What you need to know
- The Microsoft Emissions Impact Dashboard previously went by the name of the Microsoft Sustainability Calculator.
- It lets you know what the greenhouse gas impact is of Microsoft cloud services.
- It debuted in January 2020 and is now hitting general availability.
Microsoft has finally let its Emissions Impact Dashboard (formerly known as the Microsoft Sustainability Calculator) enter general availability, so any organization interested in learning about its carbon emission output with relation to its Microsoft cloud services usage can now be informed and better tackle sustainability challenges.
This tool from Microsoft has been around since January 2020, though it's been expanded between then and now, allowing it to do more and, by extension, offer users more valuable insights and data with which to help organizations in their sustainability planning. Here's how Microsoft describes its tool:
The Emissions Impact Dashboard provides transparency into greenhouse gas emissions associated with using Microsoft cloud services and enables a better understanding of the root causes of emissions changes. Organizations can measure the impact of Microsoft cloud usage on their carbon footprint, and they can drill down into emissions by month, service, and datacenter region. The tool also enables customers to enter un-migrated workloads and get an estimate of emissions savings from migrating to the Microsoft cloud.
You can learn more about the Emissions Impact Dashboard over at Microsoft's blog post discussing the service's move to general availability. Microsoft has a history of focusing on how its cloud operations, and those of other organizations, affect sustainability efforts, hence why it has released offerings such as its Cloud for Sustainability package.
Many of Microsoft's operations rely on the cloud, especially as it's the foundation of key partnerships with giants including Mars and Wells Fargo. The company's calculator and other assorted tools are measures to keep an eye on all those initiatives' overall ecological impact.
