Paying Attention To Green Computing Is Worthwhile For Environmental Concerns

In this modern age of technological innovations, the requirement to go green is stronger than ever. With the emergence of cloud computing, the internet is becoming a great contributor to carbon emissions due to the utilization of dirty energy. Revolutionary IT companies and search giants have taken this issue under consideration and are redirecting a massive number of their data centers onto renewable energy sources. Be it Facebook, Amazon, Google, or Microsoft, organizations are progressing by leaps and bounds to become as environmentally friendly as possible by setting their ecological company goals. 

The latest evolution in cloud computing assists companies to become familiar with the fact that they are attaining more flexibility and scalability by switching to the public cloud. According to the Environmental protection agency, data centers now encounter 1.5% of overall electricity utilization in the United States. Moreover, by the year 2020 carbon emissions have four-footed to 680 million tons per year. Consequently, carbon exhalation and electricity consumption can be minimized by redirecting all of the IT operations to a public cloud provider, known as green computing in layman’s terms. 

There is no surprise in saying that cloud computing is sustainable yet it comes with a catch. Cloud computing provides a wide range of benefits such as security, mobility, scalability but the highly valuable advantage is its potential to foster environmental friendliness in regular business operations. Let us have an overview of some major benefits that organizations can cherish by acquiring cloud computing. 

It is predicted by International Data Corporation (IDC) that from 2021 to 2024 the continuous acquisition of cloud computing helps to intercept the emission of more than 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). The prediction utilizes IDC data on server distribution, cloud, and on-premises software utilization in addition to third-party information on data center power utilization, emission analogy of cloud as well as non-cloud data centers, and CO2 emission per kilowatt-hour. 

Cloud data centers mainly rely upon renewable energy resources and making them environmentally friendly. Solar powers and winds are substituting fossil fuel-based electricity. The utilization of green energy instead of fossil fuels is becoming the most common sustainability strategy. For instance, Agile IT and Arcadia Power, partnered so that their headquarters and data centers currently operate under wind power. Thanks to the leveraging technology due to which cloud centers are running in a more energy-efficient manner as compared to physical data centers.

The way cloud computing facilitates remote work, which decreases commutes which in return decreases automobile emission is effortless. Saving the utilization of gasoline and auto emissions also results in less air pollution, providing it an additional environmental advantage that is integrated into our society. Remote employees assist companies to work more accurately and efficiently. A minimal number of employees means minimal utilization of resources, also utilizing less heat and energy. 

The global environmental ecosystem is more secure and stronger because of cloud computing. Let us have a deep analysis of this enthusiastic fact that how the world’s most popular cloud providers are acquiring green computing to leave a positive impact on the environment. 

Recently Google Cloud announced that by the year 2030, it is projecting its goal to run its business on carbon-free energy 24/7 all across the globe. Google Cloud encounters how much carbon it has consumed every year. In 2007, Google successfully achieved carbon neutrality. This search giant has purchased enough solar and wind energy to tone with 100% of its global electricity consumption since 2017. The next step in resulting in a carbon-free future and providing its customer with the most enhanced form of cloud computing services is completely decarbonizing its data center electricity supply chain. 

Each Google Cloud region will be supplied with the emergence of more and more carbon-free energy and very minimal fossil-based energy, the company is continuously striving to achieve new and innovative sustainability goals. 

For the past couple of years, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is prominently publicizing its goal to become energy efficient and it is deploying wind as well as solar projects all across the globe. In 2020, Amazon Web Services was the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy resources. 

According to a 451 research report, the workload of carbon footprints can be lowered up to 88% by moving an on-premises workload to AWS for the median that examined US enterprise data centers. Moreover, AWS infrastructure was found to be 3.6 times more energy-efficient as compared to the median observed enterprise data center. Do you know that Amazon also discovered The Climate Pledge? This states that by the end of 2040, it aims to become 100% carbon-free. Other plans include ongoing commitments to environmental sustainability and working towards a completely carbon-free shipment of products. 

Microsoft Azure is assisting in the evolution of sustainable data centers. In 2012, Microsoft Azure went carbon neutral, and currently, it is aiming to become carbon negative by the end of 2030. It is expected that by the year 2025, Azure will become completely dependent on renewable energy just like Amazon Web Services. 

Fortunately, Microsoft servers have been environmentally friendly for a very long time now due to their renewable energy certificates. Data centers of Microsoft Azure are 60% dependent on renewable resources. Thus Microsoft is still aiming to increase this percent by the year 2023.

There is no surprise in saying that green computing is evolving at a continuous pace. Information technology is not just an idle observer, but it is contributing to the acquisition of green computing to leave a positive impact on environmental sustainability. Reducing energy consumption is a major concern so that technological evolution can leverage potentially in the upcoming years. Developing an understanding of the principles of green computing helps to survive in the near future. 

The future of green computing will forecast three significant areas of concern i.e. creation, utilization, and disposal for the assurance of the least adverse impact of IT systems on the environment. 

However, there exist some areas which require deep analysis by researchers and it is the responsibility of infrastructures to overcome the exploration of such areas. Researchers suggest the utilization of substitutions in our regular digital environment such as elimination of physical disks, reading newspapers on tablets,  online shopping, etc. Hence we need to model certain predictions and react to the upcoming events accordingly.