The Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) specification is a standard developed by the Green Software Foundation to measure the carbon emissions from software applications. It provides a metric for assessing the environmental impact of software based on both operational and embodied emissions, helping developers make more sustainable choices.
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Emissions generated by software during its active use. This may include energy consumed by servers, devices, and network operations or a portion of the system while running the software. Generally, it's up to the user to decide what is possible for them to measure and what is representative of the work being done. |
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Emissions related to the geographical location of hardware. Some regions have cleaner energy grids, affecting the overall carbon footprint. |
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The cumulative carbon emissions resulting from the entire lifecycle of hardware associated with the software—including manufacturing, transport, maintenance, and disposal—are referred to as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) values. |
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The total hours for which hardware resources are allocated or reserved for running the software, regardless of actual usage. |
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The estimated number of years the hardware is expected to remain operational and effective before replacement. We assume that hardware is installed for about 5 years. |
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The quantity of hardware resources (such as CPU, memory, or storage) allocated for software use, regardless of actual consumption. |
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The full capacity of hardware resources (e.g., CPU, memory, storage) accessible on the system for software operations, representing the maximum potential usage. |
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The map below is generated from 2022 data provided by the US Energy Information Administration.
For realtime power grid load tracking, you can checkout GridStatus.io. For realtime/historical Average Operational Emissions Rate (AOER), Electricity Maps is a good resource. For realtime/historical Marginal Operational Emissions Rate (MOER), checkout WattTime.
Although the LCA values typically come from manufacturer's, there are several resources available to enable us to approximate these numbers.
Teads Engineering uses these generally accepted arbitrary values for various components
| Component | Emissions (kgCO2-eq) |
|---|---|
| 128 GB of DRAM | 150 |
| 1 CPU | 100 |
| 1 HDD | 50 |
| 1 SSD | 100 |
| 1 GPU | 150 |
Or, there are LCA databases supplied by private organizations or put together by government agencies. In the US, one such database specific to computers has been put together by the Federal LCA Commons.
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This value normalizes the carbon emissions to understand the efficiency and environmental impact of the software per unit of its functional output. |