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Reducing the digital carbon footprint of the Cloud

Reducing Digital Carbon Footprints of Digital Technologies in the Cloud

Cloud technologies continue to be an accelerating factor in the digital transformation of legal departments and law firms. Thomson Reuters 2022 Legal Department Operations Index highlighted that half of all departments surveyed expected to increase their use of legal technologies, and of those e-billing, e-signatures,and legal research tools topped the list of importance. While some software technologies are still run on the individual’s computer, or even within the firm’s own on-site data centres, the vast majority of technology nowadays is deployed in the cloud. Cloud technologies have catapulted technology innovation and digital transformation in a comparatively short time period. Yet the “out of sight”-ness and the term “cloud” can portray cloud computing as a lighter-than-air panacea for both computing and the environment – this, though, it is not. Since cloud technologies still rely on the same fundamental resources as all computing systems, their environmental impact has the potential to scale in the same way as their power – exponentially. In this article we will look at just some of the ways cloud contributes to our digital carbon footprints from processing workloads to the storage and transmission of data to, from and between applications.

If you are unsure of what a digital carbon footprint is, read this article first.

Cloud helps extend personal computer lifetime use.

When it comes to mitigating our total digital carbon footprints, procurement has an important role to play. As mentioned in the What Are Digital Carbon Footprints article, 80% of a technology asset’s lifetime carbon is baked into the asset before it’s even turned on. This is known asembodied carbon. The remaining 20% comes from the carbon emissions associated with the energy burnt when using those assets; theoperationalcarbon emissions.
So before we dive into the specifics of the cloud’s carbon dioxide (and equivalent) emissions (CO2e), let’s spend a moment to look at how the cloud can help us on the journey to reduce emissions through more responsible technology procurement. Around 2016 there was a tipping point in cloud technologies, and their growth curve sped up rapidly. Before this, personal computing devices such as laptops and desktop computers needed their processors, memory and hard-disks to be updated at regular intervals in order to keep up with the demands of new software. Fuelled by a parallel growth of cheap, near-ubiquitous connectivity, cloud adoption soared, sifting processing power and storage capabilities from laptops and desktops to the network, or cloud. This shift ushered in a new computing paradigm for organisations of all sizes. This also changed the role of personal computers, moving them more towards input and display devices, becoming less prone to the evolving software demands – provided an opportunity to extend personal computing asset lifetime and mitigate the digital carbon footprint of newly acquired technology.
If we can extend the lifetime use of an asset, we can reduce the need to purchase new equipment and therefore tackle 80% of our digital carbon footprints before it even enters our businesses. This embodied carbon is also important when we think about the carbon emissions of the cloud technologies we use, so let’s look at that now.

How much carbon is in the cloud?

We can begin to understand the operational carbon impact of data centres by analysing their energy use. Cloud technologies live in data centres, and data centres are estimated to account for 1% to 1.5% of global energy consumption. The data transmission networks that connect them to each other and everything else, an additional 1%.
An IEEE article suggests that cloud technologies account for almost all of the 1% to 1.5% range and that this is expected to grow to 8% by 2030. While the link between the internet’s energy consumption and emissions is becoming less tightly coupled, as data centres and communication providers embark on system-wide, rapid decarbonisation strategies, there are still two reasons to dig into the cloud emissions. Firstly, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are not confident that these renewable energy decarbonisation efforts will sufficiently outpace the growth in demand.

“There is growing concern that remaining energy efficiency improvements might be outpaced by rising demand for digital services” –

IPCC Working Group III, Mitigation of Climate Change, 6th Assessment

Second, the operational energy use of digital technologies accounts for just 20% of the total life-time carbon footprint of the technology assets The manufacture, distribution and end of life disposal of IT equipment can add up to be much greater than the lifetime energy usage, typically four times greater.

That means that if 20% of a data centre’s operational energy accounts for 1% of the global energy use, the embodied and upfront carbon of the technology they use could be up to four times greater: 4% today and 32% by 2030. Therefore, we must be mindful about the emissions generated by our use of the cloud, and not treat it as “fire and forget” or “out of sight, out of mind”.

Where does all the cloud carbon come from?

To understand this we can simplify the problem into three areas, the energy and technology required for:
  • Data processing and generation
  • Data transmission (to, from and via the cloud)
  • Data storage

Data processing and generation

To help us think about this, consider how hot our computers can get when we use them. Sometimes they can reach uncomfortable temperatures when seemingly doing nothing, even worse when doing high-power activities such as video calls. Although the efficiency of computers, and their ancillary components continues to improve, a great deal of the power they consume is still turned into a by-product, heat.

The data centres that power the cloud and the networks needed to connect it all together are the same. As they do work to create, process and transfer data, they consume energy, of which a great deal is turned into heat. To avoid damage, this heat must be removed through cooling which, in turn, consumes even more energy.

The efficiency of a data centre’s energy use is known as Power Use Efficiency (PUE). This is determined by dividing the total amount of energy consumed (including cooling, lighting etc) by the amount of energy used for computing. The closer to zero the PUE, the better.

In some of the most efficient hyperscale data centres this number drops to 1.1, meaning that the amount of energy used to cool is one tenth of that used to power the computing equipment. In most, though, this number rises to 1.6, meaning an additional 60% of the compute related energy is needed to cool.

With this in mind, our use of cloud technologies to process, manage and create new data has an energy overhead that is greater than the amount of energy required to do the work.

Therefore, any energy we waste by doingneedless workin the cloud creates additional need forneedlesscooling, wasting even more energy, resulting in even moreneedless carbon emissions.

So, what is needless work?

Cloud technologies are often very easy to set up and activate, and when they’re running they keep running in the background without much in the way of a reminder. That means we can often simply not realise they are running, especially if we’re not using them – this is needless work. Redundant automated processes that send documents and files from one place to another without any real business benefit, duplicated backup files and unnecessary large email attachments are all other examples of needless work.

Examples of this could be applications that keep on running in the cloud even when they aren’t needed. Such as cloud collaboration software, research applications, applications used to run reports when the firm is closed down for holiday periods.

It could also be remote desktop applications for prior-employees or those on vacation, project management software instances for projects that have been delivered, or automated data capture and backup solutions that are no longer required. The individual energy, and therefore carbon savings, for each of these could be comparatively small, but they are incrementally cumulative and significant.

Plus, since most cloud applications and technology platforms are billed on a usage basis, eliminating needless work helps achieve both financial and carbon savings. Other types of needless work include redundant email attachments, unnecessary video calls and bloated website pages – which leads us nicely on to the carbon cost of data transmission…

Data transmission

The cost of data connectivity has plummeted over the past decade. When connectivity was more expensive, businesses, users and the developers of the software itself, would make more conscious decisions about what data really needed to be transmitted. Yet today we are metaphorically surrounded by “data lakes” – huge virtual warehouses of data that have been hoarded with the hope that one day some value could be derived from them. While connectivity may now be considered to have a reasonably low financial cost, the carbon cost is still significant. From an energy point of view, the cost of data transmission is still a significant chunk of a device’s power requirement, especially for small items like mobile phones and Internet of Things (IOT) devices. Any smartphone user will have experienced reduced battery time when streaming videos or frequently sending large attachments on email. At a larger scale communications infrastructure is estimated to account for 1% of the entire global energy demand. Essentially every byte of data has its own carbon footprint, embodying its creation, use, transmission, storage, and ultimate destruction. Simply put, the more bytes we create, the bigger the total footprint. The problem is that it is very easy to create, send and duplicate large amounts of data very quickly. Whether we use email to communicate and collaborate or other tools such as Slack, Whatsapp or other cloud messaging technologies, we’ve become accustomed to the idea of over communicating. While each message might be individually small, the scale of these across firms can soon add up. While much of this communication may be critical, it is the unnecessary data that we should look to obliterate. We should look at the overhead required to spam-scan, parse and deliver emails, especially junk mail, unread newsletters, and those with pointless graphics or duplicated attachments, and the spikes in computing and data communication required from accidental reply-alls to large groups. Websites are another source of cloud carbon emissions, especially those that are bloated with unoptimized low-value images or video clips. However, the biggest single source of data transmission in our societies today is video. Video is the fastest growing single data category across nearly all networks, whether it is streaming video, security webcams, or video conference calls. Video conference calls can generate a staggering amount of carbon for each and every participant’s video stream during every single minute of use. This is a problem that grew very rapidly during the pandemic, as so many of us found the utility, value and ease of use of video calls triggered us to drop old fashioned audio-only calls. The pandemic accelerated digital transformation and an unfathomable pace. Along with it, adoption and use of video calling also accelerated as we found new ways to conduct our lives at distance. Now, as we move back to a new hybrid normality, the use of video calls persists, and so does its carbon impact. Calculating the exact carbon footprint of a video call is an incredibly complex, real-time task. However,this reportsummarises that at a high-level, a 2-person video call can generate between 25 and 100 times more data per minute than the same call on audio only. This number multiplies by the number of participants on the call. A 100-person company makingjusttwo one-hour Teams video calls a week could create more thannine tonnes of CO2e emissionsover the course of a year. Compared to just over one-third of a tonne from audio-only Teams calls of the same duration. Video calls can add a great deal of value over audio only, and are often a much better alternative to physical travel, but neither of these statements are true all the time.

The pandemic accelerated digital transformation and an unfathomable pace. Along with it, adoption and use of video calling also accelerated as we found new ways to conduct our lives at distance. Now, as we move back to a new hybrid normality, the use of video calls persists, and so does its carbon impact.

Calculating the exact carbon footprint of a video call is an incredibly complex, real-time task. However, this report summarises that at a high-level, a 2-person video call can generate between 25 and 100 times more data per minute than the same call on audio only.

This number multiplies by the number of participants on the call. A 100-person company making just two one-hour Teams video calls a week could create more than nine tonnes of CO2e emissions over the course of a year. Compared to just over one-third of a tonne from audio-only Teams calls of the same duration.

Video calls can add a great deal of value over audio only, and are often a much better alternative to physical travel, but neither of these statements are true all the time.

A couple of quick tips to reduce the carbon footprint of digital meetings are: First, switch from high-definition (HD) video, to standard definition (SD) – this can save almost half of the CO2e associated with the call. Second, turn off the video when it no longer adds value to the call, even if just for a few minutes can have a big effect.

Although the most prolific, video calls are not the only source of digital carbon. Needlessly recreating and re-issuing digital documents, bills, or signature requests all add up, too. The point is to drive awareness on what data actually needs to be shared, and taking care in being correct the first time to avoid re-work.

Data Storage

Once documents have been created and sent, it is easy to think that their storage is a carbon-neutral affair. But yet again, we need to challenge this assumption. Stanford University estimates that every 100 gigabytes of data stored in the cloud could generate 200 kg of carbon emissions per year. While 100GB sounds like a lot, in today’s world it is really easy to generate this amount of data, quite quickly. A single Windows laptop backup can be 200GB, and mobile backups can easily eclipse 10’s gigabytes each. Not to mention, the vast quantity of presentations, documents and email backups that are kept and retained with only the infrequently enacted destruction steps of out-of-date data retention policies to keep it in check. In World Wide Waste Gerry McGovern cites a report that claims 90% of stored data is never accessed once stored, and that 90% of IoT data is never used.

Eliminating the storage of data that will never be used cuts the storage carbon, but also the carbon associated with the communication and processing of that data. The impact runs further, too.

Frequently clearing out unrequired or stale data frees up space for other applications, requiring the cloud provider to allocate less new hardware, thereby reducing the amount of carbon embodied in the hardware itself as well as the carbon associated to the use of this hardware.

In Summary

Cloud technologies deliver so much value and are so pervasive that we can’t imagine a future without them. However, there are habitual and behavioural changes we must make to address and reduce our digital carbon footprints.

One simple, but important step is to become more aware of and reduce our digitalwaste. This applies across both physical products and the services we consume that are built on top of them, especially cloud technologies.

Cloud applications have become heavily depended upon across many legal domains, yet the cloud’s ease of use can lead to unconscious use, wasted energy and unnecessary carbon emissions.

Raising awareness of the environmental impact of wasted cloud utilisation, whether that’s applications, storage, or data transfer, can help reduce both the cumulative carbon emissions of cloud technologies, and their financial cost.

Actions and recommendations

Digital carbon footprints span across all three of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s emission scopes – Scope 1, 2 and 3.

While Scope 1 and 2 are often more easily addressed, Scope 3 involves multiple third party entities such as banking, end users and entire supply chains and can often account for 80-90% of a company’s total footprint.

Cloud technologies contribute mostly to Scope 3.

Our collective relationship with the cloud continues to deepen and intensify, while our regulatory and moral obligation to report, reduce and remove our carbon emissions is rapidly stiffening.

At Jalubro we have expert services and products available to help you determine, manage and reduce your digital carbon footprints across all three scopes. 

Visit jalubro.com/netzeroservices/ to discover how we can be your partners in this evolving journey to Net Zero.

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