Google Cloud Sustainability: Part 2 — Measuring Your Cloud Footprint

In part 1 of our blog series, “Google Cloud Sustainability” we explored Google Cloud’s commitment to environmental responsibility. We discussed their initiatives for utilizing renewable energy, optimizing data center design, and fostering sustainability throughout the entire cloud lifecycle.

But how can businesses leverage Google Cloud’s sustainable practices to reduce their own environmental impact? This is where measuring your cloud footprint becomes crucial. By understanding the carbon footprint associated with your Google Cloud usage, you can make informed decisions to optimize your cloud environment and minimize your environmental impact.

This part 2 of the series will take you through a practical demonstration of calculating your carbon footprint using Google Cloud’s “Carbon Footprint” tool. Let’s dive in and see how to measure your cloud footprint for a greener future!

Here’s a quick recap of the key points from Part 1:

• Google Cloud prioritizes renewable energy by matching their global energy consumption with renewable energy purchases and investing in renewable energy projects.
• They implement innovative data center designs that utilize energy-efficient cooling systems and low-power hardware.
• Google Cloud promotes sustainable practices throughout the data center lifecycle, from material selection to responsible e-waste management.
• Transparency is a key value, with Google Cloud providing tools and resources to empower businesses to make sustainable choices.

The following sections will guide you through utilizing Google Cloud’s “Carbon Footprint” tool and interpreting the results to make informed decisions for a greener cloud journey.

Understanding Your Cloud Footprint:
Your cloud footprint refers to the environmental impact associated with your Google Cloud resource usage. This includes the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the energy consumption of your cloud resources. Measuring your footprint is the first step towards optimizing your cloud environment for sustainability.

Prerequisites:

• A Google Cloud account with a project
• Basic familiarity with the Google Cloud Console

Step-by-Step Guide to Measuring Your Cloud Footprint:

1. Access the Google Cloud Console: Navigate to the Google Cloud Console at console.cloud.google.com and sign in with your Google Cloud credentials.
2. Enable the Billing API: The “Carbon Footprint” tool utilizes data from the Google Cloud Billing API. If not already enabled, navigate to the APIs & Services section in the left navigation pane and select Library. Search for “Cloud Billing API” and click Enable.

3. To access the Carbon Footprint dashboard, you need the following IAM permissions:

• billing.accounts.getCarbonInformation
• billing.accounts.list
• billing.accounts.get

These IAM permissions enable you to do all of the following:

• List and view the names of billing accounts.
• Access Carbon Footprint data associated with these billing accounts.

To obtain these IAM permissions, a billing account administrator must grant you one or more IAM roles listed below for the billing account that contains such permissions:

• roles/billing.carbonViewer
• roles/billing.admin
• roles/billing.viewer

Read more about Cloud Carbon IAM permission and roles and Cloud Billing access control.

4. Locate the “Carbon Footprint” Tool: In the navigation pane, go to Environmental Impact and select Carbon Footprint.

5. Set Your Timeframe: The “Carbon Footprint” tool allows you to analyze data for various timeframes. Click on the calendar icon in the top right corner and select the desired timeframe (e.g., past month, quarter, or year).

Viewing your carbon footprint

Carbon Footprint data is computed automatically for your billing account, there is no API to enable or setup required. It can take up to 21 days for data of the previous month to become available. If you have the proper IAM permission and data is available, data is displayed on the dashboard.

Carbon footprint data is given in metric tons of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) in the UI dashboard and in kilograms of CO2 equivalent (kgCO2e) in the data export.

Market-based emissions and Location-based emissions

The dashboard is divided into two tabs: Market-based emissions and Location-based emissions. These two tabs display emissions data estimated using different Scope 2 carbon accounting definitions according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP). Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions are identical across the two tabs. In summary:

• Market-based emissions (Preview): This tab displays emissions data broken down by scope 1, scope 2 market-based, and scope 3 GHG emissions. Learn more about scope 2 market-based emissions methodology.

Market-Based Emissions

• Location-based emissions: This tab displays emissions data broken down by scope 1, scope 2 location-based, and scope 3 GHG emissions. Learn more about scope 2 location-based emissions methodology.

Location-Based Emissions

For a location to be considered “low carbon”, it must belong to a region with a Google CFE% of at least 75%, or, if CFE% information is not available, a grid carbon intensity of a maximum of 200 gCO2eq/kWh.

Charts

To dig deeper into the specifics of your carbon emissions, the dashboard includes four charts:

• Monthly carbon emissions (in both the market-based emissions tab and location-based emissions tab): Displays the total estimated greenhouse gas emissions associated with the usage of covered Google Cloud services for the selected billing account over all available months, broken down by month.
• Carbon emissions by region (in both market-based emissions tab and location-based emissions tab): Displays the estimated greenhouse gas emissions associated with the usage of covered Google Cloud services for the selected billing account for the past complete month broken down by Google Cloud region.
• Carbon emissions by project (only in the location-based emissions tab): Displays the estimated greenhouse gas emissions associated with the usage of covered Google Cloud services for the selected billing account for the past complete month broken down by Google Cloud project.
• Carbon emissions by product (only in the location-based emissions tab): Displays the estimated greenhouse gas emissions associated with the usage of covered Google Cloud services for the selected billing account for the past complete month broken down by Google Cloud service.

Export the carbon footprint data

The report displays a variety of metrics:

• Total CO2e Emissions: This represents the total carbon dioxide equivalent emissions associated with your Google Cloud resource usage during the chosen timeframe.
• Cost: This section shows the estimated monetary cost associated with the energy consumption of your cloud resources.
• Breakdown by Resource Type: The report breaks down your emissions by different resource types like Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, and Cloud Functions. This helps identify areas with potentially higher emissions.
• Breakdown by Region: This section provides a regional breakdown of your emissions, allowing you to see which regions contribute most to your footprint. Google Cloud publishes “Carbon-Free Energy Percentages (CFE)” data for each region.

Interpreting Your Results:
By analyzing the “Carbon Footprint” report, you can gain valuable insights into the environmental impact of your cloud usage.

• Identify Areas for Improvement: Focus on resource types or regions with the highest emissions. Investigate opportunities for optimization in those areas.
• Benchmark Your Progress: Track your footprint over time to measure the effectiveness of your sustainability efforts.

Remember: The “Carbon Footprint” tool is just the first step. The next section will explore actionable steps you can take to optimize your cloud environment for a greener future.

1. In the upper right pane, click Export.
2. For Project, click Select Project.
3. Click Configure Export.

Note: If the Configure Export button is disabled:
Go to Navigation menu > IAM &Admin > IAM.
Click Edit principal icon for your assigned lab username.
Click +ADD ANOTHER ROLE and select BigQuery Data Editor as another role and click Save.
Navigate back to the Carbon Footprint page and retry the steps to Export.

4. Under Destination Settings, for Dataset, click Create New Dataset or use your existing dataset.

5. For Dataset ID, enter dataset name eg. gcp_carbon_footprint.

6. Leave all fields with their default and click Create Dataset, then click Save.

7. When prompted, select your account.

Schedule the data backfill

• On the Transfer Details page, click Schedule Backfill on the top right.

• Select Run for a date range

• Select the start date (eg: January 1, 2023) and May 15, 2024 as the end date.
• Click OK to request the data backfill.

Data backfills will be created for the selected range, exporting historical monthly data to the destination dataset.

Once the data is exported, you can use BigQuery to view and query the data. Read more about the data schema.

You can share the exported data with others in your organization by granting them the BigQuery User IAM role on the project selected earlier. Alternatively, you can grant fine-grained access at the dataset or table level using the BigQuery Data Viewer IAM role.

Exporting to Google Sheets or CSV

After you’ve configured your carbon footprint export to BigQuery and the scheduled export has been completed, you can export that data from BigQuery to Google Sheets or CSV.

1. Go to BigQuery
2. In the Explorer panel, expand your project and dataset, then select the table that contains the exported carbon footprint data.
3. Click Query.
4. Enter a query to return the data you want to export. See below for an example.
5. After the query has run, under Query results, click Save results.
6. Select the desired format and click Save.

The following query lets you save the entire contents of the exported table:

SELECT
  usage_month,
  billing_account_id,
  project.number AS project_number,
  project.id AS project_id,
  service.id AS service_id,
  service.description AS service_description,
  location.location AS location,
  location.region AS region,
  carbon_model_version,
  carbon_footprint_kgCO2e.scope1 AS carbon_footprint_scope1,
  carbon_footprint_kgCO2e.scope2.location_based AS carbon_footprint_scope2_location_based,
  carbon_footprint_kgCO2e.scope3 AS carbon_footprint_scope3,
  carbon_footprint_total_kgCO2e.location_based AS carbon_footprint_total_location_based
FROM
  `PROJECT.DATASET.carbon_footprint`
ORDER BY
  usage_month DESC,
  carbon_footprint_total_location_based DESC

How Google creates Carbon Footprint reports for Google Cloud and Google Workspace customers

Here’s a breakdown of how Google creates Carbon Footprint reports for Google Cloud and Google Workspace customers:

• Standardized Framework: Google Cloud adheres to the widely recognized Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) for carbon accounting and reporting. This ensures consistency and transparency in their methodology.
• Measuring Energy Consumption: Google Cloud measures the energy consumption of its data centers on an hourly basis. This involves monitoring factors like power usage effectiveness (PUE) and server utilization rates.
• Regional Emission Factors: Google applies location-specific emission factors to the energy consumption data. These factors take into account the energy mix (sources like coal, natural gas, or renewables) used for electricity generation in each region. This allows for a more accurate reflection of the environmental impact based on the geographical location of data centers serving your cloud usage.
• Scope of Emissions: Google Cloud reports on emissions across all three scopes defined by the GHG Protocol:
  — Scope 1: Direct emissions from Google Cloud facilities, such as on-site generators.
  — Scope 2: Indirect emissions from purchased electricity used to power data centers.
  — Scope 3: Other indirect emissions throughout the value chain, including emissions associated with hardware manufacturing and employee travel (allocated to customers based on their usage). Currently, Google Cloud reports location-based emissions for Scope 2 in their reports, with plans to incorporate market-based accounting in the future. Market-based accounting considers the carbon intensity of the electricity grid where the data center is located, offering a more nuanced view.

Allocation to Customers:

• Proportional Allocation: Google Cloud allocates the total carbon emissions associated with its cloud infrastructure proportionally to customer usage. This allocation considers factors like the amount and type of resources (e.g., Compute Engine instances, Cloud Storage buckets) each customer utilizes.

Transparency and Verification:

• Detailed Methodology: Google publishes a detailed explanation of their carbon footprint calculation methodology, allowing reviewers and customers to understand the underlying principles.
• Independent Review: While not currently implemented for customer-specific reports, Google seeks third-party verification of their overall Carbon Footprint methodology in the future.

Data Access and Visualization:

• Google Cloud Console: For Google Cloud customers, the “Carbon Footprint” tool within the Google Cloud Console provides a user-friendly interface to view and analyze their cloud footprint data. Customers can track emissions by various metrics like timeframe, resource type, and region.
• BigQuery Export: The “Carbon Footprint” tool also allows customers to export their footprint data to Google BigQuery, a data warehouse service. This enables further analysis and integration with other datasets for a more comprehensive sustainability picture.

For Google Workspace Customers:

• Similar Methodology: Google employs a similar approach for calculating the carbon footprint of Google Workspace applications used by organizations. This includes factors like energy consumption associated with data center operations and regional emission factors.
• Allocation Based on Usage: Emissions are allocated to Google Workspace organizations based on their usage of different applications like Gmail, Drive, and Docs.
• Workspace Admin Console: Admins can access the Carbon Footprint report within the Google Workspace Admin console. This report provides insights into the organization’s overall footprint and a breakdown by individual applications.

Google is carbon neutral today, but aiming higher: Their goal is to run on carbon-free energy, 24/7, at all of our data centers by 2030. Plus, sharing technology, methods, and funding to enable organizations around the world to transition to more carbon-free and sustainable systems.

They’ve built a collection of tools to help accurately report the carbon emissions associated with your Google Cloud usage and take action to reduce your carbon footprint. The Carbon Sense suite brings together features from multiple Google Cloud products, like Active Assist and Carbon Footprint, to help users everywhere make progress towards ensuring a healthier planet.

There are three key categories of carbon emissions associated with running workloads in the cloud:

• Electricity consumption
• Burning on-site fossil fuels
• Upstream and downstream activities

Carbon-free energy includes wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, nuclear, hydropower, and pumped storage or battery storage discharge. For each region Google Cloud operates in, we measure the percentage of carbon-free energy (CFE%) consumed in a particular location on an hourly basis.

The regional CFE score represents the average percentage of time your applications deployed in that cloud region will be running on carbon-free energy.

Next Steps: Optimizing Your Cloud Environment for Sustainability

Now that you’ve successfully calculated your cloud footprint using Google Cloud’s “Carbon Footprint” tool, it’s time to leverage this valuable data to optimize your cloud environment for sustainability. Here are some actionable steps you can take:

• Identify Areas for Improvement: Analyze your “Carbon Footprint” report to pinpoint areas with the highest emissions. This could be specific regions, project types, or resource utilization patterns.
• Leverage Sustainable Cloud Regions: Consider migrating workloads to Google Cloud regions powered by a higher percentage of clean energy sources, as identified by the “Carbon-Free Energy Percentages (CFE)” data.

• Right-size Your Resources: Review your resource utilization patterns and identify opportunities for right-sizing. This may involve scaling down underutilized resources or using committed use discounts for predictable workloads, leading to overall efficiency gains.
• Explore Sustainable Cloud Solutions: Investigate Google Cloud’s suite of sustainability-focused solutions. These solutions can help you optimize resource usage, reduce waste, and minimize your environmental impact. Some examples include:
  — Cloud Functions: Serverless functions that eliminate the need for idle server resources, minimizing energy waste.
• Set Sustainability Goals and Track Progress: Establish clear sustainability goals for your cloud usage. The “Carbon Footprint” tool allows you to track your progress over time and measure the effectiveness of your optimization efforts.

Also, To lower your carbon emissions, you need to reduce the electricity consumption of your cloud workloads from carbon-based sources. To lower your carbon emissions, Use the following primary strategies:

1. Choose cloud regions with higher average hourly CFE%, and lower grid carbon intensity. For regions that have the same CFE%, use grid carbon intensity to further compare the emissions performance of those regions.
2. Optimize cloud workloads to reduce carbon emissions. For example, increase efficiency by using elastic cloud services and autoscaling features to minimize unused compute resources, and run batch workloads during times when grid carbon intensity is lower.
3. Set organizational policies to restrict the location of cloud resources to cleaner regions.

By implementing these steps, you can take concrete actions to reduce your environmental impact within the cloud. Remember, sustainability is a journey, not a destination. Continuously monitor your cloud footprint, explore new sustainable solutions, and refine your strategies to ensure your cloud journey is a green one.

Additional Resources:

• Sustainability best practices for Google Cloud: https://cloud.google.com/sustainability
• Services covered by Carbon Footprint
• Learn how this data is estimated
• Measure and Reduce Your Carbon Footprints

Overall, Google strives to provide transparent and better carbon footprint reports to its customers. By adhering to recognized standards and employing a comprehensive methodology, Google empowers businesses to understand their environmental impact and make informed decisions toward a more sustainable cloud journey.

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