Study shows cloud procurement cuts carbon emissions

This probably isn’t a shock to you, but cloud procurement can dramatically decrease your company’s impact on the environment. But by how much?

The Carbon Disclosure Project filled in the blanks there in terms of carbon emissions. The report said that by 2020, large U.S. companies that are utilizing cloud computing for their procurement process will save $12.3 billion, and cut annual carbon emissions by the equivalent of 200 million barrels of oil.

Cloud procurement services can lower carbon emissions by reducing energy consumption, and can decrease capital expenditure on information technology resources.

Not surprisingly, the same study also found that these same firms plan on accelerating their adoption of cloud procurement technologies from 10 percent to 69 percent of their IT spending by 2020.

“The study also analyzed the business impact of transferring an essential business application – human resources – to the cloud, and finds that such an investment could give a payback in under one year,” Stuart Neumann, senior manager at Verdantix, which performed the study, said.

Global supply chain technology leader Gartner has backed up the claim from the Carbon Disclosure Project, as cloud computing is the top technology priority for CIOs in 2011.

So no matter what business you’re in, it seems like information technology is going in one direction these days:

To the cloud!