The Carbon Insights Tool: Gaining Insights in the Sustainability of Software
The name ‘Wavemakers’ embodies a Sustainable IT cooperative that started as a drop and is turning into an ever-growing wave. It is a sustainability movement that is making its way through different departments within Rabobank. In this blog, you will read more about what the CIT is and how it aims to enable Rabobank employees to work more sustainably.
- Ankit Bhimjiyani DevOps Engineer
What is the Carbon Insights Tool?
Next to awareness creation and knowledge sharing, the Wavemakers developed the Carbon Insights Tool (CIT). This is a tool that will allow IT teams to quantify their efforts of decarbonizing their work through the implementation of eco-design principles.
Why monitor Carbon Emissions of software?
Fighting the global environmental crisis can feel like a lost battle before even starting. People may ask themselves ‘Where to begin?’ and ‘What true difference can I/we make as just one team?’. Aside from creating awareness on what sustainability means for you and your daily work, it is also important to understand what you can do to make a change. And that knowledge becomes more tangible once it is measurable and progress can be traced .The Wavemakers believe that a combination of these key ingredients create a successful recipe for reaching goals of becoming net-zero.
Have you ever asked yourself how much energy data and technology uses?
Find out more about IT's hidden footprintHow does the Carbon Insights Tool work?
The Carbon Insights Tool measures carbon emissions by estimating resource consumption metrics across the user terminal, network, and infrastructure. By analyzing these target application metrics, the CIT provides in-depth insights into carbon footprint. This data is then relayed to an all-encompassing dashboard featuring various graphs and visualizations. These graphs offer stakeholders a clear understanding of their carbon footprint and help them in making informed decisions for their sustainability strategies.
The Current Standard on measuring Carbon Emissions of IT
The ongoing method of measuring carbon emissions of IT adopts a top-down approach, providing an overarching view of organizational carbon footprints. This approach overlooks the complexities of individual processes and activities limiting the effectiveness of the entire process. Some tools like Microsoft Azure’s Emissions Impact Dashboard offer top-down carbon monitoring, enabling businesses to analyze emissions data. In top-down carbon monitoring, the picture is clear, but it is the details where the real story lies.
The Carbon Insights Tool - Bottom-Up Carbon Monitoring
Keeping this in mind, the Carbon Insights Tool is built to lead the change towards bottom-up carbon monitoring. It enables teams to trace carbon emissions to individual processes and even specific product features. By tracking emissions at the granular level, teams can gain crucial insights into where the carbon bottlenecks lie and mitigate efforts accordingly. This approach stimulates accountability, empowers targeted interventions, and drives more effective sustainability initiatives ensuring the growth of a better world together.
