From reducing your energy use to improving workplace productivity, the advantages of sustainable cloud computing reach far beyond just decreasing your carbon footprints.
Answer this: what impact does your business have on the environment?
It’s fair to say that the need for enterprises to be environmentally aware today is more crucial than it was ever in the past.
This is especially true in the light of the presently suggested governmental compliance regulations that are aimed towards encouraging data centers to adopt greener practices through recycling, energy-renewal technologies, and the use of low-emission materials.
Besides, adopting a green approach can help your business to significantly reduce your costs, save money, and improve overall productivity, among many other advantages.
Enter green cloud computing.
A study by Forrester estimates that global spending on public cloud services will grow 35% to a staggering $120 billion next year. With such a substantial emergence, cloud computing is most certainly disrupting the economy within the IT industry.
And green cloud computing is a trend that has become much talked about in the past couple of years. It’s all about proactive environmental initiatives through the minimization of volumes of space required for a company’s servers and further deployment of a company’s IT services in the cloud instead.
What are the 7 great advantages of switching to sustainable cloud computing for your business? We explore down below.
1. Lower Your Energy Bills
Moving to the cloud allows businesses to reduce their energy consumption levels by over 80%.
And it makes sense. The amount of power needed to operate on-prem infrastructures is often underestimated by many. Servers require a constant power supply and cooling systems that prevent overheating. In addition to that, your equipment’s lifecycle requires regular disposals and new purchases of hardware, which adds even more to the overall waste.
Cloud services provide an eloquent solution to these concerns. A study funded by Google revealed that migrating commonly used applications to the cloud would cut the energy waste by a staggering 87% – enough to power Los Angeles for a whole year.
2. Encourage Dematerialization
Another way cloud computing makes efforts towards the environment is through dematerialization. This process refers to a continuous substitution of physical hardware with their virtual equivalents. This in turn helps to consistently decrease carbon footprints, leading to a more sustainable future.
Remarkably, by reducing the use of hardware and equipment, the cloud helps businesses to proportionally reduce the vast volume of waste stemming from the disposal of these hardware products.
3. Save Costs on Paper & Other Office Expenses
The security and reliability of the cloud allow its users the great advantage of storing their sensitive data that is also conveniently accessible. You can use this feature as an opportunity to go paperless, in turn significantly cutting your everyday expenses such as paper products.
By decreasing paper expenses, you’d be also reducing your expenditures on other office supplies such as markers, paperclips, and pens. It might sound minuscule, but how much do businesses spend on office supplies every year? The answer might surprise you.
What this also means is that you’re indirectly cutting down on the needs to shred, recycle, and incinerate paper, actons that contribute to a negative impact on the environment.
4. Boost Workplace Productivity
It’s proven. Cloud computing helps enterprises to handle Big Data more efficiently. That’s because employees can analyze and organize large volumes of raw data much quicker. What adds to this is the ability of data and analytics to be expansively shared across the company, which encourages decision-making and efficient collaboration, while minimizing manual errors and reducing duplications.
5. Decrease The Effect of GHG
The power of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is one of the main attributes of green cloud computing. It is a known fact that traditional on-prem data centers produce vast amounts of GHG throughout their life cycles.
There are many ways emissions are produced, some of which include utilization and disposal of hardware equipment, as well as initial production, assembly, and transportation of the said hardware to the on-side data centers.
With the use of the cloud, however, carbon emissions are significantly reduced mostly due to decreased energy consumption requirements.
Fun Fact: In 2010, Salesforce reduced its carbon footprint by a staggering 170,900 tons. This number is equivalent to clearing 37,000 vehicles off roads.
6. Move Towards Renewable Energy
Several cloud data centers are increasingly shifting towards utilizing renewable energy sources to power their operations, save costs, and reduce carbon footprint. Various types of renewable sources of energy used include geothermal, solar, wind, and hydropower resources.
A great example of such a company is Agile IT. Along with its partner Arcadia Power, Agile IT is making a difference in the industry by powering its network operations center with renewable wind power.
7. Tax Breaks
Nothing indeed can be certain in our dynamic lives… That is, except death and taxes, as Mr. Franklin has once wisely written.
Making the switch towards green IT can provide you with an opportunity to be eligible for certain tax breaks, depending on your state legislations.
CONCLUSION
The substantial environmental advantages of cloud computing are just too many to ignore. This disruptive service presents businesses with a unique opportunity to reduce their energy costs, cut on carbon footprint, and gear towards a brighter, wiser, and greener future.
Are you contemplating moving your IT department into the cloud?
We’re a team of dedicated experts who are passionate about harnessing the power of the cloud to provide you with intelligent and efficient solutions that work best for your business.
