This standard is under review. It is currently open for public comment. Requirements may change before final publication.
Establishes methodology requirements for attributing and reporting cloud-related carbon emissions, including Scope 2 (electricity consumption) and Scope 3 (upstream and downstream) emissions arising from cloud infrastructure usage. Currently under public review, this standard will provide the FinOps profession's authoritative methodology for GreenOps practices. Comments are open through March 31, 2026.
Rationale
Cloud carbon emissions are a growing regulatory reporting requirement under frameworks including the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), SEC climate disclosure rules, and voluntary frameworks such as SBTi and CDP. FinOps practitioners are uniquely positioned to provide the cost allocation and attribution infrastructure needed for carbon accounting.
Scope
Applies to organizations that report carbon emissions and use public cloud services. Covers Scope 2 and Scope 3 Category 1 (purchased goods and services) emissions from cloud providers. Does not currently cover on-premises data center emissions, edge computing infrastructure, or embodied carbon in cloud hardware.
Requirements
8 requirements - MUST indicates mandatory; SHOULD indicates recommended.
Organizations MUST collect cloud carbon emissions data from all primary cloud providers using provider-native carbon reporting tools at minimum monthly.
Emissions data MUST be retained with the same retention policy as financial data - minimum 7 years for regulatory compliance.
Organizations MUST report Scope 2 emissions under both market-based and location-based accounting methodologies.
Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) applied to cloud carbon reporting MUST be documented with certificate provenance and applicable accounting period.
Cloud carbon emissions MUST be attributed to business owners using an allocation methodology consistent with IFO4-S-004.
Emissions intensity metrics (carbon per unit of compute, per transaction, or per dollar of cloud spend) SHOULD be calculated and tracked.
Organizations MUST disclose the methodology used for cloud carbon reporting in their sustainability report.
Material discrepancies between provider-reported emissions and independently estimated emissions MUST be investigated and documented.
Full Description
As organizations face increasing regulatory and stakeholder pressure to account for and reduce their carbon footprint, cloud infrastructure - which often represents 20–40% of technology-related emissions - demands a formal accounting methodology. IFO4-S-006 provides that methodology.
The standard defines how organizations should collect cloud carbon emissions data from provider-native carbon reporting tools (AWS Customer Carbon Footprint Tool, Azure Emissions Impact Dashboard, GCP Carbon Footprint), validate and normalize that data for comparability, and attribute emissions to business owners using the same allocation principles established in IFO4-S-004.
A key design decision in this standard is the treatment of Scope 2 emissions under both market-based and location-based accounting methods, as both are required under the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard. The standard requires organizations to report both methods and disclose any renewable energy certificates purchased.
The public review draft (v0.8.0) has received 143 comments from practitioners, regulatory experts, and cloud provider representatives. The most significant open issues concern the treatment of embodied carbon in hardware (not currently in scope) and the methodology for allocating shared data center emissions to specific workloads.