Environmental impact
Whenever you create a project with us, we provide information about the electricity grid provider for that region. You can view the average carbon intensity of the energy grid in grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt-hour. These data are sourced from an annual average, which we update as new information becomes available. If you want to see real-time emissions generated by each power grid, we recommend checking out Electricity Maps. You can also access a public GitHub page of Electricity Maps data sources. Summary of data being used in Upsun’s Region Picker when creating a new Project:
Information on carbon intensity is also available in the Upsun API.
For example, to get a list of the regions and their carbon intensities, run the following command:
Carbon Emissions dashboard
The Carbon Emissions dashboard provides an overview of the carbon footprint associated with your cloud resource usage. This dashboard calculates emissions using a Carbon Price List (CPL) methodology, inspired by the Cloud Carbon Footprint model. Users can view total emissions over time and project specific emissions for the current year, broken down by kilograms of CO2 equivalent (kg CO2e). The dashboard also includes information about how emissions are calculated and what factors (server location, usage etc.) can influence those totals.Access the dashboard
This dashboard is accessible via the Emissions tab within the Billing section in Console.How is this calculated?
We collect detailed billing data from our cloud service providers (including associated costs and quantities) and this information is represented as line items. Our carbon management partner, Greenly, calculates the energy use and embodied emissions for each line item. This is done through data gathering and modeling that estimates energy consumption, power usage effectiveness (PUE), and carbon intensity for the cloud providers. Using cost allocation models, your project’s share of emissions is then estimated. We have been working closely with Greenly to build upon the model, tailoring it to better reflect our specific data and technical requirements to ensure your emissions data is credible, compliant and supports your progress toward real, measurable sustainability targets.What affects emissions?
- Where you run: Data center regions vary greatly in grid-carbon intensity. Selecting a cleaner region is the most impactful way to reduce footprint.
- What you provision: Emissions rise in proportion to the resources you allocate.
Greener Region Discount
You can get a 3% discount on your resource usage if you host your project in one of Upsun’s eco-friendly regions:- Quebec, Canada (
ca-central-1), - Stockholm, Sweden (
eu-north-1), - Paris, France (
francecentral), - OVH (
gra7), - Quincy, Washington (
westus2), - Zurich, Switzerland (
europe-west6).
Region availability
The regions listed here may be different from those available to you when you create a new project. Each organization can have its own rules for what regions to allow. When adding a new project, you only see regions allowed by your organization.Region location
As an alternative, you can also use the following command with the Upsun CLI to find out where a given region is hosted:The returned list contains, for each available region, its name, provider, geographic zone and its timezone - as shown above.