Use this tab to enter data about the activities/machines/data centres that are hosted in the cloud. If you have a hybrid service (i.e. part on-site and part in the cloud) tease apart the data as best you can. For each cloud service provider, request a carbon report. Note that these reports are rarely very granular and often will provide you with annual or monthly figures without much explanation or context, so it is unlikely you will be able to break these figures down into specific digital preservation activities. Remember that you will need to indicate a greater level of uncertainty about how these figures have been calculated in the ‘data confidence’ column of the spreadsheet.
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Be careful about the unit of measurement in the report you have been given as this may need to be translated to kgCO2e/year for entry into the tool.
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Cloud providers may bundle embodied carbon into the figure they provide. Embodied carbon describes the emissions from manufacturing, transporting, and disposing of hardware (though important, these are out of scope for this toolkit). If it is possible to separate these out, then do so before entering your data. Do not worry if this is not possible – just make a note in the Notes field.
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Some cloud providers (for example AWS) may ask you to choose between two methods of estimating carbon footprint:
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LBM (Location Based Method)
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MBM (Market Based Method)
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If you are unsure on which method to select, we recommend LBM as it measures emissions based purely on the average carbon intensity of the physical grid where your energy is consumed.
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The spreadsheet is set up to allow you to enter data for one cloud provider for data centres/servers and one for networking.
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If you only have one provider, that is not a problem, just enter your data into the relevant row and leave the other blank.
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If you have more than one provider for either of these areas of activity, you may adapt the spreadsheet to add additional rows. Note that you will also need to adapt the summary tab to ensure it adds up the total from all the providers you have entered.
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Column heading |
Notes |
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Description |
Add the name of the service you are using here. Use the correct row depending on whether the cloud service you are measuring provides data centres or networking services, this will ensure your figures appear in the right area of the summary tab. |
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Value (kgCO2e/year) |
This is where you will enter the figure that has been provided by the cloud service provider or an estimate you have generated. Remember to ensure the figure you are adding uses the correct unit of measurement (kgCO2/year). |
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Source (i.e. data, estimate, proxy) |
Enter the source of the data you have entered. Provide urls or references to reports where you can. Provide any further context that may be helpful to understand the accuracy of the estimate. |
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Data Confidence (i.e. high, medium, low) |
How confident are you that the data is correct – low, medium or high. You may have lower confidence in figures provided by a cloud provider than those you might have generated yourself in the ‘on premise’ tab if they have not shared their assumptions or workings out with you. |
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Notes |
Include any notes that may be helpful to explain the background, context or scope of your figures |