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In case you haven’t heard (or aren’t obsessively following IT trends like we are), the great trend in software is the evolution from traditional “on-premises” software (e.g. client/server software installed at the office) to Software as a Service (SaaS) (i.e. web-based applications that are managed in the vendors’ data center and accessed “on-demand” through a web browser).

Given what’s at stake for software companies in either camp, debating the merits of each model has led to some fiery discourse. We thought we’d fan the flames by introducing another angle: which model is “greener;” that is, better for the environment. We used electronic medical record software as the comparison example.

We crunched the numbers for each type of software. Here are the quick stats on power consumption of each software delivery method:

On-premises

Total energy consumption by four physicians: 9,408 KW/yr

Individual energy consumption by each physician: 2,352 KW/yr

SaaS

Total energy consumption by four physicians: 611.4 KW/yr

Individual energy consumption by each physician:  152.85 KW/yr

For an even quicker summary, the SaaS software used 93% less energy than on-premise. That is a massive energy savings that if scaled to a large number, has world wide effects on energy consumption.