Sustainability reporting
The SPOTTER Sustainability view calculates the electricity consumption associated with the cloud services utilized by the organization. This includes the use of virtual machines, memory, storage, or data transfer. Calculated electricity consumption is then converted into carbon dioxide emissions based on the geographical location of the measurement/resource. The calculation does not take into account any potential carbon trading or green energy production by cloud service providers, but these can be utilized for assessing the organization's Scope 3 emissions.
Electricity Consumption
The following list compiles the coefficients used in the calculation of the electricity consumption:
CPU:
AWS: The average electricity consumption for one vCPU is 2.12 W/h.
Azure: The average electricity consumption for one vCPU is 2.27 W/h.
GCP: The average electricity consumption for one vCPU is 2.48 W/h.
For graphics processors, the electricity consumption is calculated to be 80% of the model's maximum power.
In the absence of specific details, default values of 2 vCPUs and 4 GB RAM per vCPU are used in calculations.
RAM: 0.392 W/GB
SSD: 0.0012 W/GB
HDD: 0.00065 W/GB
Data Transfer: 0.1 W/GB
The calculation considers the energy efficiency of data centers (Power Usage Effectiveness, PUE). Primarily, average PUE values from service providers are used, except for certain GCP regions where data center PUE values are specified separately. The following are the PUE averages used in the calculation:
AWS: 1.135
Azure: 1.185
GCP: 1.1 (average)
The calculations primarily include services whose consumption is measured/billed by hours or gigabytes or units that can be computationally converted to these units. For instance, the number of hours a virtual machine has accumulated consumption per month or the amount of data transferred or stored per month. If a service includes automatic copying to multiple regions, and the quantity is known, it is accounted for by multiplying the consumption by the number of copies.
Services whose electricity consumption is difficult/impossible to calculate due to lack of detailed information or whose consumption is measured in units not convertible to kilowatt-hours are not included in the calculations.
Emissions
Electricity consumption is converted into carbon dioxide emissions according to the region of the used service. GCP openly provides emission factors for its regions, and these figures are utilized in estimating its emissions. AWS and Azure do not provide similar information; hence, the emission coefficients for these service providers' consumption calculations are based on general averages available publicly (kgCO2/kWh). Sources such as the European Environment Agency, EPA, and Electricity Maps have been used, which provide these emission factors openly.
If a region is not specified or an emission factor is not available, emissions are calculated using the average of the emission factors of other regions.
On-Premises Emission Comparison
The PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) coefficient, currently utilized in SPOTTER for comparing cloud services and on-premises data center disparities, stands at 1.58. This figure is based on the most recent data regarding data center average annual PUE worldwide, as reported by Statista (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1229367/data-center-average-annual-pue-worldwide/ ). The PUE coefficient is a crucial metric in understanding the energy efficiency of data centers, with lower values indicating more efficient operations. The value of 1.58 in SPOTTER allows organizations to assess and compare the energy efficiency and associated carbon emissions of their on-premises data centers against cloud-based services, aiding in making informed decisions about their IT infrastructure and its environmental impact.
ESG/CSRD Reporting with SPOTTER
SPOTTER is an essential tool for ESG and CSRD reporting, specifically tailored for monitoring Scope 3 emissions from cloud services like AWS, Azure, and GCP. It accurately reflects data based on comprehensive calculations of energy consumption related to virtual machines, storage, and data transfer. Currently, SPOTTER offers visibility into the last 13 months of emissions and consumption data, aiding organizations in their sustainability reporting. Looking ahead, we are committed to continuously enhancing SPOTTER to ensure that it meets the ESG reporting requirements for cloud services in the most effective way possible, aligning with the evolving standards and expectations of responsible environmental stewardship.