loader

Tech Companies and AI Carbon Footprint

Introduction

Tech companies’ relentless push into artificial intelligence is coming at an undisclosed cost to the planet. Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are concealing their actual carbon footprints, buying credits tied to electricity use that inaccurately erase millions of tons of planet-warming emissions from their carbon accounts, a Bloomberg Green analysis finds.

Rising Emissions

Recently, Microsoft reported that its emissions are 30% higher today than in 2020, when it set a goal to become carbon-negative. Other tech companies’ emissions are rising too. However, Microsoft and other AI leaders insist that the increase is due to the carbon-intensive materials used to build data centers – cement, steel, and microchips – rather than the massive amount of energy AI requires. They claim that the power is mostly or entirely from zero-carbon sources, such as solar and wind.

Are Clean Energy Claims Valid?

Is AI being powered exclusively by clean energy? “There is no physical reality for that claim,” said Michael Gillenwater, executive director of the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute.

The Role of Renewable Energy Credits

Companies are buying credits – called unbundled renewable energy certificates (RECs) – that can make it seem that power consumed from a coal plant came from a solar farm instead. Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta rely on millions of unbundled RECs each year to claim emission reductions when making voluntary disclosures to CDP, a nonprofit that runs a global environmental reporting system.

Need for Updated Carbon Accounting Rules

The current carbon accounting rules allow for the use of these credits for calculating a company’s carbon footprint. However, many academics have shown that these rules need to be updated to accurately reflect greenhouse-gas emissions.

Misleading Emission Reductions

These carbon savings on paper do not equate to actual emissions reductions in the atmosphere. If companies didn’t count unbundled RECs, Amazon could be forced to admit that its 2022 emissions are 8.5 million metric tons of CO2 higher than reported. That’s three times what the company disclosed and matches Mozambique’s annual impact. Microsoft’s sum could be 3.3 million tons higher than the reported tally of 288,000 tons. And Meta’s reported footprint could grow by 740,000 tons from near zero.

Industry Reactions

“Companies shouldn’t be allowed to use unbundled RECs to claim emissions reductions,” said Silke Mooldijk, who focuses on corporate climate responsibility at the nonprofit NewClimate Institute. “It’s misleading to consumers and investors.”

Exceptions in the Industry

Not all tech companies have relied on unbundled RECs to obscure rising emissions. Google phased out its use of unbundled RECs several years ago after acknowledging that it doesn’t amount to real emissions reductions.

Future Outlook

Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta have plans to phase out the use of unbundled RECs in future years. However, the thousands of companies using Amazon-powered AI for their customer chatbots, Microsoft’s AI Copilot for summarizing meetings, or Meta’s Llama for generating images may assume there are few or no energy emissions from relying on these models.

Conclusion

To understand how the companies’ use of RECs works, consider the origins of the power generated on a grid. Climate-conscious companies are increasingly looking to secure power exclusively from sources that generate the least planet-warming emissions. The widespread use of RECs allows companies to report on emissions reductions that are not real, raising concerns about transparency in emissions reporting.

Source: Post Guam