Platform.sh's Carbon Footprint Reduction Journey with Greenly

Platform.sh is a cloud platform designed to simplify the process of building, managing, and scaling websites and applications. The company offers a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution that empowers developers by taking the load off infrastructure management. The company's services are designed to work with one application or one thousand, with no training required. Platform.sh's services include instantly cloned environments for fearless testing, confident deployment knowing applications will work as intended from the start, and unified, secure infrastructure management. The company is committed to reducing the environmental impact of its activities and those of its clients' applications hosted in the cloud through its greener hosting MODE strategy.

Platform.sh, a cloud platform engineered to simplify building, managing, and scaling websites and applications, was facing a significant challenge in reducing its carbon footprint. The company was committed to minimizing the environmental impact of its activities and its clients' applications hosted in the cloud. However, the company was grappling with the complexities of accurately measuring its carbon emissions, optimizing its high-density computing and application, deploying location-based hosting, and investing consistently in research and development. The company was also keen on educating its clients and stakeholders about its greener hosting MODE strategy, which includes measuring, optimizing, deploying, and educating. The challenge was to implement this strategy effectively to reduce the carbon footprint.

To address this challenge, Platform.sh partnered with Greenly to carry out a comprehensive carbon assessment. The assessment covered various scopes of emissions, including those from the company's operations (Scope 1), purchased electricity (Scope 2), and value chain emissions (Scope 3). The assessment also included emissions from cloud computing for clients and Platform.sh's employees (Platformers). Greenly also conducted a density study using Platform.sh's 2020 data to determine how efficiently the company uses CPUs in the cloud compared to a standard deployment. The results of the study showed that Platform.sh's density was on average 12x more dense for their offering with the highest mutualization possible, meaning less electricity was used to run an equivalent workload, leading to lower CO2 emissions.

• The partnership with Greenly and the implementation of the greener hosting MODE strategy has significantly improved Platform.sh's carbon emission management. The company has been able to accurately measure its carbon emissions, optimize its high-density computing and application, deploy location-based hosting, and invest consistently in research and development. The density study results have provided valuable insights into how efficiently the company uses CPUs in the cloud compared to a standard deployment, leading to significant electricity and cost savings. The company has also been successful in educating its clients and stakeholders about its efforts towards reducing its carbon footprint, thereby enhancing its reputation as a responsible and sustainable business.

• Platform.sh's carbon footprint reduced from 2385 tons CO2eq in 2021 to 3728 tons CO2eq in 2022.

• The company's density was on average 12x more dense for their offering with the highest mutualization possible, meaning 12x less electricity was used to run an equivalent workload.

• The density study showed a 14x higher density for development, 10x higher density for production, and 5x more density for clients that requested low mutualization of resources.