How Green Is the Cloud?

If your business is trying to reduce its environmental impact, the cloud probably feels like an obvious place to look.

But the answer isn’t as simple as saying one provider is ‘green’ and another isn’t.

In our new guide, How Green Is the Cloud, we break down what actually matters when comparing cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure and AWS. The guide looks at the sustainability of the provider itself, how cloud emissions are measured, and why the design and management of your workloads often has a bigger impact than the platform name on the tin.

We also explore what makes a cloud provider more sustainable in practice, from renewable energy commitments to data centre efficiency, and compare Azure and AWS with other major providers including Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud and IBM Cloud.

One of the biggest takeaways from the guide is this: while Azure and AWS both have strong environmental credentials and built-in carbon reporting tools, the biggest reductions usually come from better architecture, active cost and usage management, visibility of emissions and ongoing optimisation, not just from choosing one hyperscaler over another.

The guide also looks at the practical side of greener cloud operations. That includes region selection, GDPR and data residency considerations, right-sizing resources, switching off unused infrastructure, and improving governance so that sustainability, cost control and compliance work together rather than separately.

If you’re already using Microsoft technologies, the guide explains how Azure can fit naturally into that ecosystem, including Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Power BI, Dynamics and Intune. If your environment is less Microsoft-centric, it also outlines why AWS may be a better fit for Linux, Kubernetes, DevOps-led delivery and high-performance workloads.

This isn’t a fluffy sustainability piece. It’s a practical guide for organisations that want a clearer view of how cloud decisions affect emissions, cost and compliance, and what to do next.

Download the full PDF below to read the guide.