Scary images of an island of garbage in the ocean. Dead animals with plastic in their stomachs. World organizations sounding the alarm. Celebrities filming environmental documentaries. And governments banning plastic bags and looking for alternative sources of energy. The fight for the planet has begun, and you can participate in it not only by sorting waste.
Yes, it’s a business article, we’re on a company website after all. However, the most successful business is created not for the sake of profit, but with the aim of solving a problem. This is what all investments in startups are about, as well as all the most popular companies today: Uber, Bolt, or RBnB.
We won’t win the fight against the excess paper by recycling but by prevention. Cloud is the answer
Cloud services were not created to protect the planet. We will not lie to ourselves. Electronic and online processes are mainly intended to speed up and reduce the cost of ordinary (not only) work tasks and necessary (but annoying) administration. The ecological aspect is rather a bonus, an added value that only a fraction of people who use such services are aware of anyway. And that’s the problem. We must also look at our daily activities from two other aspects: How do I affect the environment? And what’s my impact on the future?
This is precisely why waste sorting was created. Today, it is an absolute part of every household. The fact that it is not done properly because there is not enough awareness is a topic for a separate article and for another website. So, let’s continue with our topic.
Why, if a company can save on expenses and time of its employees, does it still not have digitized processes?
The answer is a basic human trait – laziness. An accountant who has been doing his/her job for 20 years in a certain way has no motivation to learn to work in a new system or to change established processes. Even in 2023, he/she prefers to print the invoice on white paper, put it in an envelope, and mail it to the customer. He/She often signs it, scans it (!), and sends it back.
Now imagine that a normal medium-sized company does this with invoices every day. If only one invoice arrived every day, that’s 365 papers, 365 envelopes, and 365 trips by the postman. Saving trees is one thing. They are a renewable resource. But imagine the consumption of printer ink, electricity, and gasoline. These are sources that significantly affect waste management, and thus the environment. I just made up this example. The reality is much worse, but my aim is not to scare you.
Yes, TULIP as an online platform was created because companies were dealing with lengthy exchanges of invoices and unnecessary emails that were not safe for working with sensitive data. But every day it becomes clearer that the impact of such “tools” is much more significant and positive than the speed and security of communication.
However, change must come from below. The boss can order his employees: now we use TULIP, get used to it. No postman, no unnecessary papers. But the accounting lady might still be afraid that when the inspection comes, she has to have everything physically with her, and to be sure, she prints the invoice anyway and puts it in a binder for physical archiving. We encounter this, and therefore we know that constant education and information can help to ensure that our work does not go to waste.
But the cloud does not take energy from the air
We will not pretend that the cloud does not use energy to run. It uses a lot. However, statistics say that a rented cloud in the form of service is an incomparably better solution than own servers.
They are expensive and energy intensive. They burn hundreds of kilowatt-hours of electricity per month. In addition, they need cooling and associated hardware and software.
Cloud is cheaper and requires less energy. In addition, it enables working from home, which also contributes to economic and ecological savings and is preferred in times of energy crisis.
The European Parliament wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. From 2030, emissions are to be reduced by 55%. Cloud is the way to this saving. However, it itself is energy-intensive, and as its use increases, consumption increases.
Clouds also run on servers, and the companies providing them work on several solutions to reduce consumption. They currently consume about 2% of all world consumption, but up to 40% of it goes to cooling servers. How do they fit with this energy?
This is done, for example, by using waste heat generated by surrounding technologies powered by electricity. In normal cases, the heat is only removed from the surrounding environment and is not used further. Through recuperation, this energy can be used repeatedly.
You have certainly already heard about the unconventional methods of IT giants such as Microsoft or Google, which have been experimenting with placing servers on the bottom of the sea for the last few years, where they are naturally cooled by the surrounding water. Placing servers in the sea reduces energy consumption by 30%. China is currently working on a large offshore project inspired by Microsoft.
% is the emission reduction that is planned in the EU from 2030
% is the world’s energy consumption of servers, but up to 40% of it is energy spent on cooling
% is a reduction in the energy consumption of servers after being placed in the sea
What can an individual do?
If you are reading this article, you are probably interested in green topics. That’s why we have a few tips for you on how an individual can help himself, his company, and thus the entire population to reduce consumption. It’s just a drop in the ocean, but doing nothing is never the answer:
- Eliminate unnecessary e-mails. As the ekorestart.sk server writes: “Each e-mail takes up space in data centers. The servers use some electricity to store it temporarily before sending it on. The subsequent storage of files requires the operation of huge, energy-intensive data centers. All of these steps use energy that creates a carbon footprint in their production. In short, e-mail uses electricity for its writing, network connection, transmission, display, and storage.” An ordinary e-mail without an attachment consumes 4g of CO₂ emissions. The average person adds 136 kg of CO₂ to their carbon footprint per year just from the emails they send and receive. This corresponds to about 320 km extra driven by car. So try to find a moment from time to time and clean your trash, junk mail, and old received e-mails that you thought would be collected and left in the inbox. Alternatively, as the ekorestart.sk portal further writes, start from scratch and do not send unnecessary e-mails to colleagues in the neighboring office, do not subscribe to newsletters that do not interest you, and turn off e-mail notifications from social networks.
grams of CO₂ emissions, this is what one e-mail has without attachments
kilograms of CO₂ emissions are consumed annually by the average person just by sending and receiving e-mails
kilometers driven by car - that's the equivalent of an average person's annual e-mail consumption
- No stand-by mode, but a real shutdown of the device. Do not leave the computer on when you leave work, do not put it to sleep instead of the classic shutdown.
- If you don’t have enough digitized processes at work, try to change that. Look for cloud services to digitize processes. Move from physical billing, attendance sheets, paper payslips, and other daily agenda tasks to a cloud service.
A small step for a man… but you know that one .
LIKED WHAT YOU'VE JUST READ?
Feed your thirst for more! Subscribe and receive our news directly in your inbox.
Email: sona.vyhonska@tulipize.com
Phone: +421 917 882 324
