In an effort to make use of The Green Grid's metrics and standards to build a cloud computing usage model, the Open Data Center Alliance and TGG have joined forces.

The Green Grid has an extensive history of working to create standards that are more efficient and environmentally friendly. Now, the group wants to be able to measure and reduce the carbon footprint at data centers.

"The Green Grid's mission is to improve resource efficiency in business computing, which includes the impact of carbon usage as a result of cloud computing," said Tim Mohin, AMD representative and Board member of The Green Grid. "The Green Grid's efforts with the ODCA will bring much-needed efficiency metrics and resources to businesses that leverage the cloud. We're excited to see the results of this collaboration put into action and the energy savings they will generate."

Greenpeace's Smart 2020 analysis said that using the cloud can help reduce the number of data centers, and thus, the emissions they generate, which the report said is growing and will continue to grow each year.