Addressing the Environmental Toll of Cloud Computing, AI & Data Centers
Cloud Sustainability Watch is a nonprofit website enabling technologists to adopt sustainable computing
You are the solution
We formed Cloud Sustainability Watch because we thought it was too hard for technologists to find green software tools and sustainable IT information when they needed it.
This website solves that problem.
Cloud Sustainability Watch is a hub that connects technologists to a wide range of sustainable computing resources, helping you learn and get started quickly.
We suggest you click Plan a Project to access practical steps that walk through a green computing project. It’s our (free) “Tech Professionals’ Guide to Sustainable Computing” and enables software developers, web developers, architects, Dev/Cloud Ops, and IT leaders to mitigate the environmental impacts of cloud instances, software, and websites.
We also provide directories of Sustainable Computing Tools and expert Consultants and Training from across the web.
Our Explore Issues section provides topical summaries about data centers, AI, and cloud computing, for further context and background. And our extensive Resource Link Library connects you to web articles, research, blogs, podcasts, and organizations to immerse you in green computing.
We want to help everyone become equipped and knowledgeable.
Want to...
Plan a project?
Find sustainable computing tools?
Get expert help?
Green your own computing?
Every day, decisions about software applications and websites impact our communities and environment
75% of technologists would like to reduce the environmental impact of their work but over 50% don’t know how and just 11% measure & manage IT carbon emissions
Most organizations don’t take into consideration the resource consumption, environmental harm, and community impacts of their computing decisions. But every company’s IT activity takes a bite from the world’s scarce resources. Our vast computing infrastructure of networks, data centers, applications, and user devices consumes an estimated 3.9% of all the world’s electricity. Data centers and their cooling systems use up large amounts of fresh water and electrical power, often as much as a city. They degrade the water & power of nearby communities and intensify climate and e-waste problems. The explosive growth of AI is adding further fuel to the fire. The gap between our growing online activity and our missing awareness blocks effective action.
This escalating problem requires attention from those who can reverse it: the users and customers of data centers, AI, and cloud computing. When people and organizations work online–building a slide presentation or coding software on the cloud–they create environmental and financial consequences. The user devices, networks, and data centers that deliver the online applications such as AI image generators and manufacturing control systems will overconsume water and power and drive carbon emissions unless they are designed and managed with sustainability in mind.
Every Action Makes a Lasting Difference
The public uses cloud applications and services for streaming, AI chatbots, shopping, search, and social media. There is little popular awareness of the real-world impacts of virtual activity. At work we spend hours in spreadsheets and HR portals that are delivered on the cloud. With cloud computing usage exploding, fueled by a popular wave of new corporate AI applications, the environmental and financial consequences of inaction will only intensify.
Solutions such as green software design, streamlined AI use, and greenhouse gas emissions tracking, all exist today. But information technology decision makers must take action to embrace these techniques, slow their companies’ climate impacts. and optimize resource consumption. Often, these techniques help to reduce business expenses too. Every platform improvement saves water, power, carbon emissions, noise, and air pollution for as long as the platform endures.
US data centers produced 105 million tons CO2e in the past year
Reported in “Environmental Burden of US Data Centers in the Artificial Intelligence Era” Nov 14 2024
News & Insights
Explore our latest news, analysis and breaking news from leading publications which help drive awareness and action on the environmental impact of cloud computing, AI, and data centers.