Think back to the start of the day. How many emails have you sent out since, not to mention the text messages exchanged on your phone? While waiting for your coffee, you probably had a quick scroll on social media as well. Each of these activities would emit a few grams of carbon, thanks to the energy that is used to power your digital device and the data centres and servers needed to support the internet.

According to some estimate, the carbon footprint of our gadgets, the internet, and the systems supporting them account for about 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions, which is similar to the amount generated by the airline industry.

The good news is that many companies are using (or at least developing ways to) renewable energy to power their data centres. A forecast by the International Data Corporation shows that the continued adoption of cloud computing could prevent the emission of more than 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, by aggregating computation from discrete enterprise datacenters to larger-scale centers that can more efficiently manage power capacity. The region that stands to benefit the most in carbon reduction is Asia-Pacific, where much of its power generation comes from coal.

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