What Is Sustainability in the Cloud?

Sustainability in the cloud involves measuring and reducing the environmental impact of cloud usage. It also involves the use of cloud systems to promote ecological balance.

What Is Sustainability in AWS?

Sustainability in AWS is the use of AWS services to collect, analyze, interpret and manage sustainability data.

What Is ESG in the Cloud?

ESG in the cloud includes all efforts towards environmental, social and governance sustainability in the cloud.

What Are the 4 C’s of Sustainability?

The four C’s of sustainability are conservation, community, culture and commerce.

Table of Contents

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Cloud Sustainability Statistics: Definition & Efforts in 2024

Cloud sustainability is vital to ecological balance, as it could create an equilibrium between the usage and replenishment of resources by cloud systems. This article focuses on key cloud sustainability statistics, highlighting the past, present and future of cloud ESG efforts.

Written by Adeyomola Kazeem (Writer)

Reviewed by Aleksander Hougen (Co-Chief Editor)

Facts checked by Simona Ivanovski (Fact-Checker)

Last Updated: 29 Aug'24 2024-08-29T11:16:27+00:00

All our content is written fully by humans; we do not publish AI writing. Learn more here.

Key Takeaways: Cloud Computing Sustainability

The top two cloud providers — AWS and Microsoft Azure — are aiming to use 100% renewable energy by 2025 and to be water-positive by 2030.^1,2
Microsoft wants to be carbon negative by 2030, and by 2050, its aims to remove all the historical carbon it has emitted since Microsoft’s founding.²
Amazon and Google aim to have net zero carbon emissions by 2040 and 2030, respectively.^1,3
Currently, cloud providers such as AWS and Azure have sustainability initiatives aimed at water stewardship, low-carbon alternatives, renewable energy and wildlife rejuvenation.^1,2,3
Cloud adoption could contribute to the removal of about 59 million tons of carbon dioxide.⁷
E-commerce retailers and media and entertainment tech generally have higher percentages of their workloads in the cloud.¹³
Cloud migration can reduce carbon emissions by up to 84%.⁵
Better sustainability performance has been linked to higher operating margins.⁷
Global cloud value in earnings before tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) is expected increase to about $3 trillion by 2030.¹³
American cloud industries have the highest cloud value globally, of around $1.1 trillion.¹³

Facts & Expert Analysis on Cloud Sustainability:

Standardization: Currently, there’s no universal standard for measuring the environmental footprint and impact of the cloud. Defining such standards would improve the precision of cloud sustainability assessments, particularly comparative assessments.
Innovations for sustainability: Liquid immersion cooling and high-efficiency chips are among the top innovations for sustainability. Liquid immersion brings more efficiency to operations, while the chips make the systems inherently efficient.
IoT, AI and machine learning: The significance of AI and machine learning in predictive sustainability, optimization and resource allocation will continue to grow. IoT could play a maintenance role through smart energy consumption optimization.

Cloud sustainability, which ensures that cloud computing and infrastructure are environmentally friendly and ecologically sustainable, is more important than ever. Organizations that close their data centers to run their workloads in the cloud contribute to a significant reduction in carbon emissions.

Centralizing data center infrastructure reduces electricity consumption due to increased efficiency, which in turn leads to decreased carbon emissions, especially when coupled with renewable energy sources. High-efficiency energy systems, advanced machine learning models and efforts to switch to renewable energy have greatly contributed to ecological sustainability.

In addition to environmental sustainability, efforts to achieve cloud sustainability may bring about economic and social sustainability. Economic sustainability in this case can stem from the cost savings and scalability of the cloud, while the cloud’s support for remote work and real-time global interaction promotes social sustainability.

Meet the experts

Adeyomola Kazeem (Writer)

Adeyomola Kazeem is an expert in cloud computing and cloud services, with over five years of experience in writing and technical expertise in Linux and DevOps. Holding a diploma in cloud computing from Altschool Africa and a bachelor of pharmacy from the University of Ibadan, Adeyomola is also an AWS Solutions Architect Associate and AWS Cloud Practitioner, contributing to his proficiency in cloud infrastructure and cloud storage. His expertise encompasses cloud deployment models, virtualization, containerization and serverless computing, making him a valuable asset to Cloudwards in simplifying complex cloud concepts for a wide audience.

More about Adeyomola Kazeem

Aleksander Hougen (Co-Chief Editor)

Aleksander Hougen, the co-chief editor at Cloudwards, is a seasoned expert in cloud storage, digital security and VPNs, with an educational background in software engineering. Beyond his prolific writing commitment, Aleksander helps with managing the website, keeping it running smoothly at all times. He also leads the video production team and helps craft e-courses on online technology topics. Outside of the professional realm, he is a digital nomad with a passion for traveling, having lived in many countries across four continents.

More about Aleksander Hougen

Learn more about our editorial team and our research process.

Definition: What Is Cloud Sustainability?

Cloud sustainability, also known as green cloud computing, is the use of cloud systems to maintain ecological balance and ensure sustainable growth. It refers to the ways the cloud can promote having a positive environmental impact. It also describes how cloud providers can ensure efficiency in delivering cloud services.

When it comes to environmental sustainability, cloud computing is useful in many ways, including reducing carbon footprint, improving efficient energy consumption, reducing resources used in cooling systems and so on.

Beyond environmental balance, the cloud can also ensure sustainable social and economic systems. The common factor in all of these is improving efficiency.

Benefits of the Cloud for Sustainability

One of the core benefits of the cloud for sustainability is decarbonization; cloud technologies currently play a significant role in reducing carbon emissions. In the years to come, cloud systems are tipped to promote the implementation of almost half the decarbonization initiatives needed to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that cloud-powered technologies in industries, such as manufacturing and transportation, could reduce 32 metric gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent — this would be around half the total reduction needed to hit worldwide net-zero emissions by 2050.¹⁴ In addition to promoting decarbonization, cloud sustainability can generate more than $100 billion in annual savings.

Sustainable Technology Trends and Goals

The adoption of the cloud for sustainability is backed by various trends and statistics. The following key points highlight some of these sustainable technology trends.

By 2027, sustainability of IT organizations will be one of the performance metrics for 80% of chief information officers (CIOs).⁴
Migrating to the cloud can reduce carbon emissions by up to 84%, compared to traditional infrastructure.⁵For example, running workloads in the AWS cloud in South America is about 4.1 times more efficient than on premises.⁶
High environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance was linked to lower volatility and higher operating margins.⁷
Companies migrating to the cloud can potentially save almost 50% in total cost of ownership.⁷
Migrations to the cloud could reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 59 million tons per year, the equivalent of removing 22 million cars from active use.⁷
Cloud providers are now running data centers with renewable energy and low-carbon fuels while using innovative and water-conserving cooling methods.^1,2,3
More cloud providers like AWS are using hardware made from low-carbon concrete and steel to reduce carbon footprint.¹
Cloud providers are offering more tools and features that streamline carbon accounting for customers and make it more transparent. These tools allow customers to make informed decisions about technological sustainability.^9,10,11,12

Carbon Reduction Percentage From On-Premises to AWS Lift-and-Shift

Global Value of the Cloud

Cloud adoption and migration across industries can significantly reduce carbon emissions, which is why it’s good news for the world that there’s a lot of growth to look forward to in the industry.

Estimates from 2023 place the cloud computing industry’s value at more than $500 million, and all signs point toward another surge in the coming years, which can correlate with sustainable growth. Below, we list some insights about the global value of the cloud.

Studies project that global cloud value in earnings before tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) will increase to about $3 trillion by 2030. Innovative solutions like IoT and automation advancements, plus faster logistics, will be major drivers of this increase. Cost savings, revenue risk and reduced risk will also contribute.¹³
The cloud’s impact on EBITDA value will vary across industries. In the U.S., banking, pharmaceutical, entertainment and tech companies will likely see the most EBITDA gain with increased cloud usage. However, highly regulated industries like infrastructure, electricity, materials and gas may see a lower jump in EBITDA value.¹³
Asia has the highest potential gains in cloud EBITDA value — estimated to be about $1.3 trillion. This potential stems from the continent’s huge banking industry and the oil and gas industry, both of which are still in the early stages of cloud adoption.¹³
The earliest cloud service providers and the current top three are American cloud companies, which may have contributed to the rapid cloud adoption in that region. In turn, this led to the U.S. currently having the highest cloud value.¹³
American industries currently have a cloud value of around $1.1 trillion — the highest globally.¹³
Europe and Africa have a combined potential cloud value of just shy of $800 billion — lower than that of North America and Asia.¹³
U.S. companies are at various stages of cloud adoption. E-commerce retail and media software technology have the highest levels of adoption. Natural gas and electricity companies in the early stages are often unmotivated to migrate to the cloud. Some banking and insurance companies have only partially adopted the cloud.¹³
There are multiple pathways toward cloud adoption and increased cloud value. The trends suggest that conservative cloud adoption pathways will see smaller cloud value increases, while those who go all out will benefit from more value.¹³

Cloud Value Potential By Region (In $ Billion)

Cloud Provider Sustainability Initiatives: ESG Strategies

Considering AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud have a combined global market share of around 60%, their sustainability initiatives are crucial to the industry, as they set the standards. Below are the highlights of these initiatives.

Amazon AWS Cloud Sustainability

Amazon’s climate pledge commitment is to reach net-zero carbon by 2040 through two renewable energy commitments: match 100% of the electricity consumed by global operations with renewable energy by 2025 and to invest in wind and solar capacity equal to the energy used by all active Echo, Fire TV, and Ring devices worldwide by 2025.²³
In 2023, Amazon reached a sustainability goal of matching 100% of the electricity consumed with renewable energy sources, seven years ahead of schedule.¹
To ensure water efficiency and sustainability, AWS started a water stewardship program.¹⁵ Amazon aims to be water positive by 2030.¹
AWS offers high-efficiency proprietary processors — particularly AWS Graviton3 — as part of its Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) service. Instances running on Graviton3 consume up to 60% less energy than other instances.¹
The AWS Inferentia2 chip offers significant energy gains for machine learning and is about 40% cheaper than similar instances.¹
Before and during data center operation, AWS uses advanced predictive models to optimize the designs for efficiency and reliability. These models basically check the performance of the data centers against expectations.¹
AWS uses cooling techniques that vary with the seasons. This seasonal cooling coupled with real-time weather data further contributes to its energy efficiency.¹
As of 2023, most of AWS’ electric power consumption came from renewable energy sources. That same year, 22 regions (over 50%) ran on renewable energy.¹
AWS uses lower-carbon concrete and steel across its data centers to reduce embodied carbon emissions. In 2023, AWS built 31 data centers with lower-carbon steel and built 36 data centers with lower-carbon concrete.¹
In January 2023, AWS started using hydrotreated vegetable oil — a renewable, non-toxic fuel — to run its backup generators across Europe.¹
In addition to measures the company has taken directly, AWS has a carbon footprint tool for customers to visualize and estimate their carbon emissions data.

Microsoft Azure Cloud Sustainability

Microsoft’s sustainability goals include using 100% renewable energy by 2025, being water positive by 2030, zero-waste by 2030, and have net-zero deforestation from new construction.²
Taking it one step further, Microsoft wants to be carbon negative by 2030, so it removed more carbon each year than the company as a whole emits. By 2050, its aims to remove all the historical carbon the company has emitted since it was founded in 1975.²
Microsoft created and uses energy-efficient liquid immersion cooling systems.²
To decrease carbon emissions by reducing grid power demand, Microsoft integrated grid-interactive UPS batteries into its power sources.²
Microsoft uses low-carbon fuels to reduce carbon emissions in its data centers.²
The company is also involved in community sustainability projects, and it is actively working in more than 40 projects internationally.²This includes helping with urban area forestation in Iowa and native woodland reforestation in Ireland; helping provide water meters to hospitals in Cape Town, South Africa, to promote optimal water management; and relocating beavers to dams in Washingtonto restore the ecosystems.^16,17
Microsoft is also involved in local education and training. It contributes to energy efficiency education in Dublin, Ireland, to promote an energy-positive environment.² The company also provides solar skill training for workers in Virginia as a way to promote renewable energy.¹⁹

Google Cloud Sustainability

Google’s sustainability goals include net-zero emissions by 2030, and to help partners reduce 1 gigaton of carbon equivalent emissions annually by 2030.³
Google Cloud offers a tool called “carbon footprint” that provides customers with carbon insights that can reduce carbon emissions.
It also offers the “solar API” Google Maps feature, which provides data that streamlines the installation and design of solar energy systems.²⁴
To achieve its sustainability goals, Google Cloud now runs some of its data centers on solar and wind energy.³Google Cloud collaborates with sustainability partners to reduce potable water usage while integrating water circularity to improve water efficiency.²¹
The company aims to reduce plastic usage in its offices, use more plastic-free materials in its hardware and make it easier for users to find pre-owned items to purchase second hand.²²
Google created CircularNet to streamline waste management at recycling facilities.²⁰
To promote ecological balance, Google is restoring native habitats and supporting threatened wildlife, such as the monarch butterfly; since 2021, the company has helped restore and enhance more than 750 acres of habitat for monarch butterflies in California.²⁵

Cloud Sustainability Tools: Measuring and Reducing Impacts

Cloud platforms are providing various tools for cloud sustainability. These tools offer diverse functions, from measuring the carbon footprint to providing carbon emissions estimates.

Cloud Carbon Calculators

AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool: The AWS carbon footprint tool provides carbon emissions data as well as carbon emissions estimates, including charts and dashboards.
Microsoft Emissions Impact Dashboard: With Microsoft’s sustainability dashboard, you get information about carbon emissions and carbon savings associated with your cloud usage.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Carbon Footprint Tool: The GCP carbon footprint tool allows you to measure, reduce and report your cloud carbon emissions. It also includes location-based and market-based carbon emissions data.
IBM Cloud Carbon Calculator: IBM’s tool helps users track greenhouse gas emissions associated with their account. It is generally available to IBM Cloud users, but it does not provide information about all IBM Cloud services.
Cloud Carbon Footprint: The cloud carbon footprint tool is an open-source tool for measuring and monitoring cloud carbon emissions. It includes charts and dashboards that contain information like a carbon intensity map and estimated energy usage. One advantage it has over other tools is that you can use it on various cloud platforms.
Oracle Cloud’s Carbon Emissions analysis: Carbon emissions analysis is an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tool. Though it may not directly reduce carbon emissions, it plays a part in indirect emissions reduction. It provides reports, estimates and analyses that can improve carbon footprint management.
Salesforce Net Zero Software: This “net-zero-as-a-service” software can help measure carbon emissions beyond cloud usage. You can use it to measure your business’s carbon emissions due to travel, energy usage and so on. It also has automated reporting and AI-based insights.⁸

Cloud Sustainability Certifications

Cloud sustainability certifications are an indicator of an organization’s environmental impact. They confirm a company’s sustainability efforts and can potentially improve brand reputation.

At the moment, there are various cloud sustainability certifications but no standardization. We explain some of them below:

Linux Foundation has a “green software” training program for building and running greener applications.
Microsoft’s IC-002T00—A: Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability teaches skills to reduce carbon emissions and provide sustainable data reporting.
The Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance’s (SDIA) Sustainable Cloud Certification is given to organizations based on environmental and social sustainability criteria.
Renewable energy certificates are proof of renewable energy usage, and they count toward cloud sustainability certifications.

Final Thoughts

Cloud sustainability will play a huge part in the way the world engages with technology; it will spur the prioritization of environmental and social values when designing technological systems. So far, the top cloud providers are already creating water-saving infrastructure and using low-carbon alternative fuels in a bid to reduce their environmental impact and meet standards.

AI and machine learning currently play significant roles in cloud sustainability, and their usage in this field will continue to grow.

What are your thoughts on cloud sustainability? How do you think cloud sustainability will affect social systems in the coming years? Share your thoughts in the comments below; we’d love to hear from you. Thank you for reading.

FAQ: Cloud Computing and Sustainability

Sustainability in the cloud involves measuring and reducing the environmental impact of cloud usage. It also involves the use of cloud systems to promote ecological balance.
Sustainability in AWS is the use of AWS services to collect, analyze, interpret and manage sustainability data.
ESG in the cloud includes all efforts towards environmental, social and governance sustainability in the cloud.
The four C’s of sustainability are conservation, community, culture and commerce.