Carbon Footprint for IT and Technology Companies: Complete Guide
The Hidden Carbon Footprint of a Software Company
Ask most software founders what their company's carbon footprint is and they will say "close to zero — we're just laptops and an office." The reality is different. For a 30-person SaaS company with modest cloud infrastructure and a distributed team, total emissions typically range from 40 to 120 tCO2e per year — with more than half sitting in Scope 3.
This guide explains where those emissions come from and how to calculate them accurately for supplier questionnaires, CSRD-adjacent requests, and net zero planning.
Scope 1: Usually Small for Tech Companies
Most software companies have minimal Scope 1 emissions:
- Natural gas for office heating (apply DEFRA 2023: 2.04 kgCO2e/m³)
- Company vehicles if any (diesel: 2.68 kgCO2e/litre)
- Diesel backup generators at owned data centres (rare for cloud-native companies)
- Refrigerant leakage from office HVAC
For a typical office-based tech company, Scope 1 is usually 2–10 tCO2e/year.
Scope 2: Office Electricity
Multiply your annual electricity consumption (from invoices) by your country's grid emission factor:
| Country | DEFRA 2023 Market-Based Factor |
|---|---|
| --------- | ------------------------------- |
| UK | 0.193 kgCO2e/kWh |
| Germany | 0.380 kgCO2e/kWh |
| Netherlands | 0.270 kgCO2e/kWh |
| France | 0.052 kgCO2e/kWh |
Example: 25-person UK tech office, 45,000 kWh/year × 0.193 = 8.7 tCO2e Scope 2
Switch to a REGO-backed renewable tariff and this drops to near zero. For UK tech companies, renewable electricity is widely available at no premium.
Scope 3: Where Tech Company Emissions Actually Live
Category 2 — Capital goods (employee laptops and hardware) The manufacture of a laptop generates approximately 300–400 kgCO2e (Apple and Dell publish product lifecycle assessments). For a 30-person company refreshing equipment every 3–4 years: ~9 laptops/year × 350 kgCO2e = 3.2 tCO2e/year
Category 3 — Cloud computing and upstream energy This is the most discussed and least understood category for tech companies. AWS, Azure, and GCP all publish annual sustainability reports with market-based emission factors:
| Cloud Provider | 2023 Carbon Intensity (market-based) |
|---|---|
| --- | --- |
| AWS (EU regions) | 0–50 gCO2e/kWh (varies by region) |
| Azure (West Europe) | ~5 gCO2e/kWh (high renewable mix) |
| GCP (europe-west) | 5–80 gCO2e/kWh (varies by region) |
Most cloud providers now offer carbon footprint tools in their billing consoles. Use these first. If unavailable, request data from your account manager — all three major providers will supply it.
Note: Cloud emissions sit in your Scope 3 (upstream energy), not your Scope 2, unless you are co-locating in a data centre you have an energy contract for.
Category 6 — Business travel Apply DEFRA 2023 travel factors (short-haul flight: 0.255 kgCO2e/passenger-km; long-haul: 0.195 kgCO2e/passenger-km; rail: 0.041 kgCO2e/passenger-km).
For a sales-driven SaaS company with monthly EU travel, this can easily reach 15–30 tCO2e/year — often the single largest Scope 3 category.
Category 7 — Employee commuting Apply 0.170 kgCO2e/km (average car) × average round-trip km × employees × 220 working days. Remote-first companies with low commuting headcount see significantly lower Category 7 emissions.
SaaS Tools and Subscriptions (Category 1/2) Software subscriptions (Slack, Salesforce, Zoom, etc.) technically fall within Category 1 (purchased services). Their embodied emissions are small individually but aggregate across a large tech stack. Most buyers accept that this category is excluded or estimated at low materiality for SME tech companies.
Worked Example — 25-Person UK SaaS Company
| Scope | Source | tCO2e |
|---|---|---|
| ------- | -------- | ------- |
| Scope 1 | Office gas heating | 3.1 |
| Scope 2 | Office electricity (market-based, REGO tariff) | 0.0 |
| Scope 3 Cat 2 | Employee hardware refresh | 3.2 |
| Scope 3 Cat 3 | Cloud computing (AWS) | 4.8 |
| Scope 3 Cat 6 | Business travel (flights) | 18.4 |
| Scope 3 Cat 7 | Employee commuting | 7.6 |
| Total | 37.1 tCO2e |
Carbon intensity: 1.5 tCO2e per employee — comfortably below the EU service sector average of 2–4 tCO2e per employee.
Reducing Your Tech Company Carbon Footprint
Highest impact actions:
- Switch to renewable electricity — eliminates Scope 2, near-zero cost
- Reduce flights — adopt a "rail-first under 5 hours" travel policy
- Choose low-carbon cloud regions — GCP and Azure have near-zero carbon regions in Europe (Netherlands, Finland, Norway)
- Extend device lifetimes — moving from 3-year to 4-year refresh cycle cuts hardware Scope 3 by 25%
- Remote-first hiring — each fully remote employee eliminates ~7 tCO2e Category 7/year in car-commute-heavy markets
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a software company's carbon footprint really significant?
More than most expect. A 30-person SaaS company with cloud infrastructure and regular business travel typically generates 40–120 tCO2e/year. The majority sits in Scope 3: business flights, cloud computing, employee hardware, and commuting. Office electricity (Scope 2) is relatively small but the easiest to eliminate by switching to a renewable tariff.
How do I calculate the carbon footprint of our cloud computing?
AWS, Azure, and GCP all provide carbon footprint tools in their billing consoles — check your provider's sustainability dashboard first. If this data is unavailable, request it from your account manager. Cloud emissions sit in your Scope 3 (Category 3 — upstream energy), not Scope 2, unless you have a direct energy contract with a data centre.
Does buying a renewable energy tariff reduce cloud computing emissions?
No — your office renewable tariff only affects your Scope 2 (office electricity). Cloud computing emissions are your cloud provider's Scope 1+2, which appear as your Scope 3 Category 3. To reduce cloud Scope 3, choose low-carbon cloud regions (GCP Netherlands, Azure Sweden are near-zero carbon intensity) or request your provider's renewable energy certificates.
What is the carbon footprint of an employee laptop?
Manufacturing a laptop generates approximately 300–400 kgCO2e (Apple and Dell publish product lifecycle assessments). For carbon reporting, this appears in Scope 3 Category 2 (capital goods). On a 3-year refresh cycle, a 30-person tech company generates roughly 10 laptop replacements/year × 350 kgCO2e = 3.5 tCO2e/year from hardware alone.
What is a good tCO2e per employee benchmark for a tech company?
EU service-sector tech companies typically report 1–4 tCO2e per employee for Scope 1+2+3 operational emissions (Categories 3, 5, 6, 7). Companies with frequent international travel can reach 8–12 tCO2e per employee. A figure below 3 tCO2e per employee is considered strong performance for supplier questionnaire responses.
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