Carbon Waste / Carbon Efficiency
Definition
These 2 KPIs measure carbon inefficiency in workload utilization. It quantifies the difference in carbon emissions between a fully optimized resource allocation and the current allocation. This approach aligns directly with the FinOps principle of optimizing workloads to maximize resource utilization by selecting the most suitable resource size and type. The optimized allocation considers factors such as architecture type (e.g., x86 vs. AMD), as well as specific resource attributes like type and size.
Formula, as published
Carbon Waste Formula: (Carbon of currently allocated resource) - (Carbon of optimized resource for utilization need) Carbon Efficiency Formula: (Carbon of optimized resource for utilization need) / (Carbon of currently allocated resource)
- Data sources:
- Optimization tooling such as Compute Optimizer (AWS) to gather utilization vs allocation Resource to Carbon unit conversion
Calculate it
Example values to start with; replace them with yours.
From the FinOps Foundation
More Sustainability KPIs
Definition and formula: Carbon Waste / Carbon Efficiency, 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.
Measured once, a KPI is a number. Tracked daily, it is a practice.
Finitizer computes the KPIs your billing data supports every day, by team and product, across AWS and Google Cloud.
See how Finitizer works