As companies seek to become sustainable, there is a growing understanding that their technology stacks must be more energy efficient and optimised to reduce environmental impact.
The ‘great migration’ to cloud, sped up by the impact of the pandemic, has brought many benefits, with Foundry research revealing cost savings, flexibility and choice[VI1] are among the key advantages cited by CIOs.
But have these big changes factored in sustainability?
Businesses need to demonstrate to consumers, investors, regulators and other firms they wish to do business with that their sustainability strategy is robust and delivers.
But it’s not just important for how a business is perceived, it also makes sound financial sense too. A study by Accenture found firms which take a lead on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues generate up to 2.6 times more value for shareholders than their competitors.
Adopting a sustainable IT infrastructure – and understanding what that really looks like – is crucial.
“Unprecedented sustainability pressures are forcing a deep reflection with respect to incumbent business models, measurement and disclosure,” says Accenture’s Christine Rauh. “But now it’s about the transformation agenda and companies are being asked to completely rewire their business – technology will be at the heart of the rewiring.”
Cloud sustainability
Cloud technology has revolutionised how companies function, enabling remote and more agile ways of working which in themselves have produced operational and financial benefits.
But the cloud also enables companies to better deliver on their sustainability commitments.
It can cut down on the need for inefficient servers in decentralised enterprise owned data centres, greatly reducing carbon emissions.
A study by Accenture found companies with average on-premise to cloud migrations can drive 65% energy reduction and carbon emission reduction of 84%. When looked at across the whole of industry, migrations to the cloud can actually reduce CO2 emissions by 59 million tonnes per year – which equates to taking a staggering 22 million cars off the road.
But when it comes to being an enabler for increased sustainability, not all cloud technology is created equal – and some might not be particularly sustainable at all.
What makes cloud technology truly sustainable?
Regulatory and investor scrutiny regarding sustainability performance is only going to increase. Companies cannot simply migrate to cloud and assume that is enough, their commitments must run deeper.
This can include ensuring the cloud provider uses renewable energy to power its cloud infrastructure and not fossil fuels, and that applications are optimised for running on the cloud. All cloud power and memory use should also be optimised, and migration to the cloud should utilise sustainable engineering practices.
Passing the sustainability test
For a company to ensure it is fully committed to sustainability, it must ask whether its cloud migration and cloud infrastructure passes the ‘sustainability test’. This includes asking:
· Is the cloud architecture they’re using configured for software and power efficiency?
· Is migration to the cloud supported by sustainable software engineering practices – which can reduce application energy applications by up to a factor of 50?
· Are applications configured specifically for the cloud – which can reduce carbon emissions by 98%?
But the most crucial question they must answer is this: Is the company which hosts the cloud committed to maximising the use of renewable energy rather than fossil fuels?
Ensuring a company’s cloud partner is committed to sustainability and renewable sources of energy is central to passing the sustainability test.
All Google Cloud products are carbon neutral – meaning the operational greenhouse gas emissions associated with running workloads on Google’s infrastructure have been reduced through procurement of renewable energy, and any residual emissions have been compensated for with high-quality carbon credits – which serve to help offset environmental impact.
Google has also committed to operating its entire business entirely on carbon-free energy by 2030 and in 2021, bought enough renewable energy from sources such as wind and solar to match 100% of the electricity consumption of its data centers and offices.
Adopting cloud is not enough. Cloud infrastructure and everything that goes with it must pass the sustainability test.