Cloudy with a Chance of Transparency: Carbon Emission Reporting in the EU and the Role of Cloud Computing
The European Union's (EU) drive towards a sustainable future includes a firm focus on carbon emissions reporting. These regulations are both a necessity and an opportunity for businesses of all sizes and sectors, including the technology sector and, more specifically, the cloud computing industry. In this blog, we dive deep into carbon emissions, their scopes, and the role of cloud services in reporting and managing these emissions. We'll also examine how leading cloud service providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), approach carbon emission reporting.
Understanding Carbon Emissions: The Three Scopes
Carbon emissions are usually divided into three "scopes" by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, the most widely used international standard for carbon accounting.
Scope 1 covers all direct emissions that a company produces, including fuel combustion (e.g., company vehicles and boilers) and chemical reactions (e.g., cement production).
Scope 2 accounts for indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating, and cooling consumed by the reporting company.
Scope 3 is the most comprehensive and covers all other indirect emissions occurring in a company's value chain, such as business travel, procurement, waste, and water.
While Scope 1 and 2 emissions are relatively easier to track, Scope 3 emissions present a challenge because they often involve activities not directly controlled by the company.
The Cloudy Skies of Carbon Reporting
The cloud computing industry is a significant player in the corporate world's carbon emissions reporting. While data centers, the backbone of cloud services, consume vast amounts of electricity, they also have the potential to leverage renewable energy and efficient designs to reduce their carbon footprint.
However, reporting on cloud usage can be complicated due to several factors:
Shared Responsibility: Cloud services operate on a shared responsibility model, where the provider is responsible for the infrastructure's carbon emissions, while the customer is responsible for how they use the cloud services.
Data Transparency: Detailed information about the energy usage of specific cloud services can be hard to obtain, making it challenging for customers to calculate their cloud-based carbon footprint accurately.
Geographical Differences: The carbon intensity of electricity can vary dramatically from region to region, affecting the carbon footprint of data centers located in different areas.
Leading the Charge: AWS, Azure, and GCP
Recognizing these challenges, leading cloud providers AWS, Azure, and GCP have implemented strategies and tools to assist their customers in carbon emissions reporting.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
AWS provides a "Customer Carbon Footprint Tool" that allows users to track, measure, review, and forecast the carbon emissions generated from their AWS usage. It helps users advance their understanding of their carbon footprint drivers, from services to geographies. The tool also offers data visualizations to report on the emissions from AWS usage following Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol standards. AWS is also progressing towards powering operations with 100% renewable energy, which will further help reduce the carbon footprint of its services.
Microsoft Azure
As part of its Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability platform, Azure introduced capabilities to help organizations better track and reduce their environmental impacts. This includes tracking Scope 3 emissions related to commuting and product end-of-life. With the Microsoft Sustainability Manager, organizations can store commuting data, align it to built-in schema, run calculations, and track goals around commuting efficiency and related emissions. Microsoft also provides a new API preview for accessing Azure carbon emissions data and an Environmental Credit Service Preview for tracking environmental credit provenance from creation through retirement.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
GCP takes pride in the energy efficiency of its data centers and provides region-based Carbon Free Energy percentages to show the proportion of time that a region was supplied with carbon-free energy. GCP has also introduced a Carbon Footprint tool for its customers. While the exact details of this tool were not readily available, it's clear that Google Cloud is committed to making it easier for its customers to understand and act on their carbon footprint.
Conclusion
As the world races to tackle climate change, carbon emissions reporting is becoming increasingly important, and the role of the cloud industry in this process is vital. While there are complexities involved in reporting on cloud usage, tools and services provided by major cloud service providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP are helping to clear the fog. These companies are not only providing mechanisms for reporting but are also setting ambitious goals for their own operations to move towards carbon neutrality or even carbon negativity.
While the journey towards a sustainable cloud is still ongoing, these developments offer a promising glimpse into a future where cloud computing plays a significant part in our global sustainability efforts.
Remember, every byte of data we move to the cloud, and every calculation we run there, has a real-world impact. As cloud service users, we have a responsibility to understand these impacts and make our cloud usage as sustainable as possible. The tools are there, and with the commitment of both cloud providers and users, we can make a difference.