# Paper #196. The Sunk Carbon Fallacy: Rethinking Carbon Footprint Metrics for Effective Carbon-Aware Scheduling

DevFeed: [Paper #196. The Sunk Carbon Fallacy: Rethinking Carbon Footprint Metrics for Effective Carbon-Aware Scheduling](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/paper-196-the-sunk-carbon-fallacy-rethinking-carbon-footprint-metrics-for-effective-carbon-aware-scheduling-39551.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://charap.co/paper-196-the-sunk-carbon-fallacy-rethinking-carbon-footprint-metrics-for-effective-carbon-aware-scheduling/>)

Author: Aleksey Charapko

Published: 2025-04-14T03:31:33Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Aleksey Charapko](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/aleksey-charapko.md>)

Topics: [scheduling](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/scheduling.md>), [cpu](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cpu.md>), [data centers](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data-centers.md>), [distributed-systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/distributed-systems.md>), [Hardware](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/hardware.md>), [Computing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/computing.md>), [Benchmark](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/benchmark.md>)

Tags: [benchmark](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/benchmark.md>), [carbon](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/carbon.md>), [computing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/computing.md>), [cpu](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cpu.md>), [data-center](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data-center.md>), [data-centers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data-centers.md>), [distributed](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/distributed.md>), [distributed-systems](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/distributed-systems.md>), [efficiency](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/efficiency.md>), [emissions](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/emissions.md>), [hardware](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/hardware.md>), [reading-group](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/reading-group.md>), [scheduling](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/scheduling.md>)

## AI overview

This article presents a reading-group discussion of a paper about carbon-aware scheduling. It explains how Software Carbon Intensity combines operational and embodied carbon, and argues that allocating embodied carbon to jobs can make scheduling decisions misleading, particularly in heterogeneous clusters.

## Source excerpt

The last paper we covered in the Distributed Systems Reading group discussed CPUs, data centers, scheduling, and carbon emissions--we read "The Sunk Carbon Fallacy: Rethinking Carbon Footprint Metrics for Effective Carbon-Aware Scheduling." Below is my improvised presentation of this paper for the reading group. This paper was an educational read for me, as I learned [...]