Moving away from printing has obvious benefits – fewer trees cut down, fewer chemicals required to make ink and fewer delivery vehicles on the road - to name but a few.
But while technology has long been viewed as the solution to many environmental issues, it is increasingly being sighted as part of the problem.
Recently Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies in general, have come under the spotlight regarding their energy consumption. The Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance reckons that 0.55 percent of all energy consumed on the planet is currently taken by the production of these new currencies. That’s about enough to power Sweden.
This isn’t the first time that technology has come under scrutiny from environmentalists. Back in 2012, Greenpeace voiced concerns about the increasing use of cloud-based platforms - a technology core to Cadasio – and their ever-increasing power draw. So how much better for the environment is moving to a digital based medium?
Amazon - by far the largest cloud services provider - has been working hard towards carbon neutrality, and has been open about the process. In 2018 the ecommerce giant declared that its cloud platform, AWS, was already 50 percent powered by renewable energy sources and aims to be entirely reliant on clean energy by 2040.
A lot has already changed for the good since Greenpeace raised its concerns, and continues to do so. With Google and Microsoft also aggressively pursuing environmentally friendly energy solutions, the future of cloud computing will rely less and less on traditional power sources such as fossil fuels. And thanks to their openness on usage statistics, it makes Greenpeace’s job of keeping them in check a lot easier.
Cadasio uses the Amazon AWS solution and we are vigilant regarding the power consumption of our product - not least because less power equates to lower costs - but mainly because we want our product to be as environmentally friendly as possible.
Clearly, when it comes to “going green” there is no simple solution. Environmental pollution has quite rightly been catapulted to the top of the political agenda and some of the finest minds are now working on ways to reduce and reverse damage that has already been done to the planet.
Like any journey, the route to a greener planet starts with a single footstep and we are proud to be playing our role in helping companies become greener by reducing their printing requirements. Sign up for free to see if Cadasio can help you.
