Cutting Carbon Emissions & Saving Costs: The Power of Virtual Desktops

Did you know your organisation could save tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds in operating costs, all from adopting virtual data infrastructure?

It may seem unbelievable, but with the help of today's cloud technology, companies can switch to virtual desktops, also known as Virtual Data Infrastructure (VDI). This change can dramatically reduce carbon emissions and go towards earning carbon credits.

You may be surprised by these figures, so let's walk through the math...

We start with the following assumptions:

• An average laptop consumes 40-100 Watts (W), say 75W for 8 hours in a working day
• A VDI server consumes 150W and supports about 20 users
• The average carbon footprint of electricity generation is about 0.45kg CO2e/kWh

Using the above, we can calculate the following for a business with 200 laptops:

• 200 laptops consume: 200 laptops * 75W * 8 hours/day = 120,000 Watt-hours (Wh)
• Power consumed by VDI servers is (200 users/20 users/server) * 150W/server = 1,500 Wh
• Power saving by converting to VDI is 120,000 Wh – 1,500 Wh = 118,500 Wh
• Carbon saving by converting to VDI is 118,000 Wh * 0.45kg CO2e/kWh = 53,325kg CO2e

Now let's calculate the value in savings:

This depends on the prevailing market price of carbon credits, which are tradable permits allowing the holder to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). We took a snapshot of the carboncredits.com live price from the 5th December, 2023 = £35.78.

• That makes our CO2e saving worth (53,225/1,000) * £35.78 = £1,904.39/day
• Assuming 220 working days per year that’s 220 * £1,904.39 = £418,965.80 per year

By converting our 200 laptops to VDI, we could reduce our environmental impact, whilst also saving money, using carbon credits to offset the costs of operating our business, and generating revenue by selling them to other organisations.

Which brings us to Managed Azure Virtual Desktop, which is our new VDI service launching in 2024.

Discover these incredible carbon and cost savings for yourself, let's talk about how you can benefit from virtual desktops, and how we can make that a reality. Get in touch here, or give us a call on 0808 500 1436.