Emissions terminology

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This article describes the terminology used in association with carbon emissions and Azure carbon optimization.

Terminology

CO2e

Carbon dioxide equivalents. A unit of measurement for the warming effect of greenhouse gases. Kilograms (kgCO2e), metric tons (MTCO2e) are common prefixes to this unit.

kgCO2e

The amount of carbon dioxide equivalent in kilograms.

MTCO2e

Metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).

Carbon emissions

Your company’s allocation of Microsoft’s cloud carbon emissions, based on your cloud usage. This value includes Microsoft’s scopes (1, 2, and/or 3) as indicated and filtered.

Scope 1, 2, and 3

High level categorization of greenhouse gas emissions based on the activity that produced the emissions.

  • Scope 1 - direct greenhouse gas emissions from onsite fuel combustion (generators, vehicle fleet)
  • Scope 2 - indirect greenhouse gas emissions such as emissions from electricity provider
  • Scope 3 – other indirect greenhouse gas emissions from the value chain

Carbon intensity

Your company’s allocation of Microsoft’s carbon emissions divided by your company’s cloud usage hours during the selected time period. Usage hours are based on a sum of your company’s compute, storage, and data transfer in the Microsoft cloud. Usage for emissions calculations might not equal your Microsoft usage for billing purposes.

Emission reductions (or emission savings)

The volume of reduced emissions. This doesn't include carbon offsets. Microsoft uses emissions “reductions” and “savings” interchangeably to describe the level of emissions after an action has been taken, where that level is relatively lower than the projected level of emissions without the action.

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