Overview
This article is your starting point for completing the Cloud module. Cloud emissions — from electricity, hardware, and data transfer — can be a significant share of your digital footprint. This guide walks you through the process and directs you to the right detailed article at each step.
Key benefits / use cases
Know upfront which data to retrieve depending on your cloud provider (AWS, Azure, GCP, OVH, or other).
Follow a structured sequence to avoid common data retrieval mistakes.
Get granular emissions results broken down by service type (compute, storage, transfer) and by location.
1. Which data should be included in your data collection file?
The data collection is usually done through APIs for the biggest cloud providers:
AWS
You now have access to a reliable carbon footprint from your AWS "Billing and cost management" space. The only exception is if your activity involves a lot of data transfer. In this case, we use our own module to measure the data transfer part and add it to the results provided by AWS.
Here is the process to follow:
Step 1: Connect to your AWS account, and go to the Billing and cost management section
Step 2: Go to the "Customer Carbon Footprint Tool"
Step 3: In the calculation method, make sure LBM and MBM are selected. The date range covers 38 months and should include the date range of your assessment.
Step 4: Click on "Download CSV" at the top of the page (don't click on "Download CSV (previous model)", as it would extract data from a previous version of the tool)
Step 5: Share the extracted file with Greenly using the file import tool of your cloud module Old API process To get access to your AWS data, follow the AWS data process accessible directly from the e2e module. The data will be automatically pulled and the calculation should be available almost instantaneously.
Azure
Similarly to AWS, you can follow the Azure data process accessible directly from the e2e module. The data will be automatically pulled and the calculation should be available almost instantaneously.
Do we integrate results from Azure's carbon footprint dashboard?
No, we cannot use Azure's carbon footprint report directly. The main reason is the way they account for electricity: their report only counts emissions under a market-based approach, while all our scope 3 emission factors are calculated using a location-based approach. This leads to much lower emissions, and this difference is not consistent or explainable. The overall methodology is still not totally transparent, even though Microsoft has made some improvements over the past years.
GCP
Instructions are detailed in the article "Recovering your Cloud services data". The process is relatively similar to the other two providers — you will need to provide a JSON key, after which the data retrieval and analysis will be completed on our end.
Can we use the carbon footprint export provided by GCP?
Unlike AWS, the carbon footprint methodology from GCP still needs to be improved and clarified:
They are still waiting for third-party verification on the methodology they're using
The emission factors used for electricity come from electricityMaps at an hourly level. These emission factors seem low for some regions — they only cover the impact of electricity generation.
They don't provide much information about how they account for server amortization
Not all services are included yet
Data transfer impact outside the datacenters is not included (this is also the case for AWS)
OVH
OVH now publishes a monthly carbon footprint report for all its clients. The methodology has been reviewed and approved by Greenly. Using this document is more precise and requires less data collection effort on your part.
This document can be found on your dashboard, under the tab "my carbon footprint". Note that this reporting started in 2023 and is not available before 06/2023.
The yearly report may not be directly available on the dashboard, but you can contact OVH support to obtain it. The total emissions for the year are also typically included in the December report.
This document looks like this:
Other providers / Data collection without API
Here is the data collection template
You will use a Google Sheet to collect your cloud data. Only 4 columns are mandatory:
Name of provider
Hours of vCPU consumed
GB.months stored
GB transferred
The location is also very important, though not mandatory
Ⓜ️ Example of cloud invoices per provider
An example of cloud invoices is available here. This format should only be used as a last resort when no other option is available.
2. How to upload your data to the Greenly platform?
To upload your data, click on the corresponding task on the Progress page or go to Data > Data Collection > Cloud.
1/ Select your cloud provider
2/ Follow the on-screen instructions.
If you do not have the necessary information to complete this module, you can click on "Skip” at the top right of the page.
3. Frequent errors in data format
When using API connections, a common issue is not following the exact steps in the tutorials, which can lead to errors in the data retrieval process. The first thing to check is that the IDs entered are correct and in the right order.
If you are manually retrieving your invoices and uploading an Excel file, make sure it contains all the necessary information (highlighted in yellow in the example file). In particular, verify that quantities and location are included.
4. Review your data and read your results
Once you have uploaded your data, you can flag the expenses related to the module to avoid double counting and access your results. To do so, please read the related article.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to [email protected]
Once you have uploaded your data, you can flag the expenses related to the module to avoid double counting and access your results. To do so, please read the related article.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to [email protected]h