Level 4 - Awesome

You have a measurement system in place that is producing good real-time scope 1, 2, and 3 data and although it’s not currently driving the business day-to-day, the business is very aware of it. Using the more limited scope 1, 2, and 3 data you have had for a while, you have already achieved net carbon zero using no more than 10% offsets. (Note offsets are highly problematic but they demonstrate you are regularly measuring). You perform demand shaping; pre-calculation and caching; and time and location shifting, for example, to adapt your workloads to current conditions. You automatically delete or archive data that isn’t in regular use. Services no longer in use are automatically turned off and rightsizing happens automatically (i.e. you apply SRE principles). Your applications are Lean and you constantly review and retire functionality that is insufficiently used. Your organizational strategy has been aligned with being green as a business goal - perhaps for reasons of ESG, cost, resilience, or market access to the EU - and delivery on CO2 targets is regularly discussed and reported at senior level. Your total carbon footprint is going down even as you grow. You are also actively driving the carbon footprint of your suppliers to go down. You never cause hardware less than ten years old to become end of life either by lack of security patches or lack of backwards compatibility in your applications. You are actively driving the carbon footprint of your customers to go down (beyond simply their use of your services and devices) for example by providing scope 3 reporting for your goods and services. Examples (for some of it): Google, AWS, MS.

Axis	State
Whole organization energy commitments	already net CZero with no more than 10% offsets
Carbon footprint	it is reducing full stop and so is that of your suppliers
CO2 equivalent metrics	Real time through easy standardized APIs together with projections
Server resource management	all turning off and rightsizing happens automatically and data that is not regularly accessed is automatically deleted or archived
Energy resource management	all your systems support demand shifting and shaping based on energy data
Minimize end user device embodied carbon waste (assume circular economy)	automated processes ensure ten year old hardware is supported by your software for all devices
Minimize server hardware embodied carbon waste	optimal utilization achieved for every server using automated orchestration. Servers all have a 10 year life expectancy
Product management	carbon emissions are tracked per feature. Feature use is monitored and low use/poor carbon ROI features retired
Education	only basic training needed - everything is green by default