Over 80% drop in CO2 emissions of Matkahuolto's digital services
Over 80% drop in CO2 emissions of Matkahuolto's digital services
Cloud migration significantly reducedenvironmental impact.
Helsinki, 31.10.2023 - Matkahuolto, one of the leading travel and parcel services companies in Finland, radically reduced the CO2 emissions of capacity services related to the production of digital services. The savings were achievedby migrating to AWS cloud (Amazon Web Services) and using Green Coding methods with the help of CGI.
”Matkahuolto has an ambitious goal of being carbon neutral and we are on a path tocut emissions by half until 2030. Supported by CGI and AWS, we succeeded in reducing the carbon footprint of digital services by up to 83 percent. The modernization of IT infrastructure services is a significant step on our climate road map and supports our goal," says Jaana Korkiakoski, Sustainability Director of Matkahuolto.
Matkahuolto began renewing its IT infrastructure and information systems with CGI in 2019. In particular, the shutdown of the old infrastructure and the transfer of digital services to the cloud, as well as more efficient programming, reduced electricity consumption and brought the company annual savings of around 400,000 euros in capacity costs. The journey still continues.
"The transition to AWS cloud services supported by CGI and the utilization of Green Coding give us the opportunity to offer sustainable digital services to our customers, including both consumers and companies and communities", says Mika Rajanen, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer of Matkahuolto.
Currently, Green Coding methods are applied in all Matkahuolto's newly developed digital services, such as the Packages application and the Routes and Tickets application.
Pioneering cloud migration carbon footprint calculation
In the project, the real carbon footprint effect of cloud migration was investigated for the first time by CGI and Matkahuolto, when CGI wanted to demonstrate the power of Green Coding methods in reducing emissions.
The emission reduction was calculated by comparing the carbon dioxide emissions of the services before the reform measures (approximately 404 CO2kg in September 2020) and after them (66 CO2kg in May 2022) based on absolute emission data.
The data has been obtained from AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool whichmeasures the estimated carbon emissions from customers’ use of AWS services.The tool, available to all AWS customers at no cost, provides easy-to-understand data visualizations to report on the emissions from AWS cloud usage following the Greenhouse Gas Protocol standards.
With the help of CGI, Matkahuolto also used other Green Coding methods to minimize the environmental impact of software, for example in programming languages and data processing.
"The concept of the travel service modernization project is widely applicable. We estimate that with the help of Green Coding solutions, Finnish companies could save 10–30 percent in the costs related to the program's running environment and at the same time in the energy consumed," says Vice President Kristoffer Vasara from CGI Finland.
