The world is facing a stark and immediate environmental challenge. Sustainability and reducing carbon footprints have become a priority for every business. It may no longer remain an option either. The European Union, for instance, has started to impose fines on companies for high carbon emissions. The trend will soon spread to other parts of the world. 

A key focal area for going green is information technology, one of the biggest carbon polluters. IT and the associated digital technologies account for about four percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally.

The following are some ways enterprise IT may reduce their carbon footprints.

1. Migrate to the public cloud

The cloud has always made financial sense for enterprises. The COVID-19 pandemic sped up cloud migrations as enterprises sought to set up work from home models. Post-pandemic enterprises have another big reason to migrate their resources to the cloud. The cloud promotes sustainability and helps enterprises reduce their carbon footprints.

Enterprises moving on-premise resources to the cloud reduce energy consumption by 65% and carbon emissions by 84%. The annual global reduction in carbon emissions from public cloud migrations is about 59 million tons. This is like removing 22 million cars off the road. A 2018 Microsoft report estimates the cloud as 98% more carbon-efficient than on-premises solutions. Another research by Google reveals that the quantum of computing done in cloud data centres increased by 550% between 2010 and 2018. But energy consumed by the cloud grew by just 6% during the same period.

The public cloud offers better server utilisation and deploys the latest energy-efficient infrastructure. The work-from-home enabled by the cloud reduces the carbon footprint of employee commute.

Enterprises would do well to support sustainable cloud migrations by:

• Deploying analytics for better data insights. Insightful decisions reduce data transfers and conserve energy.
• Adopting sustainable software engineering. Cloud-native application architecture reduces application energy consumption by up to 50x.

2. Select vendors committed to reducing carbon footprints

A key to a sustainable cloud is selecting vendors who power their servers using clean energy sources. Cloud operators have different commitments toward sustainability.

Enterprises would do well to

• Partner with renewable energy providers to power data centres.
• Prioritise cleaner grids. Customers may choose geographical regions with more carbon-free energy scores. A data centre operating in a warm climate will incur significant cooling costs and will have a greater environmental impact. Conversely, a data centre in a cool climate reduces cooling costs and may recycle the heat.

Consider Google’s latest carbon-intelligent computing initiative. Google will shift one-third of its moveable computing tasks among data centres depending on carbon-free energy availability.

The amount of computing going on at data centres varies throughout the day. Google’s carbon-intelligent platform uses day-ahead predictions. It estimates the computing load of servers and the extent to which such servers will rely on carbon-intensive energy. The platform favours regions with more carbon-free electricity without disrupting the front end. Also, the priority is to shift energy-intensive applications, such as YouTube and Google photos. Adjusting operations in real-time enables the company to get the most out of the available clean energy.

Google also has a target to decarbonise its electricity use by 2030 completely.

3. Switch to newer infrastructure

Legacy infrastructure, including servers and software, may work fine for the immediate needs of the enterprise. But such resources are often energy-intensive. It also inhibits enterprises from accessing newer sustainable facilities, or unlocking opportunities enabled by new technologies.

Digital transformation may cause short-term disruption. But it also allows sustainable goals, improving carbon footprint, and the associated benefits. In the long run, modernising makes financial sense anyway through increased operational efficiency.

Some of the core elements of modernisation, to attain sustainability, include:

• Re-platforming legacy applications to serverless technology and cloud-native architecture.
• User devices such as smartphones and tablets account for a huge chunk of the overall carbon footprint in any enterprise. Limit the number of such devices by encouraging BYOD.

4. Rationalise the IT environment

Most enterprises roll out processes quickly but forget to shut down unneeded resources. Many servers run underutilised as well. Rationalising the IT resources reduces waste and improves sustainability. Enterprises need to:

• Right-size the computing power requirements and avoid over-provisioning. Measure instance usage and performance to identify compute needs and patterns. Estimate the total power required and the time of requirement. Apply automated protocols to match workloads.
• Provision underutilised servers for new projects instead of always adding new resources.Computer Economics estimates that about 80% of production UNIX servers and 90% of Windows servers have utilisation rates of less than 20% capacity.
• Establish automated, flexible shutdown schedules based on usage patterns to reduce idle consumption.
• Run instance upgrades regularly to improve speed and efficiency.
• Improve IT governance. Establish strict standards and governance structures. Centralise provision of new resources.
• Leverage the cloud’s horizontal scaling technology. Horizontal scaling allows using existing idle infrastructure instead of adding more power or CPU.
• Use DevOps for better infrastructure provisioning, sizing and placement policies. 

5. Leverage newer technologies 

Emerging technologies such as AI allow enterprises to realise their sustainability targets. These technologies pay back for itself in a short while. Enterprises become more efficient and sustainable. They also get to future-proof their business. Some of the emerging technologies that enable enterprises to reduce their carbon footprints include:

• Artificial Intelligence. Many cloud providers use Artificial Intelligence to monitor energy efficiency. CO2 calculators generate detailed measurements of the environmental impact of the cloud. The algorithm analyses invoice details, consumption data, and server usage to estimate energy consumption and emissions. Such innovations incentivise a data-driven way of working. Decisions based on such intelligent data promote sustainability without obstructing the business. Research by Microsoft and PWC UK estimated AI could reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by 4% in 2030.
• Edge computing. The cloud is more “green” than on-premises servers, and the edge is more “green” than conventional cloud platforms. The edge stores data near the source. Compared to huge cloud data centres, data centres deployed for edge require less energy to run. Shifting operations to the edge also reduces the traffic between the client and the cloud.

Here are five reasons your enterprise should embrace edge computing.

•  Hyperscaling. Hyper-scalers that use renewable energy bridge the power gap between the cloud and the edge. Directing hyper-scale activity through one server reduces traffic and energy consumption significantly.

Going green and reducing carbon footprints leads to long-term sustainability. It also delivers a competitive edge for the business. Environmentally-conscious customers prefer to do business with enterprises having the same outlook.