Overview
Carbon summary is a document type in Azure Documenter that provides a high-level overview of carbon emissions across Azure resources and subscriptions. It compares emissions across available time periods based on Azure emissions data and can optionally surface the top 100 carbon-emitting resources per subscription.
Business value
Carbon summary reporting gives sustainability and cloud teams a structured, exportable view of their Azure carbon footprint over time, without building custom reporting from raw Azure emissions data.
Prerequisites
Required permissions
| Role | Permission level | Access |
|---|---|---|
| Account owner, Owner, Contributor | - | Full access to the Documentation section |
| Custom role | Read | View documents generated under Documentation |
| Custom role | Manage | View, generate, and manage documents under Documentation |
How it works
The Carbon summary document covers carbon emission scopes as defined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol: Scope 1 (direct emissions from Azure datacenter infrastructure), Scope 2 (indirect emissions from purchased electricity and cooling), and Scope 3 (other indirect emissions across the value chain). All three scopes are included by default.
Executive summary
The document opens with an executive summary providing a point-in-time view across all selected subscriptions:
- Latest month total: total carbon emissions in kg CO₂ for the most recent month
- Previous month total: total carbon emissions in kg CO₂ for the preceding month
- Overall change: emissions change in kg CO₂ with percentage
- Top resources analyzed: number of carbon-emitting resources included in the analysis
- Subscriptions with data: number of subscriptions for which Azure emissions data was available
Per-subscription breakdown
For each subscription, the document includes:
- Latest month emissions, previous month emissions, and the change between them
- Tree absorption rate: the equivalent number of trees needed to absorb the subscription's emissions, calculated at 1.83 kg CO₂ absorbed per tree per month
When Include top 100 resources is enabled, the document lists up to 100 carbon-emitting resources per subscription in a table sorted by latest month emissions:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Resource Type | Azure resource type identifier |
| Latest month (kg CO₂) | Carbon emissions for the most recent month |
| Previous month (kg CO₂) | Carbon emissions for the preceding month |
| Trees consumed (latest month) | Number of trees needed to offset the latest month's emissions |
| Change (kg CO₂) | Absolute emissions change between periods |
| Change (%) | Percentage change in emissions |
Steps
Use the following steps to generate a Carbon summary document. Navigate to Azure Documenter to get started.
- Click New configuration. The Configure your document wizard opens.
- In Step 1 (Basics), enter a configuration name. Under Choose document type, select Carbon summary. Configure the following options:
- Include top 100 resources: when enabled, the document lists the top 100 carbon-emitting resources within each subscription
- In Step 2 (Service principal), select the service principal and configure the subscription scope. Click Next.
- Complete Steps 3–6 (Branding, Publish settings, Schedule, Notifications) as required. Click Next after each step.
- In Step 7 (Review), confirm your configuration and click Finish.
You can also generate a Carbon summary document from an existing configuration using the Context menu ( ⋮ ) next to the configuration in the tree view.
Once generation is complete, a URL is created for the document, and you can download it using the Download link.
Example scenario
A sustainability lead wants to present quarterly emissions trends to executive stakeholders. They generate a Carbon summary document with Include top 100 resources enabled, review the executive summary for overall carbon movement across subscriptions, and share the per-subscription resource table to highlight the highest-impact contributors.
Troubleshooting
-
Carbon summary document returns no emissions data
Cause: no emissions data is available for the selected subscriptions or time periods. Emissions data availability depends on Azure's reporting pipeline and may lag by several days.
Fix: confirm the selected subscriptions are active and that emissions data is available in the Azure portal for the relevant time period. -
Document generation fails or returns incomplete data
Cause: the service principal lacks the required permissions to access resource and emissions data for the selected subscriptions.
Fix: verify the service principal has at least Reader access on all selected subscriptions, then regenerate. -
Top 100 resources list is not included in the output
Cause: the Include top 100 resources option was not enabled when the configuration was created.
Fix: edit the configuration, enable the Include top 100 resources option, and regenerate.
FAQs
-
How does Carbon summary differ from Carbon optimizations?
Carbon summary provides a high-level temporal comparison of emissions grouped by subscription, including the top 100 resources when enabled. Carbon optimizations surfaces actionable recommendations to reduce emissions based on resource usage patterns. -
What is the tree absorption rate shown in the document?
It represents the number of trees needed to absorb the carbon emissions shown, calculated at 1.83 kg CO₂ per tree per month. It is a contextual metric to help communicate the environmental scale of emissions. -
Over what time periods are emissions compared?
The document compares the latest month against the previous month, based on the available Azure emissions data for the selected subscriptions.