Data storage now accounts for more carbon emissions than the commercial airline industry—and a single data center uses the same amount of electricity as powering 50,000 homes. 1 gigabyte of cloud storage uses about seven kilowatts of electricity per hour. One of the biggest contributors to the data storage industry is the energy consumption of data centers, the physical locations where data is stored and processed.

These centers require a lot of energy to power the servers, cooling systems, and other infrastructure needed to store data. In addition to the energy consumption of data centers, the manufacturing of the hardware and the transportation of data can also contribute to the industry's carbon footprint. (More on netzero.im)