Measureing Carbon NetZero and the IRISCAST Project

School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, 327 Mile End Road, LONDON, E1 4NS, United Kingdom

^* e-mail: r.a.owen@qmul.ac.uk
^** e-mail: j.hays@qmul.ac.uk

Published online: 6 May 2024

Abstract

Moving towards NetZero requires robust information to enable good decision making at all levels: covering hardware procurement, workload management and operations, as well as higher level aspects encompassing grant funding processes and policy framework development. The IRISCAST project is a proofof-concept study funded as part of the UKRI DRI Net-Zero Scoping Project.

IRISCAST performed an audit of carbon costs across a multi-site heterogeneous infrastructure by collecting and analysing snapshots of actual usage across different facilities within the IRIS community (https://iris.ac.uk). Combining usage information with an analysis of the embodied carbon costs and careful mapping and consideration of the underlying assumptions resulted in an estimate of the overall carbon cost, an understanding of the key elements that contribute to the carbon cost, and the important metrics needed to measure it.

IRISCAST makes reccomendations to allow high level feedback of carbon costs to funding bodies to inform strategic decisions as well as low level feedback of carbon costs to users and user communities to drive changes in user code bases and behaviors to be more carbon efficient.

IRISCAST carbon modeling shows that estimates of carbon costs can vary by factors of 10, hence there is significant opportunity for the carbon footprint of Digital Research Infrastructures to be reduced.