware that is designed for modularity and circularity, presenting new opportunities for sustainability and improved profits.
Even as cloud technology solves a variety of challenges for enterprises supporting remote teams, looking for ways to reduce costs and improve elements like scalability and agility, they also present new opportunities for prioritizing sustainability. For more information on choosing cloud solutions to support your sustainability goals, contact us at Cloud Source.