A recent AWS-backed survey into the way that companies and business leaders manage decarbonization efforts to reach net zero in Europe by 2050 has found that cloud technology may hold the key (or one of many keys) to success.
The study consulted 4,000 businesses in the UK, France, Germany, and Spain, 96% of whom having set emissions reduction targets. A
round three quarters of business leaders believed that technology like cloud hosting would accelerate their journey to net zero by at least two years, helping them to achieve their target by 2048 at the latest.
Cloud in decarbonization
With that in mind, around 20% claim that they lack the appropriate technology to achieve their net zero goals, and one in five were yet to go “cloud-first”. Among a number of obstacles holding businesses back was the impact of rising costs and economic uncertainty on a global scale.
Despite the challenges, three quarters of business leaders feel confident in their abilities to control greenhouse gas emissions. This is in stark contrast to the just one in ten that measure emissions scope 3, which focuses on indirect emissions that occur in the company’s value chain. Just over half of the companies in question were measuring scopes 1 (direct emissions from owned or controlled sources) and 2 (indirect emissions from electricity, heating, cooling, and so on).
“What I think is so interesting here is that business leaders who have already engaged cloud services think they are more successful in delivering carbon reductions,” noted Chris Wellise, AWS Director of Sustainability. “The data backs up this view, as cloud offers nearly any company or public body a less carbon intensive way of managing their IT.”
