Towards a more responsible cloud and data hosting

At a time when climate change and the energy crisis are becoming part of our daily lives, making the Cloud and data centers more environmentally friendly has become a major challenge and a real imperative to address.

The environmental impact of the cloud is a growing concern, particularly due to the energy consumption of the data centers hosting cloud services. It is estimated that the cloud computing sector could consume up to 20% of the world’s electricity by 2025, a projection that underscores the importance of adopting sustainable practices. IT and cloud computing stakeholders have a responsibility to understand and minimize their carbon footprint.

It is impossible to ignore this observation: digital technology is polluting and energy-intensive. In France, the carbon footprint generated by digital goods and services represents 2.5% of total CO2 emissions. This figure may seem low, but it is experiencing significant growth and could reach 6.7% by 2040. Additionally, 10% of French electricity consumption comes from digital services. Data centers, on their own, are said to be responsible for 6% of the digital impact in the country.

These figures from 2020 are widely cited in the latest report report from Arcep and Ademe on the environmental impact of digital technology, published in March 2023, which predicts a 45% increase in the carbon footprint of digital technology by 2030 if nothing is done to address the situation.

And for good reason, the advent of the cloud has brought about new uses and notably, a new bias: that of its infinite storage capacity. At all levels of the data creation chain, we store, duplicate, archive, backup… Without necessarily questioning the necessity of doing so. The lack of physical presence of storage and the reduction of costs have long given everyone the sensation that anything was possible. We now know that this is false. Dematerialized does not mean absence of impact.

So how can we make the Cloud and its data centers more responsible? The subject is already under study to achieve the decisive objectives set by the European Union: to make European data centers carbon-neutral by 2030.

Contrary to what one might imagine, digital transformation has actually improved the carbon footprints of companies that have decided to take this important turn.

While the Cloud has created new uses on an individual scale, it has primarily enabled the updating of practices within large corporations. By working on their digital transformation, the latter have had the opportunity to rationalize them but also to review their processes by integrating CSR issues. An analysis by Accenture thus shows that companies that have migrated their traditional IT infrastructures to the Cloud have reduced their carbon footprint by nearly 84% on average !

If the Cloud enables this economy, it is notably because its infrastructures are now shared among different companies that previously had their own installations. This pooling of resources is further boosted by a more intelligent management of these same infrastructures.

Thanks to artificial intelligence, data centers can adapt to demands and offer more efficiency than on-site servers. While data centers consume, they use high-level technologies that are particularly energy-efficient. Digital transformation and the Cloud are therefore excellent choices, and regardless, modernizing and embracing the digital shift remains important. By 2025, it is estimated that over 85% of organizations should adopt the cloud-first principle.

All of this does not exempt the Cloud from its environmental responsibility in any way. Several avenues are already being explored and implemented by major players in the industry to achieve clear objectives.

A carbon-neutral European Cloud by 2030: that’s the ambitious goal set by 25 infrastructure industry leaders in Europe. Announced on January 21, 2021, this pact, based on voluntary commitments, was developed in collaboration with the European Commission. This initiative advocates primarily for self-regulation of the players and focuses on direct carbon emissions while integrating various technical criteria. Industry players commit, notably, to sourcing 75% of their energy from decarbonized sources by 2025. But other avenues are also under consideration.

Indeed, among the other avenues considered is the integration of key principles of the circular economy in managing the energy consumed by data centers. For instance, by managing to recycle the heat emitted by their servers, as is already the case with the Butte aux Cailles swimming pool in Paris. Furthermore, the use of renewable energies remains to this day one of the key ways to make the Cloud more eco-friendly. Similarly, investing in high-efficiency equipment for lighting or power supply is crucial. Many companies and startups have taken up this challenge and are now seeking to design intelligent cooling systems to reduce waste. They are also addressing the issue of recycling and treating waste specific to the Cloud and data centers.

These are solutions that will enable IT managers worldwide to make more environmentally friendly choices in the medium term and make informed decisions on the matter.

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