How Green is Cloud Computing

One of technology’s latest catchphrases, “cloud computing” has been generating a lot of buzz lately. What does it mean to be “in the cloud”? And can operating “in the cloud” become a new sustainable business practice and a green alternative to other forms of computing?

What is it? The term “cloud computing” is used to describe a number of different services and technologies. At its broadest, the term “in the cloud” can refer to any resource available on the Internet. But when IT professionals refer to cloud computing, they often mean software, storage or processing power available virtually, outside of local servers: “software as a service,” “platform as a service,” or “infrastructure as a service.” Cloud computing, then, can refer to services like Google Apps, Google’s collection of applications like Google Docs and Gmail, where file-sharing and email is handled by Google’s servers rather than by a company’s local machines. It can also refer to the services offered by companies like Amazon, whereby computing infrastructure – virtual servers – can be created. It is the latter in particular that might point to a greener future for computing.

How green is it? Much has been written about the energy consumed by data center servers, and as more and more users “log on” and utilize these resources, the power used by the world’s computing infrastructure increases at a rapid rate. The buildings that house data centers are massive, housing thousands of servers that require electricity for both connectivity and for cooling. Although some data centers themselves have gone green, utilizing efficient forms of air-conditioning and upgrading to more efficient computers for example, “cloud computing” provides another alternative.

While companies, particularly those involved in e-commerce, rely on their servers being up and running 24-7 and being able to handle heavy traffic loads, most of the time, these computing resources (including redundancy plans that often involve additional backup servers) are under-utilized. Even with the most energy-efficient processors and cooling plans, this can be incredibly wasteful.

The rise of cloud computing allows for businesses utilize the computing resources they need and pay for what they use. In other words, it allows them to take advantage of “virtualization.” Rather than employing the hardware in data centers, where the servers are always on even when not being fully utilized, virtualization allows “machine instances” to be launched as necessary. There is no need for backup servers, staging servers, redundancy plans and the like; server instances are launched in the cloud as necessary. This is scalable almost instantly, allowing for amazing flexibility with a vastly smaller energy consumption footprint.

Offering a very different metaphor than the unfortunate description of the Internet as “a series of tubes,” cloud computing hopes to provide the next step in computing technology, services, and power. And as one of its features is “virtualization,” the move away from massive hardware and energy consumption might point to a greener, more sustainable business and computing future.

Is WalMart green if its supply chain is?

WalMart recently revealed a campaign – on Treehugger.com no less – to cut 20 million tons of GHGs from its supply chain. In fact, WalMart has been a sustainability leader for about five years; it one of the largest sellers of organic produce in the U.S. and has made both its fleet and stores more energy efficient. Now Walmart is leaning on its supply chain to get green by focusing on sourcing sustainable products. Can WalMart count the sustainability of its supply chain towards its own accomplishments? Sure. WalMart keeps some suppliers alive- it supports an entire network of commerce (too big too fail?). WalMart is a fantastic example of how critical marketpower can be in affecting rapid change, and of how creative a company can be in implementing CSR measures.

WalMart has an impressive sustainability record. One day in 2005, WalMart just decided to get environmental. Maybe it was the constant barrage of negative press about its tendency to kill local competition, or bad press around its labor practices. While those stories haven’t really waned, WalMart has exploded with environmental activity, which partly because of its size and marketpower, is ultra effective.

Now WalMart is applying its business model -buy so much of something that suppliers will agree to an ultralow price- to its sustainability practices. Few WalMart suppliers can afford to give up the volume of business WalMart offers, no matter what WalMart demands of them. Many suppliers wouldn’t even exist, let alone have a motive to buy green, except for WalMart’s commercial pressure. This is how WalMart gets the prices it does, and this is how they will accomplish the GHG goal they announced last week.

WalMart’s CSR is delightful not because it is a perfect company; there are plenty of WalMart critics. It’s because WalMart has thought its CSR, and particularly its sustainability initiatives, through in minute detail. It takes gains where it can, and thinks creatively; for example, it redesigned packaging so that more skus can be efficiently packed into trucks, saving trips. It has discovered how to use its core competency as a business to address social problems where it makes the most sense. The extension of business efficiency applied to social problems is the most productive form CSR can take. This may be why Walmart still gets criticized for labor minimalism; raising pay would hurt its business model. Where WalMart’s green initiatives are have a distinctly WalMart flavor- high volume, supply chain emphasis.

In the same way it makes sense for AT&T to have donated cell phones in Haiti, or for Johnson and Johnson to do so much work around sanitation, a natural first step in CSR is for companies to capitalize on preexisting strengths for the public good. Companies can often be extremely effective, like Walmart, by applying the strength of its core competencies toward a new purpose: doing good.