Measure, Optimize, and Reduce Your AWS Carbon Footprint with the CCFT

Let us talk about how we can help our organization to optimize, measure and reduce their AWS carbon footprint with CCFT. As organizations increasingly prioritize sustainability, it’s more important than ever to understand the environmental footprint of cloud infrastructure. Enter the AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool (CCFT), a free, intuitive way to track your carbon emissions tied to AWS usage and unlock actionable insights.

CCFT was Introduced in March 2022, which offers users a visual, easy-to-navigate dashboard of their carbon emissions—spanning Scope 1 (direct emissions) and Scope 2 (indirect emissions)—converted into standard Metric Tons of CO₂ equivalent (MTCO2e), With this tool, you can view the historical emissions by month  and services like S3, EC2, we can gauge savings compared to on-premises setup and we can also forecast emissions based on the path to 100% renewable AWS energy.

AWS claims emissions reductions of nearly 80% today (versus on-premises) and up to 96% by 2025 as they advance toward renewable energy goals about Amazon. Even when you’re not responsible for AWS’s broader sustainability, CCFT empowers you to:

• Make informed infrastructure decisions based on carbon impact.
• Support ESG reporting with real, account-specific data.
• Benchmark improvements over time as you optimize workloads.

Figure: The diagram shows how we an use AWS services to calculate & visualize an organizations estimated carbon footprint

Getting Started: How to Access CCFT:

• Sign in to the AWS Billing and Cost Management Console.
• Navigate to Cost & Usage Analysis → Customer Carbon Footprint Tool
• Ensure your IAM user or role has the sustainability:GetCarbonFootprintSummary permission
• Select a date range (data typically lags by ~3 months)

What the Dashboard Shows:

• Summary view: Total estimated emissions vs. savings.
• By AWS Region: Breakdowns like US East (Ohio), Europe (London)top 5 regions shown by default
• By Service: Emissions from EC2, S3, CloudFront, and others grouped under “Other”
• Method filter: Choose between Market-Based (MBM) and Location-Based (LBM) emissions methods, with savings displayed as the difference

Recent Enhancements & Tool Evolution

January 2025

• CCFT moved to a dedicated console page under Cost & Usage Analysis

April 2025

• Added Regional granularity and Carbon Data Exports, enabling CSV/Parquet exports to S3 with up to 38 months of data
• Launched methodology v2.0, independently verified and providing more precise attribution

June 2025

• Added the Location-Based Method (LBM) alongside MBM for users interested in grid-average emissions
• Amazon CloudFront emissions now separately broken out

July 2025

• New energy consumption calculation page added to help convert emissions into energy usage
• Corrected overestimated LBM emissions for Frankfurt (~29%) and Paris (~6%) in historical data.

Recent Methodology Improvements (v2.0)

The updated methodology is more robust and accurate, attributed as follows:

• Includes unused capacity emissions—so emissions aren’t underestimated
• Allocates emissions through infrastructure dependencies—e.g., EC2 vs. Lambda
• Includes data center overhead (networking, launch infrastructure)

How to Use It Effectively (Best Practices)

• Tips:
  • Set up automated exports via Billing Data Exports to S3
  • Compare MBM vs. LBM to understand carbon impact by grid
  • Pinpoint region-specific trends
  • Track service-level emissions
  • Combine with tools like AWS Well‑Architected Sustainability Pillar and Compute Optimizer

• Why it helps:
  • Enables long-term trend analysis and external reporting (CSV/Parquet)
  • Shows how energy sourcing affects your footprint
  • Helps optimize workload placement and choose lower-carbon regions
  • Identifies high-impact services to target for optimization
  • Tackle sustainability and cost-efficiency in parallel

Real-World Context & Feedback

Some users express frustration about lag and granularity when compared to other platforms, e.g. GCP, which may offer faster exports and more detailed breakdowns. These comments highlight how CCFT continues to evolve, and underscore the importance of AWS’s improvements like exports, LBM, and service-level breakdowns.

To understand how to track and manage carbon emission with AWS Tools and Services for greener cloud refer tracking and managingCarbon emissions with aws tools and services for a greener cloud

Conclusion

The AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool is a powerful ally for cloud sustainability. It provides transparency, data-driven insight, and continuously deepening functionality—from regional breakdowns to methodology updates. Whether you’re tracking emissions for ESG metrics or simply want efficient, greener architecture, CCFT AWS CCFT equips you with what you need.

About CloudThat