View Carbon Footprint data

The Carbon Footprint dashboard displays estimated greenhouse gas emissions associated with the usage of covered Google Cloud services for the selected billing account.

Before you begin

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 contain 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.

Accessing the Carbon Footprint dashboard

The Carbon Footprint dashboard is located in the Tools section within Google Cloud console.

Go to Carbon Footprint

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: 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.
• 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.

Summary

Each tab displays an overview of the estimated greenhouse gas emissions associated with the usage of covered Google Cloud services for the selected billing account.

• Annual carbon footprint: The total estimated greenhouse gas emissions associated with the usage of covered Google Cloud services for the selected billing account over the past 12 complete months.
• Carbon footprint for the past month: The total estimated greenhouse gas emissions associated with the usage of covered Google Cloud services for the selected billing account for the most recent completed month, compared to the previous month.

Recommendations

Carbon Footprint has integrated with Google Cloud Active Assist Unattended Project Recommender, which analyzes usage activity across all projects, provides you with the recommendations to reclaim or shut down unattended projects, and helps you reduce both cost and carbon emissions. If your billing account has associated projects that are deemed "unattended", you will see the "Recommendations to reduce emissions" card next to your annual and monthly summary cards.

Charts

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

• Monthly carbon emissions (in both 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.

What's next?

• Export your carbon footprint
• Create custom dashboards with the exported data.
• Understand the methodology behind Carbon Footprint