BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE CLOUD STRATEGY

In Gartner's 2023 CEO survey, environmental sustainability remains among the top 10 business priorities. As cloud computing accounts for a significant portion of organisations' carbon emissions, driving efficiency in datacentres and cloud infrastructure can be an effective way to reduce their environmental impact.

- Autumn Stanish

Gartner predicts 70% of organisations pursuing sustainability initiatives will leverage public cloud services to achieve environmental G sustainability outcomes by 2026. Despite this, only a few currently include environmental benefits as a top priority when selecting a cloud service provider.

Infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders may also have difficulty choosing a cloud provider that will help them achieve sustainability goals since not all providers possess the same level of sustainability maturity. Gartner has found most organisations' timelines to achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are no earlier than 2030, yet cloud contracts are typically around three years. Shifting between cloud service providers is long, complex and costly and therefore unlikely.

When evaluating cloud providers, enterprises must consider the material sustainability performance issues now and undertake careful analysis of providers' current environmental sustainability efforts and roadmap.

FACTORS TO CONSIDER