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Green Cloud & Data Centers

Less Dark Clouds for the Future

Cloud computing has revolutionised the way businesses and individuals manage, store, and process data. Cloud services offer significant flexibility and cost savings, but also, this convenience comes with a substantial environmental impact, particularly in terms of energy usage. Let’s minimise it!

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It's about making better choices and investing in energy-saving solutions

In 2020, data centers accounted for about 1-2% of global electricity use, with this figure expected to rise alongside the increasing number of connected devices. Since roughly 70% of the global energy mix comes from fossil fuels, this leads to significant carbon dioxide emissions.

The most environmentally impactful choice you can make is to power your digital products and services with renewable energy. Opting for web hosts that use renewable energy can reduce the environmental impact of digital services by about 15%. Additionally, implementing energy-efficient technologies within data centers, such as advanced cooling systems and energy-efficient servers, can further reduce energy consumption. Data minimisation strategies also play a critical role in lowering energy requirements.

Businesses that adopt sustainable IT practices are better positioned to comply with sustainability standards and carbon reduction targets – enhancing their corporate responsibility, improving their reputation among environmentally conscious stakeholders.

Principles

1. Choose green hosting partners

Green hosting partners use renewable energy and advanced energy-saving technologies like efficient cooling and servers. Optimise data center operations to reduce overall energy consumption.

2. Optimise network optimisation

Reducing bandwidth needs and streamlining data transfer processes improve efficiency and minimises energy consumption.

3. Improve data management

Optimise databases and enforce data retention policies that clean up outdated data regularly. Process only essential data and streamline algorithms to reduce energy use and computational demands.

4. Extend hardware lifecycles

Adopt a circular economy approach: promoting the reuse, recycling, and responsible disposal of IT equipment. Maintain and upgrade hardware like servers and routers to reduce e-waste and the need for new devices.

5. Improve hardware efficiency

Increase the utilisation of the cloud computing devices. Public cloud helps utilise spare capacity wisely by making it available for those in need.

6. Endineering

Plan for the end of a product’s lifecycle by designing efficient ways to archive or delete unused data, and ensure responsible disposal or recycling of hardware when decommissioned to minimise waste.

Utilise the Checklist to Evaluate and Consider the Qualities of Your Work

  • Does your hosting company have a sustainability policy and does it provide annual reporting of emissions?

    Takeouts from our evaluation checklist 1/3

  • Did you time high intensity workloads to quiet hours with low carbon intensity?

    Takeouts from our evaluation checklist 2/3

  • Is execution unit bootstrapping optimised to minimise redundant steps that could be preprocessed?

    Takeouts from our evaluation checklist 3/3

Download the toolkit

Yes, we’re interested in who’s interested, so please fill in the form and you’ll get the goodies!

Contents:

  • Theme introduction & Principles
  • Checklists for the 4 themes to evaluate your work with

Let us know if you’re interested in cooperation and we’ll reach out to you!

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