The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the body within the United Nations responsible for assessing the science of climate change. The IPCC released its latest report on climate change this week, and the news is sobering.
No matter where you stand on the issue of climate change causation, I think we can all agree that the relentless warming of the planet is bad. On February 28, 2022, Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN, said, “Every fraction of a degree matters. Every voice can make a difference. And every second counts.”
We’re all in this one together for sure, and any action taken helps. But there are some actions that can make a bigger impact than others. Let’s talk about how Cloud PCs contribute to green IT. You can also schedule a demo and we’ll show you our innovative SaaS platform.
IT’s Impact on the Climate
According to ZDnet, “The IT industry has a poor record for sustainability. The IT industry currently accounts for about 3% of global carbon emissions. The most significant contributions of greenhouse gases in this sector are data centers (45%), followed by communications networks (24%). A CapGemini report from way back in 2019 stated it this way,” If IT were a country, the sector would be the third-largest electricity consumer in the world.” That’s pretty startling when you consider how fast the the number of connected devices is growing, and how much data each of us is creating every day. The size and number of data centers just keeps growing. No wonder “Sustainability” is showing up on CIO priority lists these days.
IT Teams are Prioritizing Sustainability
The scope of climate change harm contributed by IT is being recognized more and more – especially as Millennials solidify their career-power. Right behind them, Gen Z holds very similar attitudes toward climate change. According to Pew Research, about 50% of both Millenials and Gen Zs view climate change as a man-made problem, unlike older generations who skew toward “naturally occurring.”
What does this growing concern about climate warming mean for your business? No matter where you stand on the issue, there’s a large cross-section of people who you’d like to have as customers and/or employees who want to do business with/work for companies that care about sustainability and are taking real action to make a difference in the world. Plus, if you’re doing business with government entities, most now have sustainability requirements built into their contracts.
Downsize that Datacenter!
Ironically, the problem IT has created with technology will also be addressed by technology. Some will argue that from an energy consumption standpoint, a data center is a data center – whether an individual company is running it on-premises, or it’s one of hundreds of data centers that make up the public cloud – the energy consumed will be the same. However, when you dig into the sustainability commitments the major public cloud providers have made to achieving carbon neutrality, this argument doesn’t seem to stand up to scrutiny. Just as public cloud providers can do a better job of securing your data, they can also move the needle on the “greenification” of IT by carefully managing energy consumption, using the latest energy-efficient technology, and taking advantage of solar, wind and other alternative energy sources at scale.
For example, Google is carbon neutral already, and it has committed to achieving carbon-free operation everywhere by 2030. In the meantime, they also have global programs that enable partner companies as well as individuals to do their part for sustainability. The butterfly effect could dramatically accelerate our ability to combat climate change. You can read more about Google’s sustainability efforts here.
Similarly, Microsoft has committed “to be carbon negative by 2030 and by 2050 remove from the environment all the carbon the company has emitted, either directly or by electrical consumption since it was founded in 1975.”
Many organizations are already taking steps to downsize or eliminate their on-premises data center footprint in favor of cloud computing to simplify IT management. The societal benefit of going green is built in as enterprises reap powerful security and agility benefits from the cloud.
Adopt Cloud PCs and Go Green!
As you progress in your cloud journey, one of the highest-return activities you can tackle is moving desktop workloads to the cloud. Workspot Cloud PCs uniquely provide numerous business benefits, including stronger security, global scalability in minutes, performance end users love, and greater overall agility so the business can respond to constant change in the world. Cloud PCs also do their part for sustainability:
- You consume exactly what you need – no more over-provisioning – so you’ll use energy more efficiently
- You can dial down your data center footprint and reduce energy consumption
- You can easily support remote work and reduce energy consumption associated with office buildings
- You can repurpose old end points and make them new again with blazing fast Cloud PC performance, thereby extending the life of hardware and reducing landfill impact.
Ready to learn more about Workspot Cloud PCs? Schedule a demo and we’ll show you how it works!
