Carbon Footprint release notes

As detailed in our 2026 Environmental Report (p. 22), Google is now using Granular Certificates purchased from the marketplace to strategically match more of our load on an hourly basis. To accurately incorporate these certificates into the Cloud customers' allocation of carbon intensity calculations, the July 2026 semi-annual methodology refresh will be delayed by one month. We will provide further updates once the revised data is available.

The improved data export experience in the Cloud Carbon console is now available in Public Preview.

This feature, previously in Experimental Preview, lets you view the Carbon Footprint exports for a given billing account directly in the Cloud Carbon console. Only exports that you have permission to view are shown. You can use this view to better manage your Carbon Footprint exports in BigQuery.

Methodology update: Starting with January 2026 data, we have updated our calculation model to align with the comprehensive AI energy/emissions framework detailed in Measuring the environmental impact of delivering AI at Google Scale. This update allocates previously unallocated AI inference model emissions to the associated Google Cloud services, following the SKU-level allocation described in the Carbon Footprint reporting methodology. This change is part of our ongoing effort to provide more accurate and transparent emissions data for AI inference.

Impact: Customers will see an increase in reported emissions for services that utilize AI model inference across all SKUs. Such an increase is spread across all SKUs within those services, based on the SKU-level allocation methodology. The primary impact is on Vertex AI. Other impacted services include Video Stitcher API, Notebooks, Cloud Natural Language, Cloud Speech API, Cloud Document AI API, Cloud Dialogflow API, Cloud Machine Learning Engine, Cloud Text-to-Speech API and Cloud Vision API.

We have corrected the issue resulting in incomplete Cloud Run emissions data for November and December 2025. Customers who used Cloud Run during this period can now access the corrected data.

Action Required: To see the corrected Cloud Run emissions data, schedule a manual data backfill for November and December 2025. Note that there is a half-month lag of our data release. For example, to backfill November and December 2025 data, run the backfill for December 15, 2025 and January 15, 2026, which will update the data for November and December 2025 in your BigQuery table.

We have identified an issue resulting in incomplete Cloud Run emissions data for November and December 2025. Customers may observe lower than actual emissions for Cloud Run during this period. We are actively working on a fix and will provide an update when the data correction is available.

Cloud Carbon Footprint launched an improved data export experience in the Cloud Carbon console, now available in Experimental Preview.

When you click Data export on the Cloud Carbon console Ul for a given billing account, you can now see Carbon Footprint exports that you have access to for that billing account, in addition to the ability to create a new data export. This feature helps you better manage your Carbon Footprint exports in BigQuery. Read more for details.

In some cases, the list of exports may not be complete for the following reasons:

• Permissions: The export was configured in a project that you don't have permission to view.
• Performance Optimization: To optimize performance and prevent latency when you have access to a very large number of projects, the search may not display exports in all projects.

We have corrected an issue affecting the market-based Scope 2 emissions for the europe-west2 (London) region in the July 2025 Carbon Footprint data.

In the July 2025 methodology update, renewable energy coverage was misapplied to the Scope 2 market-based emissions in the europe-west2 (London) region. This resulted in non-zero Scope 2 market-based emissions for europe-west2. This inconsistency arose from evolving RE100 market-boundary guidance following Brexit. While RE100 guidance excludes the UK from the EU market-boundary post-Brexit, it allows for the use of previously purchased EU energy attribute certificates (EACs) with sufficiently close vintages to be applied against UK consumption in 2024. Google's application of these EACs to UK consumption results in zero Scope 2 market-based emissions in the europe-west2 (London).

We have corrected our data to align with the RE100 market boundaries guidance and our corporate environmental reporting of matched renewable energy. Scope 2 market-based emissions for europe-west2 are now correctly reported as zero for July 2025, using 2024 renewable energy coverage consistent with Google's environmental report.

• To correct your historical data, please run a backfill for July 2025 in your carbon footprint export. Due to a half-month lag in our data release, you will need to backfill the data for August 15, 2025, which will then update the July 2025 data in your BigQuery table.

Data for August 2025, available on September 15, 2025, will automatically reflect this correction. Data for all previous periods remains unaffected.

We recently released a new technical paper, "Measuring the Environmental Impact of Delivering AI at Google Scale" and blogpost. This research establishes a more comprehensive methodology for measuring the energy, emissions, and water consumption of AI inference in a live production environment. Our goal is to promote greater transparency and encourage the industry to align on more standardized, comprehensive measurement frameworks.

Currently, the data in Google Cloud Carbon Footprint for AI services does not fully reflect this comprehensive approach, which we believe is the most transparent environmental impact assessment from AI labs today. To better align with this new, more detailed methodology, we will be updating our carbon accounting pipeline for services that use AI, such as Vertex AI.

The new methodology provides a more accurate and complete picture of the environmental impact of AI services. We anticipate that this change, which will be implemented during our next semi-annual methodology refresh, may result in an increase in the emissions data for some of our Cloud AI services. However, we believe this move to more actionable data will enable us to more readily incentivize and track optimizations for these AI services.

The updated data will be released with the January 2026 methodology refresh, which is expected to be available in mid-February 2026. We believe this is an important step toward providing you with the most accurate and actionable data possible to manage your cloud usage more sustainably.

For the July 2025 semi-annual methodology refresh (released in mid-August 2025), we implemented the following improvements and updated the carbon model to version 14:

Updating Scope 1 & 3 emissions from Google's corporate footprint:

• Updated Scope 1 & 3 allocation factors using latest Google company-wide data from 2025 Google Environmental Report. See the non-electricity emission sources section of methodology documentation on how we apply these Scope 1 & 3 emissions across Google products and services.

Updating inputs for Scope 2 market-based emissions calculation from Google's corporate footprint:

• Updated annual renewable electricity percentage from Google's clean energy procurement, in accordance with 2025 Google Environmental Report, as an input for Scope 2 market-based emissions.
• Updated annual emissions factors from latest government sources, in accordance with 2025 Google Environmental Report, as an input for Scope 2 market-based emissions. Note that Scope 2 location-based emissions are estimated using hourly greenhouse gas emissions factors. Read more about the difference in methodology between Scope 2 location-based and market-based emissions in the methodology document.

Improving data accuracy:

• A data issue impacting Cloud Run emissions calculations for March 2025 has been resolved. Incorrect carbon footprint data were generated for some Cloud Run SKUs due to a bug in our data processing logic, resulting in inflated carbon emission figures for affected users.
  • To correct your historical data, please run a backfill for March 2025 in your carbon footprint export. Due to a half-month lag in our data release, you will need to backfill the data for April 15, 2025, which will then update the March 2025 data in your BigQuery table. Data for all other periods remains unaffected.

Updating service coverage:

• Integration Connectors and Application Integration were removed from covered services of Carbon Footprint, due to potential mis-attribution of carbon to these services. We are actively investigating and working on the improvements. Once internal data mapping improves for a service, we plan to add it back.

Deprecating carbon offsets fields from schema:

• The carbon_offsets_kgCO2e and carbon_footprint_total_kgCO2e.after_offsets fields have been deprecated in the Carbon Footprint schema due to Google's strategic shift from traditional carbon offsets to a direct focus on carbon removal technologies and projects. If you have already set up an export, these two fields have been set to NULL and will not be updated.

• This change is in line with Google's evolving strategy for achieving its net-zero climate goals with more robust and impactful climate solutions such as carbon removal technologies. Read more about Google's progress to accelerate carbon removal solutions.

An issue resulting in unusually high emissions data for the service Identity Platform has been resolved. This affected some customers in their January 2025 data and was caused by an incorrect internal resource mapping for Identity Platform.

To correct your January emissions data, schedule a manual data backfill for the month. Note that there is a half-month lag of our data release. For example, to backfill January 2025 data, run the backfill for February 15, 2025, which will update the data for January 2025 in your BigQuery table.

Updated carbon model to version 13 to reflect the above-mentioned fixes.

For the January 2025 semi-annual methodology refresh (released in mid-February 2025), we implemented the following improvements and updated the carbon model to version 12:

Improved internal cost accounting for Vertex AI and Notebooks services. This resulted in an improved allocation of energy consumption and emissions to these services. For more information on how we use internal cost to reallocate shared infrastructure, see Energy use and allocation to internal services.

Scope 2 market-based emissions data is now Generally Available. This metric represents purchased electricity, incorporating Google's annual renewable energy purchases. Scope 2 emissions on this page are estimated using annual emissions factors from government sources (IEA, EPA & AIB). You can learn more here about the methodology and the difference between location-based and market-based emission metrics.

Scope 2 market-based emissions data is available only from January 2023 onwards and can be accessed in:

• The console Dashboard on the Market-based emissions tab, and

• The BigQuery export as field carbon_footprint_kgCO2e.scope2.market_based in the export data schema.

Beginning with the release of January 2024 data, Google Cloud Carbon Footprint has adopted a semi-annual methodology improvement schedule, with updates planned for January and July data releases each year.

For the July 2024 data release (in mid-August 2024), we have upgraded the carbon model to version 11 and implemented the following updates:

Updating Scope 1 & 3 emissions from Google's corporate footprint:

• Updated Scope 1 & 3 allocation factors using latest Google company-wide data from 2024 Google Environmental Report. See the non-electricity emission sources section of methodology documentation on how we apply these Scope 1 & 3 emissions across Google products and services.

• Notably, expanded the Scope 1 & 3 inventory boundary to include the following for a more comprehensive emissions inventory:

  • HVAC fugitive emissions
  • Additional emissions categories of transmission & distribution (T&D) loss
  • Extraction and transportation of fuels used to generate grid electricity

Updating renewable electricity percentage for Scope 2 market-based emissions from Google's corporate footprint:

• Updated annual renewable electricity percentage from Google's clean energy procurement, in accordance with 2024 Google Environmental Report, as an input for Scope 2 market-based emissions. Note that Scope 2 location-based emissions are estimated using hourly greenhouse gas emissions factors. Read more about the difference in methodology between Scope 2 location-based and market-based emissions in the methodology document.

Improving allocation of shared internal AI/ML resources:

• Improved the treatment of central machine learning compute resources and workloads across Google products and services, including corrected central resource impact to the following Google Cloud services:
  • Cloud Natural Language
  • Translate
  • Cloud Vision API
  • Cloud Speech API
  • Cloud Dialogflow API
  • Vertex AI
  • Cloud AutoML
  • Cloud Machine Learning Engine
  • Video Stitcher API
  • Cloud Video Intelligence API
  • Notebooks
  • Cloud Text-to-Speech API

Improving data accuracy:

• Improved data center PUE mapping and energy allocation to internal services.

Scope 2 market-based emissions data is now launched in Preview. This metric represents purchased electricity, incorporating Google's annual renewable energy purchases. Scope 2 emissions on this page are estimated using annual emissions factors from government sources (IEA, EPA & AIB). You can learn more here about the methodology and the difference between location-based and market-based emission metrics.

Scope 2 market-based emissions data is available only from January 2023 onwards and can be accessed in:

• The console Dashboard on the Market-based emissions tab, and

• The BigQuery export as field carbon_footprint_kgCO2e.scope2.market_based in the export data schema.

Please note that data already exported to BigQuery for previous months will still have Scope 2 market-based emissions data as NULL in your exported tables. To see the newly-released market-based data, schedule a manual data backfill for the desired time period. Note that there is a half-month lag of our data release. For example, to backfill January and February 2023 data, run the backfill for February 15, 2023 and March 15, 2023, which will update the data for January and February 2023 in your BigQuery table.

Emissions reported for Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) declined starting in February 2024. This change is a result of an update to Google's internal cost allocation, which determines how shared infrastructure costs are attributed to individual services. According to our methodology (Technical details - Electricity use), these internal costs are used to apportion electricity consumption and carbon emissions to services, so changes in cost apportionment result in corresponding changes to carbon apportionment and reporting for that service.

Beginning with the release of January 2024 data, Google Cloud Carbon Footprint will adopt a biannual methodology refresh schedule, with updates planned for January and July data releases each year.

For the January 2024 data release (in mid-February 2024), we have made the updates below and updated carbon model to version 10:

Data accuracy:

• Improve internal machine-level power readings for storage machines. Update allocation of energy from some machines, improving Bigtable data accuracy.
• Further improve mapping between Google Cloud services and internal resource use, particularly for a few Networking SKUs.
• Improve Google Cloud region defaults and coverage. location.location/location.region with former NULL values are defined as global, and we improved data for the europe multiregion.

Corporate data input refresh:

• Update Scope 1/3 apportionment factors using latest Google company-wide data from 2023 Google Environmental Report. See the Non-electricity emission sources section of methodology document on how we apply these apportionment factors.

Service coverage:

• Reintroduce App Engine and GKE Enterprise/GDC services (formerly Anthos/GDC-V), as internal data mappings have been improved.
• Remove Looker, Apigee, Chronicle, and AppSheet from covered services of Carbon Footprint, due to potential mis-attribution of carbon to these services. We are actively investigating and working on the improvements. Once internal data mapping improves for a service, we plan to add it back.

Fixed bugs for Scope 1 and Scope 3 (non-electricity sources) emissions apportionment for September 2023 and October 2023 and Scope 2 location-based emissions for October 2023. Specifically:

• In September and October 2023, incorrect apportionment factors were used to estimate emissions from non-electricity sources. Some customers might have seen an increase in Scope 1 emissions and a decrease in Scope 3 emissions in their reports. To address the issue, we have corrected the apportionment factors from September 2023 onwards.

  • For more information on how we allocate Scope 1 and 3 emissions, refer to the Non-electricity emission sources Section in our public methodology document.

• Customers may have seen an increase across all services in Scope 2 location-based emissions in October 2023. This was due to an error in an upstream hourly carbon intensity data source. The error has now been corrected for Scope 2 location-based emissions for October 2023.

Please note that data already exported to BigQuery for previous months is not automatically corrected in your exported tables. To see the corrected data, schedule a manual data backfill for the desired time period. Note that there is half a month lag of our data release. For example, to backfill September and October 2023 data, run the backfill for October 15, 2023 and November 15, 2023, which will update the data for September and October 2023 in your BigQuery table.

Improved data consistency on BigQuery exports, particularly on the project_id field. In our BigQuery data exports, there were instances where the project_id field contained a NULL value, and in some of these cases, carbon for a particular project was split between two rows where the project ID was listed as NULL and non-NULL. (Note that the project_number field is always populated, and the total carbon when summed across all rows is correct for a given project number.) We have updated our reports for all prior months in order to populate the project_id field consistently, with a non-NULL value wherever possible. We have ensured each project's carbon is reported as a single row within a given month, service, and location.

To update previous months of data, schedule a manual data backfill for the desired time period.

Updated carbon model to version 9.

Customer carbon data for Cloud Functions will see a decrease starting from 2023-07-01 data onward. This decrease is a result of improvements in the apportionment of energy and carbon between Cloud Functions and App Engine. The impact is only seen in Cloud Functions, because App Engine is not yet supported in our covered services. This improvement is part of our efforts to support App Engine in the near future.