YOUGotaGift, a leading digital marketplace of digital multi-brand gift cards in the Middle East, has significantly reduced its cloud infrastructure carbon emissions. In October 2022, the company’s emissions were nearing 1 metric ton/month, and through strategic initiatives, the company has reduced this figure to 0.3 metric tons/month, marking a remarkable 70% reduction in less than a year. As per reports, the global gift card market, estimated to be worth nearly US$450 Billion in 2023, is expected to reach US$1.5 Trillion by 2032.
In response to the successful reduction of YOUGotaGift’s carbon footprint, the company’s CEO, Husain Makiya, said: “The transition from plastic gift cards to digital gift cards is a crucial step in reducing global plastic production. By adopting digital gift cards, YOUGotaGift aims to contribute to a substantial reduction in plastic waste and CO2 emissions associated with traditional gift card production.
“The move from plastic to digital also reflects YOUGotaGift’s commitment to a greener future. eGift Cards, being end-to-end digital, eliminate the need for transportation, production, storage and shipping, resulting in a significant reduction in the overall carbon footprint.”
YOUGotaGift has implemented key measures, including the migration of applications to high-efficiency EC2 machines (virtual machines). Additionally, the company transitioned its database systems to the high-efficiency Aurora Serverless V2 platform, strategically scaling down systems during non-peak hours. Furthermore, YouGotaGift has established a zero waste compute infrastructure on AWS utilising EKS (Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service).
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