UsesLevel 3 of 6 useUse, level 3 of 6Used to calculate 14 entries, levels 4 and 5Calculated with 5 entries, levels 1 and 2Database structure 
6Territories
5Organisations
4Occupations and activities
2Machine operations
1Calculation factorsTranscribe and summarise a one-hour meeting
One hour of meeting transcribed, about 11,000 words, then summarised on one page. Projet Celsius estimate.
- "Transcribe one minute" accounts for 77% of emissions in this scenario.
- The calculation covers the transcription, reading the text and writing the summary, and the cooling of the data centre.
- Out of scope: server manufacturing, model training, the network and the user's device.
Sentence to citeTranscribe and summarise a one-hour meeting, Projet Celsius estimate: 14 gCO2e per meeting, for 30 Wh of electricity, servers worldwide (458 gCO2e/kWh).
Breakdown of emissions by item
14 gCO2e in total: 30 Wh of electricity × 458 gCO2e/kWh (servers worldwide).
Inputs of the calculation
PUE of the data centre, Transcribe one minute, Read 1,000 tokens, Write 1,000 tokens
How the calculation is built
Transcribing the 60 minutes of audio with a speech recognition model accounts for three quarters of the electricity, based on the measurement by the computing centre of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg on Whisper; reading the text by the language model, writing the summary and the data centre make up the rest.
Comparison with the other uses
Emissions of one use, linear scale. For calculated values, servers worldwide.
Characteristics
| Unit | 1 meeting |
|---|---|
| Default location | world, 458 gCO2e/kWh (Ember 2025, life cycle); 11 other locations to choose from |
| Counted | the transcription, reading the text and writing the summary, and the cooling of the data centre |
| Not counted | server manufacturing, model training, the network and the user's device |
| Status | estimated |
All the characteristics
| Identifier | IA-0216, projetcelsius.com/en/ai/database/IA-0216/ |
|---|---|
| Version | 0.1 of 2 November 2026 |
| Category | Uses, a request to AI |
| Choice of the selected value | database calculation from the entries this one is made of, at the quantities of the unit |
| Sources | calculation of the database |
| Licence | CC BY 4.0 |
Usage parameters
Advanced settings
Result for the chosen case
For a carbon footprint
| Item | purchases of services (GHG Protocol scope 3, category 1); regulatory BEGES, category 4 |
|---|---|
| Quantity | 1 meeting |
| Factor | 14 gCO2e per meeting, IA-0216 version 0.1, based on the grid at the location (location-based), servers worldwide |
| Total | 14 gCO2e · not counted: server manufacturing, model training, the network and the user's device |
Breakdown by item
Quantity, unit value, contribution and nature of the data for each item
| Item | Quantity | Unit value | Contribution | Share | Nature of the data |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transcribe one minute | × 60 | 0.38 Wh | 23 Wh | 77 % | convention |
| Read 1,000 tokens | × 11.6 | 0.32 Wh | 3.7 Wh | 13 % | convention |
| Write 1,000 tokens | × 0.42 | 0.96 Wh | 0.4 Wh | 1 % | convention |
| PUE of the data centre | × 1.10 on the rest | 2.7 Wh | 9 % | convention |
Entries that use it (14)
End-to-end study, Meeting transcription, Office worker, 1 year, Accountant, 1 year, Human resources, 1 year, Executive assistant, 1 year, Manager or executive, 1 year, Communications officer, 1 year, Journalist, 1 year, Consultant, 1 year, Lawyer, 1 year, Videographer, 1 year, Salesperson, 1 year, Microsoft 365 Copilot, 1 year and
Sources of the calculation
4 publications, for this entry and those used to calculate it, with the chosen parameters.
The result is calculated by Projet Celsius. The sources below support its uses, its factors and its conversion; they do not all measure this total.
Uses and assumptions
These publications shed light on AI tasks and uses. They do not measure the carbon footprint of the case calculated.
Role and limits : LDC
Author. Linguistic Data Consortium and International Computer Science Institute
What the publication covers. 75 meetings, about 72 hours, about 795,000 words transcribed
What it does not cover. meetings in French
Reading by the database. Research meetings in English, with several speakers
Summarise a meeting → : Read 1,000 tokens →
The transcript read by the model, about 11,000 words
Scope of the figure used. server, excluding the data centre
Limit. The quantity and the share entrusted to AI are database assumptions, not a measured footprint.
Summarise a meeting → : Read 1,000 tokens →
Length convention: one hour of meeting
Scope of the figure used. The 75 transcribed meetings of the ICSI corpus: 795,000 words for about 72 hours, or 184 words per minute with several speakers
Limit. This publication supports the quantity of text or content processed, not its carbon footprint.
Projet Celsius · November 2026
Tokens per word, per line of code and per cell, measured with 7 public tokenisers
Role and limits : Projet Celsius
What the publication covers. 479,888 words from 196 blog articles and their English translation, code from the site and the Python library, a table of measurements; tokenisers of GPT-4o, GPT-4, Llama 3, Gemini (via Gemma 3), Mistral, DeepSeek and Qwen
What it does not cover. the Claude tokeniser, not public
Reading by the database. A measurement on technical texts, figures included; to be repeated if publishers change their tokeniser
Projet Celsius measurement, repeated on request with the public tokenisers
Summarise a meeting → : Write 1,000 tokens →
Length convention: one page
Scope of the figure used. A report page, headings and paragraphs included: between the 1,500-character sheet (250 words) and a full A4 page in single spacing (about 550 words, at 6.1 characters per word measured on our articles)
Limit. This publication supports the quantity of text or content processed, not its carbon footprint.
Energy and factors
The references of the selected values and of the entries used in this calculation.
Watershed · Aug. 2026
Estimating GHG Emissions from AI Use: Framework for Corporate-Level Measurement ↗ (new tab)
Role and limits : Watershed
Author. Bistline, Ulissi, Davis, Glidden, Joyce, Li, Mohsenin and Suh (Watershed)
What the publication covers. factors per 1,000 tokens read and written at the server before PUE (host and standby machines included), PUE separate (1.10 for a large operator, 1.56 for an unknown operator)
What it does not cover. clean measurements, the model and the hardware
Reading by the database. Default factors proposed for review (public data as of June 2026); for a large operator, taken from Google's measurement published in 2025 (Elsworth et al.), which already contains the data centre overhead; constant per token, they underestimate long contexts and agents according to the authors
Reference for the variant "Medium model, Watershed default factor"
Scope of the figure used. Default factor for 1,000 tokens read, medium model, large operator, at the server before PUE (Watershed table 2, public data as of June 2026)
Limit. A default value that Watershed derives from Google's measurement (0.24 Wh for the median text query of the Gemini app), with about 500 tokens per query and a written token costing 3 times a read token; Watershed does not give the split between read and written tokens. The 0.24 Wh already include the overhead of Google's data centre (0.02 Wh, 8%): with 375 tokens read and 125 written, the simplest reading, the factor contains it, and the PUE of 1.10 applied afterwards counts it a second time (about 9%). Values proposed for review, final at the next version of the framework
Reference for the variant "Medium model, Watershed default factor"
Scope of the figure used. Default factor for 1,000 tokens written, medium model, large operator, at the server before PUE (Watershed table 2, public data as of June 2026)
Limit. 3 times the reading factor, based on the ratio between writing and reading selected by Watershed (Patel et al., Splitwise, 2024). Same derivation and same caveat as for reading: Google's 0.24 Wh already include about 8% of data centre. Values proposed for review, final at the next version of the framework
Summarise a meeting → : Data centre PUE →
The data centre, convention C3
Scope of the figure used. building cooling and losses
Limit. This figure covers part of the calculation; it does not measure the whole entry.
Reference of the selected value
Scope of the figure used. Default factor for a large operator, from the server to the data centre; 1.56 for an unknown operator
Limit. A default value, not a measurement
Conversion into carbon
The source of the electricity factor of the selected location.
Worldwide: 458 gCO2e/kWh, life cycle.
Role and limits : Ember
Author. Ember, Our World in Data
What the publication covers. electricity generation over the life cycle, by country
What it does not cover. guarantees of origin
Reading by the database. The same source for all countries
Conversion of electricity into carbon: worldwide
Scope of the figure used. the production of electricity over the life cycle, including power plant construction and fuels
Limit. An average for the chosen country, not the electricity contract or the data centre of a specific service.
Nature of the data
Published readings, conventions, assumptions
- database conventions 100 %
Calculation assumptions
Quantities, nature and source of each assumption
Transcribe one minute : × 60
The transcript of the meeting, minute by minute
Read 1,000 tokens : × 11.6
The transcript read by the model, about 11,000 words
Write 1,000 tokens : × 0.42
The summary, one page
Methodology conventions
With their alternatives
| The data centre | Server electricity is multiplied by 1.10 for the data centre |
|---|---|
| The default location | Without other information, the servers are in the world, at the world average electricity |
| Electricity, location-based, on a life cycle basis | The kilowatt-hour is that of the servers' country, on a life cycle basis, from a single source for all countries |
| Two significant figures | A calculated value is rounded to two significant figures, a published value is reproduced with the precision of its source; the calculation keeps full precision |
| The formula | the sum of what makes up the entry, then CO2e: electricity (Wh) multiplied by the carbon intensity of the server location (gCO2e/kWh), divided by 1,000 |
| Calculate a case without an entry | The formula, the default values and a step-by-step example |
History
Entry in version 0.1 of 2 November 2026, in the database in version 0.4
- 2 November 2026Version 0.1 of the entry, as of the date of its current value.
- 13 November 2026Description : The transcription weighs the most. becomes the transcription of the 60 minutes of audio accounts for three quarters of the electricity, based on the NHR@FAU measurement on Whisper; reading, summarising and the data centre make up the rest.SEO review of 12 November 2026: the description states the share of the transcription (77%) and where its figure comes from; the value does not change.
- 31 October 2026Creation of the database, in its first version (0.1).
