Moving to cloud can reduce carbon emissions of Indian companies by 80%

The report by 451 Research, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence, titled ‘Carbon Reduction Opportunity of Moving to the Cloud for APAC’ surveyed more than 500 private and public sector organisations across Asia Pacific (APAC), spanning a variety of industries across Australia, India, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. The report that includes over 100 survey respondents from India, found that cloud service providers who tap into local renewable energy market to run their operations in India can boost carbon emissions savings.

451 Research estimates that if just 25% of the 1,200 largest publicly-traded businesses in India put one megawatt (MW) of compute workload into the cloud, powered by renewable energy, it would save the equivalent of a year’s worth of emissions from 160,000 Indian households.

“Customers in APAC who move compute workloads to the AWS Cloud can significantly reduce their carbon footprint, benefiting from the net effect of all our sustainability efforts,” said Ken Haig, head of Energy Policy, Asia Pacific and Japan, AWS. “APAC energy markets remain among the most challenging in the world for businesses seeking to source 100% renewable energy, but we continue to collaborate with private and public organizations to overcome these barriers and invest in more projects in the region.”

In 2019, Amazon cofounded The Climate Pledge –a commitment to be net zero carbon across its business by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. AWS said it is moving steadily toward achieving Amazon’s company-wide goal of using 100% renewable energy by 2025.

“Cloud technology can credibly help companies in India decarbonize,” said Puneet Chandok, President Commercial Business – AWS India and South Asia, AISPL. “With India’s vibrant startup ecosystem already pioneering low carbon solutions, it is imperative that enterprises, public sector organizations, and policy makers factor in sustainability as a critical part of their cloud migration decisions.”

AWS’s efforts towards net carbon neutrality goals in India includes initiatives in infrastructure efficiency, renewable energy, water sustainability, electric mobility, sustainable packaging, and building awareness through community engagement.

The data centre market in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16% from 2019-24, the highest in the Asia-Pacific region. “As data centre activity continues to surge in India, so will energy consumption, which will make energy efficiency a focal point in the market,” said Kelly Morgan, research director, Data centre Infrastructure & Services at 451 Research.

The report revealed that energy efficiency gains of cloud data centres came from their use of the latest, most energy-efficient servers, which typically run at higher utilization rates than on-premises data centres. These two factors combined led cloud data centres to use 67.4% less energy. The average server utilization in APAC enterprises was just under 15%. By contrast, 451 Research shows that cloud operators utilize servers well above 50% to find the right balance between efficiency and application performance.

On electric mobility, Amazon India has committed to include 10,000 electric vehicles in its delivery fleet by 2025, an integral milestone on the decarbonization journey. Amazon India said it has been working with several Indian partners to build a fleet of vehicles that ensure sustainable and safe deliveries of customer orders.