Tips from IDC to improve the environmental sustainability of your IT workloads – AWS Blog

As the world becomes increasingly digitalized, enterprises are facing a complex challenge – balancing the need for energy-intensive IT infrastructure to drive digital transformation with environmental sustainability priorities. This competing demand has put data center energy consumption and carbon emissions firmly in the spotlight.
According to a new IDC InfoBrief report, Energy and Carbon Efficiency Benefits of Public Cloud Computing over Enterprise Datacenters, 1  public cloud data centers were estimated to be 3.8 times more energy-efficient than enterprise data centers in 2023. IDC, the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets, estimates that public cloud data centers had a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.22 in 2023, compared to 1.84 for enterprise data centers. IDC’s research also found that public cloud data centers were estimated to be 4.7 times more carbon efficient than enterprise data centers in 2023, and this gap is expected to widen to 7 times by 2027. As a result, IDC estimates that by 2027, carbon avoided due to public cloud usage is expected to be equivalent to removing 21 million U.S. cars from the road. IDC defines Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) as a metric used to measure the carbon emissions associated with operating a data center that is particularly useful for assessing the environmental impact of data centers, as it directly relates energy consumption to carbon emissions.
According to IDC, there are several key factors driving this carbon efficiency:
The carbon reduction opportunity of the cloud extends beyond just operational emissions. IDC’s research also found that the use of public cloud data centers can result in 34-37% less embodied carbon annually, compared to enterprise data centers. As it relates to data centers, embodied carbon is the indirect emissions associated with building a data center and manufacturing hardware. One source of embodied carbon in data centers is the server infrastructure. IDC concluded that because public cloud data centers utilize servers more efficiently, fewer are required to perform the same set of tasks. This translates to lower embodied carbon from not having to manufacture and transport those servers. IDC calculates the potential embodied carbon savings from using public cloud services to be 28 MMTCO2e in 2027 alone – the equivalent of removing more than 6 million cars from the road.
IDC report blog infographic
As a result of the energy and carbon efficiency benefits of public cloud data centers, IDC estimates that running generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) workloads in public cloud data centers is more energy and carbon efficient than running them on enterprise data centers. While generative AI can be energy intensive, the report outlines the sustainability advantages of generative AI:
The report outlines several key recommendations for enterprise leaders looking to improve the environmental sustainability of their data center portfolios:
IDC’s research concludes that moving IT workloads to public cloud data centers can support enterprises’ sustainability strategy and help them achieve energy and carbon efficiency benefits highlighted above. By leveraging the energy efficiency levers of cloud computing, organizations can reduce their carbon footprint while driving innovation and business value. For more information about the energy and carbon efficiency of public cloud computing, read Energy and Carbon Efficiency Benefits of Public Cloud Computing over Enterprise Datacenters. You can also read more about AWS commitments to Sustainability.
Jenna is Head of ESG and External Engagement for Amazon Web Services Global Sustainability. She is responsible for partnering with organizations across the region to harness the value to be found at the intersection of technology and sustainability and decarbonize operations through the power of the AWS Cloud. Jenna also leads AWS ESG team and strategy.

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