Evaluating Total Environmental Impact for a Computing Infrastructure

TL;DR

This paper assesses the total environmental impact of a digital research infrastructure by modeling and quantifying its carbon footprint, including hardware embodied and active emissions, over a specific period.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive carbon impact model and provides empirical estimates of the infrastructure's climate footprint for a defined snapshot period.

Findings

Quantified the total carbon impact of the infrastructure.

Analyzed variation in active and embodied carbon emissions.

Produced estimates of carbon footprint for the snapshot period.

Abstract

In this paper we outline the results of a project to evaluate the total climate/carbon impact of a digital research infrastructure for a defined snapshot period. We outline the carbon model used to calculate the impact and the data collected to quantify that impact for a defined set of resources. We discuss the variation in potential impact across both the active and embodied carbon for computing hardware and produce a range of estimates on the amount of carbon equivalent climate impact for the snapshot period.