Raftery writes:

If I have a company whose energy retailer is selling me power generated primarily by nuclear or renewable sources for example, and I move my applications to a cloud provider whose power comes mostly from coal, then the move to cloud computing will increase, not decrease, my carbon emissions.

Raftery calls on cloud computing providers to publish energy consumption and emissons data, which would make it easier for companies to decide between cloud providers and give a better idea of what, if any, carbon emissions savings we can expect from cloud computing.

Photo by David Spreekmeester