Cloud sustainability This article helps you understand the cloud sustainability capability within the FinOps Framework and how to implement that in the Microsoft Cloud.
On this page
Cloud sustainability balances environmental and financial efficiency in cloud optimization, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives.
Establish policies, guidelines, and strategies to optimize cloud sustainability while balancing cost. Identify opportunities to improve and foster stakeholder engagement for effective evaluation.
▶️ Getting started
When you first start with cloud sustainability, you use the native tools to drive efficiency and optimize carbon in the portal.
- Leverage Azure Carbon Optimization to find opportunities to lower carbon emissions.
- Consider using the Cost optimization workbook to view carbon optimization recommendations alongside other usage and cost efficiency recommendations.
🏗️ Building on the basics
At this point, you’ve implemented all the basic carbon optimization recommendations and tuned applications to meet the most fundamental best practices. As you move beyond the basics, consider the following points:
- Expand visibility to business and finance stakeholders by using the Emissions Impact Dashboard for Azure or the Emissions Impact Dashboard for Microsoft 365.
- Explore additional tools available in Microsoft’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) capabilities available from the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability.
- For a more prescriptive approach, refer to the Well-Architected guide for sustainability.
🍎 Learn more at the FinOps Foundation
This capability is a part of the FinOps Framework by the FinOps Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing cloud cost management and optimization. For more information about FinOps, including useful playbooks, training and certification programs, and more, see the Cloud sustainability article in the FinOps Framework documentation.
You can also find related videos on the FinOps Foundation YouTube channel:
⏩ Next steps
Related FinOps capabilities:
🧰 Related tools
- 📒 FinOps workbooks – Customizable home for engineers to maximize cloud ROI through FinOps.
- 📒 Optimization workbook – Central hub for cost optimization.
- 📒 Governance workbook – Central hub for governance.