How can I calculate carbon emissions of Azure Virtual Desktops

Question

How can I see or calculate carbon emission / GHG emissions of Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) service?

Answer 1

Hello, @Chandra Sekhar Rao !

How do I calculate carbon emissions for Azure Virtual Desktop?
To get some additional clarity on this, I reached out to the Azure Virtual Desktop product group. I was able to confirm that using the Microsoft Sustainability Calculator or even the math from the blog to calculate the emissions from VMs as mentioned by @JimmySalian-2011 and @SIRVI is currently the best approach. I also learned why it would be very difficult to add a single drop down for Azure Virtual Desktop in the Microsoft Sustainability Calculator.

Calculating Carbon Emissions
Roughly 95% of the carbon emissions from Azure Virtual Desktop is going to be VM use. The Microsoft Sustainability Calculator gives you a full list of carbon emissions by time, subscription, region, and service. Depending on your organizational needs, filtering by subscription can make calculating carbon emissions for specific types of use easier.

The GHG Preparation report from the Microsoft Sustainability Calculator showing carbon emissions

Another approach is to calculate power consumption per VM which does require a bit of research however the example of a Standard_D2s_v3 provides a good benchmark of 4.302 kWh for a 24-hour period that you can use to make estimates.

Why don't I see Azure Virtual Desktop in the Microsoft Sustainability Calculator?
There is a separation between your VMs that run on Azure Virtual Desktop and the Azure Virtual Desktop service itself. Your VMs make up a majority of the carbon emissions (roughly 95%) while the service is used by over a million people each month and is made up of a number of first party Azure services like App Service, SQL DB, Cosmos, and Event Hubs which makes it very difficult to get an accurate value for carbon emissions on a per customer basis. For this reason, there are no current plans to add Azure Virtual Desktop as a service in the Microsoft Sustainability Calculator. You would instead calculate carbon emissions from your VMs.

This is an ongoing conversation, however, and feedback like this is helpful in shaping our future tools. Sustainability is something we take seriously and we are dedicated to 100% renewable energy by 2025, water positive and zero-waste certified by 2030, and net-zero deforestation from new construction. Additionally, a 2018 study found that using Azure can be up to 93% more energy efficient and up to 98% more carbon efficient than on-premises solutions. Thank you very much for your interest in carbon emissions!

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/explore/global-infrastructure/sustainability

Answer 2

Hi Chandra,

Sure there is a Microsoft App and very good video Business Case on the emissions. Please check here - coi-sustainability.emissions_impact_dashboard_microsoft_365

chi03-environmental-sustainability-device-cloud-solutions-strategies-to-reduce-your-climate-impact

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Answer 3

@Chandra Sekhar Rao , in that case you will have to extract the specific VM specs and calculate via this blog - how-can-i-calculate-co2eq-emissions-for-my-azure-vm

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Answer 4

Here:

Microsoft Sustainability Calculator helps enterprises analyze the carbon emissions of their IT infrastructure

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-sustainability-calculator-helps-enterprises-analyze-the-carbon-emissions-of-their-it-infrastructure/