Evolution of your Cloud Center of Excellence – Cloud Footprint

Introduction

This is the last part of the three-part series for companies that already run an established CCoE but somehow feel stuck and are unable to move the needle forward. In the introduction you can read what to expect in this part and what else awaits you in this series. If you want to learn about “The unkept promise” and why you should create a Cloud Strategy / Cloud Governance now I would recommend to read the first part of the series. If you want to find out how a security showback can instigate a paradigm shift towards imbuing security considerations across all tiers of the cloud application stack and daily life of cloud developers and operators I would recommend to read the second part of the series.

Cloud Footprint

The Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 has laid the foundation for starting to think about the cloud footprint, or rather the cloud computing footprint. It specified that global warming must not exceed 1.5 °C and that emissions must be reduced by 45% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. Many companies now see it as their duty to make their individual contribution to this. There are big initiatives validating companies sustainability strategies and climate targets like “Science based targets (SBTi)“.

In Enterprise companies the IT and especially cloud computing is just a negligible part of the full story and is often left out of any considerations/sub-initiatives. Only a few requests follow and these have rather a marketing nature like “Can we run our homepage carbon neutral?”.

In this part I explain how the Cloud Competence Center (CCoE) as an integral part of the IT can help support the sustainability strategies and climate targets with data and technical solutions through a cloud footprint framework.

Carbon Emission Showback / Emission Reduction Opportunities

What exactly is meant when I talk about carbon emission showback? Everyone may have heard of public cloud cost showback. A capability/service that many Cloud Centers of Excellence (CCoE) already provide to their internal customers. Showback consist of providing an analysis of cloud costs to different business units within a company without actually cross-charging those costs. This solely serves the purpose of creating cost awareness in various levels of a company starting from the engineer up to executive management. Carbon emission showback uses a similar method by displaying the CO2 emissions caused by your cloud components/accounts either directly (e.g., power) or indirectly (e.g., hardware material extraction, hardware recycling) inside the cloud operation value chain. Similar to cloud cost showback this creates emission awareness. But it should not stop there! To really reduce emissions actionable insights for emission reduction should be created to encourage participation and action.

Carbon neutrality / Net Zero / Carbon negative

Climate targets have created their own terminology. I would like to take the opportunity to explain the important ones with easily understandable formulations:

Carbon neutral

Carbon neutrality is like trying to balance that scale. You’re still putting out carbon emissions, but you’re also doing things to offset them, like planting trees or investing in clean energy projects. So, it’s like you’re leveling things out, but you’re not really tipping the scale in either direction.

Net zero

Net zero takes it a step further. Here, you’re not just trying to balance the scale, but you’re aiming to make sure it stays at zero. You’re still emitting carbon, but you’re offsetting every bit of it. It’s like saying, “Whatever carbon I put out, I’m also taking it back in some way.”

Carbon negative

Now, carbon negative is where things get really cool. Here, you’re not just balancing the scale or keeping it at zero; you’re actually tipping it in the other direction. You’re taking out more carbon than you’re putting in. It’s like saying, “Not only am I not adding to the problem, but I’m actively helping to clean up the mess.”

Hyperscaler visions

Global CO2 emissions from the tech sector are on par or larger than the aviation industry, at around 3% for information and communication technology (ICT) and 2% for aviation respectively. Within ICT, data centers are responsible for around 1% of CO2 emissions and global electricity usage. Since the majority of the world’s data centers are operated by the top 10 hyperscalers these organisations play an important role in reducing global data center CO2 footprint. Below you will find a list of their strategies that could also help you choose the right hyperscaler to meet your own climate targets.

Microsoft – Azure – Carbon negative by 2030

Microsoft is committed to being carbon negative by 2030 and by 2050 remove from the atmosphere an equivalent amount of all the carbon dioxide our company has emitted either directly or by our electricity consumption since we were founded in 1975.

Amazon – AWS – 100% renewable by 2025 – Net Zero by 2040

AWS is focused on efficiency and continuous innovation across our global infrastructure, as we continue on our path to powering our operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025. AWS is committed to achieving Amazon’s goal of net-zero carbon by 2040.

Google – Google Cloud (GCP) – Net Zero by 2030

Google set an ambitious goal to reach net-zero emissions across our operations and value chain by 2030, supported by our aim to operate our offices campuses and data centers on carbon-free energy, 24/7. We’re sharing technology, methods, and funding to enable organizations around the world to transition to low-carbon and sustainable systems.

Alibaba Group – Alibaba Cloud – Carbon neutral by 2030

Decarbonizing Alibaba – By 2030, achieve carbon neutrality in our own operations

Oracle – Oracle Cloud – 100% renewable by 2025

Oracle Cloud further reduces its environmental footprint by leveraging state-of-the-art cooling and energy efficiency technologies at our green data centers. For example, in Europe, Oracle Cloud data centers are powered using 100% renewable energy. Our goal is to achieve 100% renewable energy use in all our OCI data centers by 2025.

Greenest Cloud?

Why the Cloud Center of Excellence

Why the Cloud Center of Excellence (CCOE), which is not part of a company’s / enterprise’s sustainability apparatus per se? The following reasons clearly speak in favor of the CCoE:

• By definition, the CCoE is the central point of contact for all topics relating to the public cloud this includes sustainability
• The cloud application owners / teams / business units are known to the CCoE and there is a regular exchange of information (centralized oversight)
• Cloud cost showback/chargeback and the associated processes are already a capability that is practiced by the CCoE
• The CCoE is already the owner of central cost optimization measures and could easily translate these processes to emission reduction measures
• The CCoE is in most cases the owner of a company’s / enterprise’s cloud strategy and cloud governance and is thereby also in a position to set guard rails for carbon emission goals in close cooperation with the sustainability department
• The CCoE from its DNA is able to work cross-functionally to achieve company-wide goals like carbon reduction strategies

Creating a Cloud Footprint Framework

Introducing carbon emission showback Is only half the way to more environmentally friendly IT. Similar to the cloud cost showback, the introduction of carbon emission usage is only effective if corresponding processes are designed. The following processes provide a promising start:

• Carbon Governance
  Regular comparison of current emissions with the sustainability department to set new realistic targets (cloud governance). This includes new use cases
• Carbon Training and Awareness
  Provide training and awareness programs to educate employees on how to build carbon efficient cloud architectures. Provide carbon emission dashboard to teams
• Cost-Carbon Optimization
  Couple cost optimization campaigns with carbon emission reduction goals. Identify opportunities to reduce costs while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions by optimizing resource allocation and usage (e.g., instance rightsizing, garbage collection of unused resources, storage usage optimization, scheduling resources to only run in business hours,..)
• Carbon Deviator/Outlier
  Create a process for outliers/deviators that describes the procedure to offer help or self-help if carbon emissions are high compared to the set carbon targets
• Use case steering
  The CCoE as the first point of contact for cloud use cases, should attempt to implement them in the greenest cloud or the greenest region (datacenter)
• Carbon gamification
  The CCoE can integrate gamification elements into cloud carbon reduction efforts, increasing engagement, motivation and participation, ultimately contributing to greater success in achieving the set carbon targets
• Carbon offset budget
  Include a carbon offset budget in the overall cloud budget to achieve carbon neutrality

Hyperscaler out of the box solutions

Most hyperscalers offer out of the box solutions for carbon emission showback and actionable insights. Here is a list of available tools.

Microsoft Azure
Microsoft offers a lot of solutions like the “Microsoft Sustainability Calculator” or the “Microsoft Sustainability Manager” but when it comes to cloud (Azure) computing the most valuable tool is the “Carbon optimization” feature directly in the Azure Portal. It offers carbon emission showback for teams and actionable insights (recommendations or resources) to reduce carbon

Carbon showback

Acitonable insight to reduce carbon

Amazon Webservices
AWS offers customers their “Customer Carbon Footprint Tool” to track, measure, review, and forecast the carbon emissions generated of AWS usage. It offers showback for teams but no actionable insights.

Google Cloud
Google Cloud offers customers their “Carbon Footprint dashboard” which is build into the Google Cloud Console like the other hyperscalers and offers a showback of carbon emissions and actionable insights (recommendations or resources) for carbon reduction. Another small addition on use case steering is the “Google Cloud Region Picker” which shows you the region with lowest carbon footprint.

Carbon Footprint Dashboard

Cloud Region Picker

Alibaba Cloud und Oracle Cloud do not offer any tools directly in their console

Noteworthy third party solution

When driving a multi-vendor strategy, it can be useful to compile and present carbon emissions centrally instead of using the vendor specific solutions. “Cloud Carbon Footprint” is an open source tool that provides multi-hyperscaler visibility and tooling to measure, monitor and reduce cloud carbon emissions. It uses best practice methodologies to convert cloud utilization into estimated energy usage and carbon emissions, producing metrics and carbon savings estimates that can be shared with employees, investors, and other stakeholders

Conclusion / Notes

Despite the fact that cloud emissions make up only a small portion of a company’s total emissions we should still take them seriously and make our contribution as IT. The tools already available from hyperscalers help to easily gain an overview, set carbon reduction goals, track and achieve them. Furthermore, by integrating sustainability practices into cloud operations, organizations can pave the way for a more environmentally conscious and resilient future

Consult me

If this still do not feel comfortable to introduce a Cloud Footprint Framework to your company feel free to consult me. I specialize in supporting companies during their cloud journey and implement processes and tools that work towards a strategic goal.