A company's carbon footprint represents the total CO2 emissions it creates, from fuel combustion and physical infrastructure to the energy consumed by on-premises servers running around the clock. Reducing that footprint is both an environmental responsibility and, increasingly, a business expectation from clients and employees.
What Is a Carbon Footprint?
Your carbon footprint is the sum of direct and indirect emissions your organization creates. For most businesses, the largest contributors are physical infrastructure, travel, and energy consumption. Servers are a particularly significant piece of this, because they run continuously and require cooling, physical space, and dedicated maintenance.
"Net zero" refers to balancing your organization's environmental impact, reducing emissions where possible and offsetting the remainder through verified means.
How Cloud Migration Reduces Your Footprint
When you migrate to the cloud, your workloads move to data centers operated at massive scale by companies with dedicated sustainability programs. Microsoft joined The Climate Pledge in 2020, committing to net-zero carbon by 2040. Their specific strategies include positioning servers in cooler geographic regions, powering services with renewable energy, and developing more energy-efficient infrastructure.
The efficiency gains from shared infrastructure mean that your workloads running on Microsoft's cloud infrastructure generate significantly less CO2 than the same workloads running on your own on-premises servers.
Additional Green Office Practices
Cloud migration is a significant sustainability step, but it is not the only one. Complementary practices that reduce organizational environmental impact include:
- Recycled paper products
- Non-toxic cleaning supplies
- Solar chargers for devices
- Smart power strips that reduce standby power consumption
- LED lighting throughout the office
The Dual Benefit
Moving to the cloud decreases server expenses and reduces maintenance burden while advancing sustainability goals. The business case and the environmental case point in the same direction. Organizations that have been running on-premises infrastructure are often surprised by how much both their costs and their emissions decrease after migrating to Microsoft 365.