An Empirical Investigation of Cloud Computing and Environmental Performance of Nations: Implications for Shared Responsibility in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing separates service users from carbon emission sources, obscuring IT’s ecological responsibility across national boundaries. This study dissects the digital responsibility of cloud computing, with a focus on obligations and accountability, to address its impact on the environment. To identify direct emitters and beneficiaries of pollution resulting from cloud computing and define the associated obligations, we estimate how cloud computing alters the energy and carbon intensities of IT capital and services in cloud region countries hosting data centers, as well as in neighboring countries. Using country-level data on IT capital stock and IT service expenditures for 51 countries from 1995 to 2016, combined with data on geographical proximity to cloud regions of global public cloud services, our results show that in cloud region countries, the environmental benefits of cloud-based IT services come at the expense of increased energy and carbon intensities from the IT capital providing those services. Conversely, neighboring countries seem to benefit from cloud services that generate pollution in cloud region countries, as evidenced by lower energy and carbon intensities in cloud-based IT services, without compromising their own environmental performance. Our findings suggest that both cloud service hosting and using countries share obligations for the environmental impacts of cloud computing. Building on our empirical findings, we discuss implications for accountability in cloud computing to facilitate the fulfillment of these obligations. We propose a shared responsibility model that allocates accountability between service providers and users, advancing the discourse on cloud computing responsibility and outlining directions for future research.