Carbon per [Time] Compute Category
Definition
Measure of carbon emissions (CO2e) for a period of time for compute. This metric helps organizations understand the environmental impact of cloud compute usage and make decisions to reduce their carbon footprint by choosing more efficient or renewable-energy-powered compute options.
Formula, as published
Compute CO2e per Time unit = Compute CO2e / Time Unit
- Data sources:
- Carbon consumption data source, CSP Billing data, CSP FOCUS files
- Additional guidance:
- Region selection based on your organization’s data confidentiality agreement and low carbon locations Consider using serverless and auto-scaling where applicable to optimize compute workloads
Calculate it
Example values to start with; replace them with yours.
From the FinOps Foundation
More Sustainability KPIs
Definition and formula: Carbon per [Time] Compute Category, FinOps KPI library, FinOps Foundation, licensed CC BY 4.0, read 16 Oct 2026. Changed: HTML removed, dashes and British spellings changed, formula split from its data sources and examples. The calculator and the notes are Finitizer’s.
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