The Role of Cloud in the Journey to Net Zero: A Panel Discussion With AWS and EDF
With many organisations around the world striving to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040, we need to focus on what we can do to reach this ambitious goal.
217 businesses have committed to the Climate Pledge to take collective action on the world’s greatest crisis and work together to build a safe and healthy planet for generations to come.
Contino was joined by AWS—co-founders of the Climate Pledge—and EDF Energy—Britain's biggest generator of zero carbon electricity—for a panel discussion on leveraging cloud adoption to accelerate sustainability initiatives, helping businesses become net zero.
If you missed the panel discussion, you can catch up here:
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What Does It Mean to Be a Net Zero Company?
Companies that sign the Climate Pledge are signing up to do three things in order to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040:
1. Regular reporting:
Measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis
2. Carbon elimination:
Implement decarbonisation strategies in line with the Paris Agreement through business change and innovations
3. Credible offsets:
Take action to neutralise any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially beneficial offsets
10 Key Takeaways From Contino’s Net Zero Webinar
After our panel discussion with AWS and EDF, we rounded up our key takeaways from the webinar itself!
1. The countdown is on...
The IPCC report on climate change estimated that we have until 2030 to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions 45% (below 2010 levels) in order to reach net zero by 2050.
2. We’re all accountable
The global data centre usage accounts for around 1-3% of worldwide electricity use, roughly the same energy of the entire country of Spain with digital technology use now responsible for about 4% of global CO2 emissions.
3. A sustainable digital future
With public cloud spend forecasted to grow 21.7% to reach $482 billion in 2022, building sustainable cloud operations is imperative for organisations to build a sustainable digital fabric for the future.
4. Building sustainable businesses in the cloud
Partnering with AWS and Amazon (the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy and co-founder of the Climate Pledge), organisations can start to build sustainable businesses through the cloud with AWS looking after the sustainability of the cloud (Shared Sustainability Model).
5. Reducing carbon footprint
EDF, the UK’s largest provider of low carbon electricity, has partnered with Cloud providers like AWS to help reduce the carbon footprint worldwide by:
a. Design services and solutions for customers to achieve net zero.
b. Be a world leader in net zero electricity generation.
c. Be an international change agent in this energy transition.
The State of the Public Cloud in the Enterprise: Contino Research Report 2020
Why is the public cloud the greatest enabler in a generation?
We asked 250 IT decision-makers at enterprise companies about the state of the public cloud in their organisation.
6. 3.6x more energy efficient
By leveraging AWS’s continuous innovation and sustainable services, organisations can consume infrastructure in a way that makes it 3.6x more energy efficient*, performing the same task with an 88% lower carbon footprint.
7. Focus on innovation
By migrating to the cloud and letting the CSPs perform the heavy lifting, organisations can focus their sustainability efforts on innovation and optimisation–using services born to be efficient from the get go.
8. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
As part of an organisations’ move to the cloud, building sustainable and green engineering practices by Reducing, Reusing and Recycling technology investments can deliver practical steps to reduce one’s ecological impact, now and for the future.
9. Increase visibility
Leading energy providers and cloud providers like EDF and AWS with their net zero initiatives can provide sustainable foundations for organisations, helping them to build a transparent supply chain with better visibility on their end-to-end carbon footprint.
10. We’re all in this together
The coming together of sustainable energy providers like EDF, technology providers like AWS and organisations performing the role of green builders is the only way to build a truly sustainable future.
*than the median of the surveyed U.S. enterprise data centers
If you’re looking to accelerate your organisation’s sustainability goals in 2022, get in touch with our experts at Contino!
