Carbon Disclosure Report, a London-based not-for-profit organisation that assesses global carbon emissions, stated in a recent report that organisations that have adopted cloud-based solutions reduce their energy consumption, carbon emissions and IT resources. They estimate that by 2020, energy savings of $12.3 billion and carbon reductions equivalent to 200 million barrels of oil can be achieved in the US alone thanks to cloud computing.
Another study has concluded that every 100-person company using cloud-based applications can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions by up to 90%.
Experts say that cloud computing is directly responsible for the online economy becoming so dominant and, as a result, has made it possible to save more of the planet’s resources. With more and more organisations using the cloud, a huge quantity of resource consumption has been prevented (although this has never been monitored).
Due to the online economy, the rise of physical stores and offices has also decreased. This inevitably has reduced demands on resources. Other examples worth mentioning are online document storage that has put a big stop to deforestation, and mobile and internet technologies which have reduced physical travel.
