Will the Cloud help with global GHG emissions?
I certainly see Cloud Computing as a key enabler to reducing total carbon emissions as companies move from on premise to cloud based computing ostensibly to reduce cost. This of course relies on the provider being more efficient overall and preferably carbon neutral. Companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google have the scale to make a huge impact and are already acting to do so. At the moment though there is no mechanism to track the overall impact as this type of CO2 footprint is “traded”.
Microsoft Data Centers for example are able to track energy and carbon consumption to the application level so conceivably we could see Service Providers offer another avenue for companies to reduce their emissions. It will be interesting to see whether datacenters will be able to participate in CDM and Carbon Trading by generating tradable certificates from the CO2 they remove from the grid. Not sure how additionality is worked into the equation though.
It would be interesting to see some projections of the overall impact of shifting percentage of on-premise compute to the cloud. Let me know if any analysts are on the case?
For more information see other cloud or datacenter postings on my blog and specifically Microsoft play in the Cloud space through Microsoft Software+Services initiative such as Microsoft Online Services and the Microsoft Azure Services platform.
see my posting on Microsoft Datacenter strategy
