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As digitalisation continues to accelerate across all sectors, the environmental footprint of digital and cloud-based services is becoming an increasingly important part of the broader climate change conversation. While cloud computing enables efficiency and scalability, its associated emissions are often difficult for organisations to quantify in a meaningful and actionable way.

We are pleased to share that a recent research output by the Energy Studies Institute (ESI) on emission factors and emissions calculator for cloud services, covering virtual machines and cloud storage, is now live on the Singapore Business Federation Net Zero Hub. https://lnkd.in/gufwnCsB

A key feature of this work is that ESI developed Singapore-relevant emission factors and applied them through a bottom-up, service-level approach. This addresses a common limitation in many existing ICT emissions references, which are often based on top-down national or sectoral averages. While top-down approaches are useful for high-level reporting, they typically provide limited insight for companies seeking to optimise cloud usage and reduce emissions through operational choices at the service level.

The project was funded by the IMDA, and developed in close collaboration with IMDA to ensure methodological robustness and practical relevance. We are also grateful for the support and feedback from industry stakeholders, whose inputs helped refine the assumptions and improve usability.

We hope this resource will support organisations in making more informed decisions around cloud adoption and digital infrastructure, and contribute to more credible and actionable emissions accounting as part of their net-zero efforts.