# Definitions | Region Scorecard methodology
Source: https://greenpixie.com/docs/methodology/region-scorecard/definitions

Key terms used throughout the methodology.

**Aqueduct 4.0.** The water risk database published by the World Resources Institute, from which the water stress categories on the scorecard are taken.

**Availability Grade.** A value from 1 to 5 placing a region's service availability percentage in a band, where 1 is the most complete band.

**Availability Score.** The availability grade published for a region, assigned from its service availability percentage.

**Baseline Water Stress.** The ratio of total water demand to available renewable surface and groundwater supply in an area, expressed as a percentage, as published in Aqueduct 4.0.

**Basket Coverage Percentage.** The share of the comparison basket for which a region publishes a price. An internal value, used to determine whether a cost grade is published.

**Carbon Grade.** A letter from A+ to F placing a region's average grid carbon intensity in a band, where A+ is the lowest intensity band.

**CO₂e.** Carbon dioxide equivalent. A metric that expresses the global warming potential of various greenhouse gases as the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.

**Comparison Basket.** The fixed set of product categories on which every region of a provider is scored within one data version.

**Cost Grade.** A value from 1 to 5 placing a region's relative cost percentage in a band, where 1 is the least expensive band.

**Country Fallback.** The use of an Aqueduct country-level baseline water stress figure for a region that cannot be matched to a finer Aqueduct area.

**Data Version.** One complete run of the scoring over one refresh of the input data, identified by a version number carried on every row of output.

**Grid Carbon Intensity.** The average emissions produced per unit of electricity consumed from a given electricity grid, varying by region and time. Abbreviated as GCI.

**Jenks Natural Breaks.** A classification method that places class boundaries at the largest gaps in a distribution, minimising variation within each class and maximising it between classes.

**On-Demand Price.** A provider's published list price for one unit of a service bought without commitment, reservation, or dependence on spare capacity.

**Price Ratio.** A region's price for one basket product category, divided by the median price for that category across the provider's regions.

**Pricing Score.** The cost grade published for a region, assigned from its relative cost percentage.

**Product Category.** A fine-grained grouping of price list entries representing one comparable item of purchase, for example a single virtual machine type sold by the hour, or a single storage tier sold by the gigabyte-month.

**Region.** A named geographic location in which a provider sells services and publishes prices for them.

**Relative Cost Percentage.** The median of a region's price ratios, expressed as a percentage difference from the median. An internal value, from which the cost grade is assigned.

**Service Availability Percentage.** The count of product categories a region prices divided by the count priced by the provider's most complete region. An internal value, from which the availability grade is assigned.

**Water Consumption.** The water withdrawn and not returned to its source, for example through evaporation in a data centre cooling system. This methodology reports baseline water stress in the area a region occupies and does not report water consumption.

**Water Stress Category.** One of the five bands Aqueduct 4.0 assigns a baseline water stress percentage to, ranging from Low to Extremely High.