The Greenest Cloud
Think about your online Spotify Songs, Netflix binge in lockdown OR emails & Video calls running the businesses in work from home modules. These all run on Cloud that DOES NOT have a silver lining but a carbon one.
The major cloud market shareholders (Amazon, Microsoft, Google) account for 2/3rd of the rented Cloud services market share. So here is a list in order of the greenness attributing to the carbon footprints they create farming the datacentres:
1. Google - Google Cloud Platform
Out of the three, it has the smallest market share of Cloud but astonishingly is the most decarbonized Cloud provider. Last year they claimed to achieve ‘zero net carbon emissions’ across all the operations (including datacentres) and is also the largest buyer of renewable energy in the big corporates.
Total Renewable Energy Portfolio: 5.5 GW
Their key goal is to ‘make the datacentres disappear’. The company has been carbon neutral for years now and constantly reducing its environmental impact by implementing policies as uniques as carbon taxes within the company.
Total Renewable Energy Portfolio: 1.9 GW
3. Amazon - Amazon Web Services
Eating the biggest slice of cake in the cloud market the company also made a pledge to be 80% carbon neutral by 2024 & go net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. However, they were accused by Greenpeace of abandoning its commitment - Article
Total Renewable Energy Portfolio: 1.6 GW
Due to COVID, there has been a huge spike up in consumption of Cloud and we can only envision further increment. That will for sure result in an energy consumption blast in the coming decades. The big 3 promise to completely decarbonize data centres in coming years, but their fossil fuels consumption is not yet out of the picture.
Probably there is yet another factor to consider your cloud vendor apart from top-notch service quality & lower prices. What criteria do you have while choosing your best-fit?
