IBM Cloud is working with IBM Research and our partner communities to execute programs and activities aimed at reducing carbon emissions and increasing overall energy efficiency.

Companies have historically derived a variety of benefits from cloud adoption. For example, taking a hybrid cloud approach with IBM can result in cost reductions, security improvements and increased agility. Today, as companies strive to advance their sustainability objectives, reducing environmental impact should also be a key consideration on their journey to hybrid cloud. For IBM, reducing environmental impact to help create a more sustainable future is a top priority — and has been for decades. IBM’s first corporate environmental policy was issued by its then CEO in May 1971, one year before the UN Stockholm Conference on the Environment.

We are committed to our continued focus on advancing sustainability across a variety of areas, including increased adoption of renewable energy sources to power our IBM Cloud data centers globally. We are working to meet our goal of procuring 75% of the electricity IBM Cloud data centers consume worldwide from renewable sources by 2025, and 90% by 2030. In the UK, IBM Cloud already uses a network of data centers that are powered 100% by renewable electricity. Additionally, we recently announced IBM’s new cloud Multizone Region (MZR) in Madrid, Spain, which will be supplied by renewable electricity.

Looking ahead to continue fostering an environmentally conscious future

As companies embrace hybrid cloud, IBM understands that practices to support sustainability not only have quantifiable benefits directly on organizations, but they also favourably position a company to their clients and investors and attract talent. To help organizations on these goals, IBM Cloud works closely with IBM Research and our partner communities to execute programs and activities aimed at reducing carbon emissions and increasing overall energy efficiency of IBM Cloud data centers worldwide.

Looking ahead, IBM Research is doing the following:

• Innovating on technologies that can enable coordinated placement of containers to optimize energy efficiency and dynamic workload scheduling based on the availability of renewable energy
• Building tools to help estimate the carbon footprint of customer workloads, particularly running in a multi-tenant environment, whether on IBM Cloud, in hybrid cloud environments or on-prem data centers

We know our clients care about being environmentally responsible organizations as IBM does and believe it truly requires an open, collective effort to move towards a sustainability driven future. We will continue to address IBM Cloud customers’ high standards for environmental sustainability while pursuing our own ambitious environmental goals. IBM continues to focus on reducing emissions, increasing energy efficiency and using renewable energy sources across our global network of data centers.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice and represent goals and objectives only.