Carbon summary

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.

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:

Configuration

Use the following steps to generate a Carbon summary document. Navigate to Azure Documenter to get started.

1. Click New configuration. The Configure your document wizard opens.
2. 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
3. In Step 2 — Service principal, select the service principal and configure the subscription scope. Click Next.
4. Complete Steps 3–6 (Branding, Publish settings, Schedule, Notifications) as required. Click Next after each step.
5. 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.