Quickstart: View and analyze emission data with Carbon optimization in Azure

Use this quickstart to view and analyze emissions data, identify trends, and review recommendations in the Azure portal. You can analyze emissions by selecting either subscriptions or a billing account, depending on your reporting scenario:

  • Use the Subscriptions view to analyze emissions for selected subscriptions at the subscription, resource group, resource, resource type, and location levels.
  • Use the Billing Accounts view to analyze emissions across all subscriptions under an eligible billing account.

Prerequisites

Before you can use this quickstart, you need:

  • An active Azure subscription. If you don't have an Azure subscription, you can create a free account.

  • Carbon optimization data is published monthly, so you need at least one month of Azure usage to see data.

  • An Azure account with one of the following role-based access control (RBAC) roles at the scope you want to analyze. For more information, see Assign access to Carbon optimization.

    Role Description
    Carbon Optimization Reader Used to view and analyze carbon emissions data. Can be assigned at the subscription level. For Microsoft Customer Agreement accounts, it can also be assigned at the billing account level.
    Subscription Reader, Subscription Contributor, Subscription Owner Used to view emissions data, emission reduction recommendations, and subscription information for selected subscriptions.
    Billing Account Reader, Billing Account Contributor, Billing Account Owner Used to view and analyze carbon emissions data for all subscriptions under a Microsoft Customer Agreement billing account.
    Enrollment Reader, Enrollment Contributor, Enrollment Owner Used to view and analyze carbon emissions data for Enterprise Agreement enrollments.

  • To use the Subscriptions view, ensure you have access to each subscription you want to analyze.

  • To use the Billing Accounts view, ensure you have the required billing account or enrollment-level role.

  • To view emission reduction recommendations, you need subscription-level access, such as Subscription Reader, Subscription Contributor, or Subscription Owner.

Select a view

Select the view that matches how you want to analyze emissions.

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

  2. In the search box, type Carbon optimization and select Carbon optimization.

  3. On the Carbon optimization page, use the View dropdown to select Subscriptions or Billing Accounts.

    Screenshot of the View dropdown showing Subscriptions and Billing Accounts options.

Select subscriptions

Use the Subscriptions view when you want to analyze emissions for specific subscriptions or drill into resource group and resource-level details.

  1. In the View dropdown, select Subscriptions.
  2. Select four to five subscriptions to focus on. Fewer subscriptions help to minimize the amount of data to return so that you can focus on optimizing specific areas. You can select up to 100 subscriptions. Select subscriptions and then select Apply.
    Screenshot showing how to select a subscription.

Select a billing account

Use the Billing Accounts view when you want to analyze emissions across all subscriptions under an eligible billing account.

  1. In the View dropdown, select Billing Accounts.
  2. In the billing account dropdown, select the billing account you want to analyze.
  3. Confirm that emissions data appears for the expected subscriptions.

Screenshot of the Billing Accounts view with the billing account dropdown open.

The Billing Accounts view shows one billing account at a time. Data in this view is shown at subscription-level granularity. The 100-subscription selection limit doesn't apply to the Billing Accounts view.

Emission trends help you identify patterns for carbon emissions and areas that need attention. The information shown helps you make informed decisions about where to focus optimization efforts.

  1. View your Monthly emissions trends bar chart over the last 12 months to assess trends and performance over time. You can hover over a bar chart to view a breakdown by emissions type.
    Screenshot showing Monthly emissions trends.
  2. View your Emissions by resource type for the last month. The donut chart shows emissions based on Azure resource type to identify top emitters and potential reductions.
  3. View Emissions by location for the last month. The donut chart shows emissions by Azure region.
  4. View Carbon intensity. The line graph shows your organization's allocation of Microsoft's carbon emissions. The value is divided by your company's cloud usage hours during the selected period. Usage hours are based on a sum of your company's Azure usage. Emissions usage calculations might differ from billing data.
  5. Select View emissions equivalents to see equivalent carbon emissions for everyday real-world usage examples.
    Screenshot showing where to select Emissions equivalents.

Analyze resource group emission details

Resource group emissions details show monthly emissions for all the resources in the resource groups of the subscriptions you previously selected. You can also see the emissions change from the previous month and the percentage of change, month-to-month. The information can help you identify the main contributors to carbon emissions. By targeting these groups, you can achieve reductions in emissions.

  1. In the left navigation pane, select Emissions Details and then select the Resource groups tab.
  2. You can hover over the chart to view emissions for a specific month in the history.
    Screenshot showing emission details chart for resource groups.

Review recommendations from Emission Reductions

Emission Reductions provides recommendations to help you reduce emissions and optimize your carbon footprint. Recommendations identify idle and underutilized resources and show associated carbon and potential cost savings of implementing the recommendations.

Note

Cost savings shown in the following screenshots are fictitious and aren't based on actual usage or billing data.

  1. In the left navigation pane, select Emission Reductions.
  2. Review the list of recommendations and then select one.
    Screenshot showing Emission reductions recommendation list.
  3. For example, assume you select a Delete this Virtual Machine recommendation. Carbon optimization shows the following example. Select the Recommendations tab to view more detailed information.
    Screenshot showing the Recommendations tab in recommendation details.
  4. Next, in the list of recommendations select the recommendation that corresponds to the one you selected previously. For this example, select Right-size or shutdown underutilized virtual machines.
    Screenshot showing the Right-size or shutdown underutilized virtual machines recommendation.
  5. In the recommendation details, you can see why the recommendation is to shut down the virtual machine (VM) in Additional details. It's because VM CPU usage is 1%, network usage is 0%, and memory usage is 11%.
    Screenshot showing the reason why the recommendation is made in additional details.

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