Tom Kerkhove introduces public preview features in Azure API Management aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of API and AI workloads. The article guides readers through configuring carbon-aware traffic shifting, building sustainability-aligned policies, and leveraging new tools for compliance and sustainable cloud practices.

Environmental Sustainability Features in Azure API Management

By Tom Kerkhove

Microsoft continues to advance environmental sustainability with the public preview of new features in Azure API Management designed to minimize the carbon impact of managing APIs in the cloud.

Microsoft’s Sustainability Commitment

Microsoft aims to be carbon negative by 2030 and completely remove its historic emissions by 2050 (read about Microsoft’s sustainability goals).
Tools such as Azure Carbon Optimization and Microsoft Sustainability Manager assist customers in measuring, reporting, and optimizing cloud carbon emissions — crucial for compliance with directives like the EU’s CSRD.

What’s New in Azure API Management?

Azure API Management now offers:

Carbon-aware load balancing: API traffic can be automatically routed to backend regions with lower carbon intensity based on real-time data.
Region attribution: Specify the Azure region where each backend is running to make load balancing decisions that factor in sustainability.
Emission category configuration: Backends can be given preferred carbon emission levels, allowing routing only to APIs that meet sustainability goals.

Example: Carbon-aware Backend Configuration

{
  "type": "Microsoft.ApiManagement/service/backends",
  "apiVersion": "2024-10-01-preview",
  "name": "sustainable-backend",
  "properties": {
    "url": "https://mybackend.example.com",
    "protocol": "http",
    "azureRegion": "westeurope"
    // ... other properties
  }
}

You may also specify preferred emission categories in load balancer settings, excluding higher-intensity backends if sustainable options are available.

Building Carbon-Intelligent Policies

You can now access real-time carbon intensity metrics using the property context.Deployment.SustainabilityInfo.CurrentCarbonIntensity in API Management policy definitions. This enables:

Dynamic adjustment of caching, telemetry, and rate limiting policies depending on current carbon intensity.
Example policy (pseudo-logic):

<when condition="@(context.Deployment.SustainabilityInfo.CurrentCarbonIntensity >= CarbonIntensityCategory.High)">
  <trace source="Orders API" severity="verbose">
    <message>Lead Created</message>
  </trace>
</when>
<otherwise>
  <trace source="Orders API" severity="information">
    <message>Lead Created</message>
  </trace>
</otherwise>

This approach empowers developers to optimize backend efficiency and API policies for sustainability in real-time.

Sustainable AI Integration

AI workloads are increasingly energy-intensive. Microsoft’s initiatives (see details) and the new API platform features help organizations:

Reduce the carbon impact of AI services by incorporating sustainability-aware routing and policy configurations,
Use the GenAI release channel to enable and test advanced sustainability capabilities for AI-powered APIs.

Availability and Getting Started

These features are available in classic Azure API Management tiers and the GenAI release channel; more tiers will be supported in the future.
To participate in the preview, sign up here.

Further Resources

Updated: Oct 01, 2025 – Version 1.0

Tom Kerkhove invites feedback and questions to help accelerate sustainability for your AI and API workloads.

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