Sustainability & Environmental Impact

9/25/2023

This post details an independent study finding that migrating enterprise network services to Cloudflare can reduce related carbon emissions by up to 96%, primarily due to service consolidation and increased server utilization. It also announces Cloudflare's application to set science-based carbon reduction targets through SBTi, building on existing commitments to 100% renewable energy and carbon offset/removal.

12/14/2022

This post introduces a commissioned study by Analysys Mason that evaluates the relative carbon efficiency of network functions provided by Cloudflare compared to on-premise solutions. Initial findings suggest that Cloudflare's WAF generates up to 90% less carbon than on-premises appliances at low-medium traffic demand. The post also discusses the broader environmental impact of the Internet and Cloudflare's ongoing efforts to improve energy efficiency through hardware and software optimizations.

12/14/2022

Introduces a partnership with Iron Mountain to offer Cloudflare customers preferred pricing and discounts for recycling or remarketing legacy hardware. This initiative aims to make sustainable hardware disposal more accessible, reducing e-waste and promoting responsible disposal practices.

12/14/2022

This post details Cloudflare's efforts to make its offices more sustainable. It covers the use of sustainable construction materials (recycled plastic for baffles, wood wool panels, recycled fishing nets for carpets), efficient operations (rainwater harvesting, waste reduction through Bevi machines and bulk snacks), and renewable energy purchasing. It also highlights furniture reuse and plans for on-site honey bee colonies for habitat support and entropy generation for LavaRand.

12/14/2022

This post details Cloudflare's approach to reducing the environmental impact of its server hardware. It breaks down the carbon footprint into embodied emissions and use-of-product emissions. For embodied emissions, it highlights modular design, reliance on open vs. proprietary standards for reuse, and advanced recycling techniques. For use-of-product emissions, it emphasizes upgrading to more power-efficient hardware. The post introduces the upcoming Gen 12 servers, which will feature a modular-driven design and leverage open standards like OCP 2.0/3.0 NICs and the Datacenter Modular Hardware System (DMHS) to maximize component reuse across generations and reduce embodied carbon. It also mentions the use of OpenBMC and the goal of repurposing 99% of hardware.

4/22/2022

Introduced Green Compute for Workers Cron Triggers, an open beta feature that allows developers to select compute settings to run scheduled workloads exclusively in Cloudflare points of presence located in data centers powered by 100% renewable energy. This feature aims to incentivize responsible climate and energy policies in co-located data center facilities.

7/28/2021

This post introduces 'Crawler Hints,' a new initiative aimed at reducing the environmental impact of web searches. It highlights the significant waste generated by search engine crawlers revisiting unchanged pages and proposes a solution where Cloudflare proactively informs crawlers about content changes. This reduces unnecessary traffic, conserves energy, and improves search result relevance. The post quantifies the potential carbon savings and details how Crawler Hints will work by leveraging existing protocols like sitemaps and providing real-time change notifications without burdening origin servers.

7/27/2021

This post announces four major initiatives to reduce Cloudflare's environmental impact: commitment to carbon neutrality by 2022 with 100% renewable energy and historical carbon offsets, ramping up deployment of hyper-efficient Arm-based servers, releasing a 'Green Workers' option for Cloudflare Workers and Pages to run workloads in energy-efficient data centers, and working with search/crawl companies to introduce an open standard to minimize redundant crawl traffic.

7/27/2021

Introduces 'Green Compute' for Cloudflare Workers, allowing scheduled jobs (via Cron Triggers) to be exclusively run on edge network locations powered by renewable energy. This feature leverages Cloudflare's global network flexibility to route workloads to sustainable hardware without requiring application changes or impacting user experience. The post also highlights the broader sustainability initiatives, including the Carbon Impact Report and Green Web Foundation certification for Cloudflare Pages.

7/27/2021

This post details Cloudflare's significant step in energy efficiency by deploying Arm-based CPUs in their edge servers. It highlights a 57% increase in performance per watt compared to previous AMD Rome CPUs, and a substantial improvement over 2013 server generations. The post emphasizes the imperative for energy efficiency driven by their large free customer base and calls for x86 manufacturers to prioritize sustainability.

7/27/2021

Cloudflare announces a commitment to powering its network with 100% renewable energy and to remove all greenhouse gases emitted as the result of powering its network since its launch in 2010 by 2025. The post details the methodology for purchasing renewable energy (RECs, I-RECs, REGOs, etc.) and calculating carbon emissions using emissions factors from various sources (IEA, EPA, DEFRA). It also outlines the process for determining network and facility energy usage and the plan to reconstruct historical energy consumption data from 2010-2019. The company is also exploring new products like Green Compute on Cloudflare Workers and Carbon Impact Reports to drive climate outcomes.

7/27/2021

This post introduces the Carbon Impact Report, a new tool for Cloudflare accounts to understand the environmental impact of operating their Internet properties on Cloudflare's network. It outlines the methodology for calculating carbon savings, which involves comparing the energy used by Cloudflare's edge infrastructure for a customer's data transfer against the estimated carbon cost of data transfer through average non-Cloudflare networks. The report provides savings in CO2e and offers relatable comparisons, such as to light bulb usage. It also reiterates Cloudflare's commitment to 100% renewable energy for its network and highlights how services like WAF, Network Firewall, DDoS mitigation, and Image Resizing contribute to reduced carbon footprints.

4/23/2019

This post details Cloudflare's approach to sustainability and environmental impact, focusing on energy efficiency in its network and platform. It highlights how caching reduces energy consumption by minimizing data transfer and origin server load. It also explains how Cloudflare Workers, using isolates, achieve greater energy efficiency than traditional serverless platforms by reducing OS overhead and enabling rapid scaling. The post also discusses the purchase of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to offset the remaining carbon footprint.