Having slogged through Google's 2025 Environmental Report, here's my summary...
(all figures are changes from 2023-2024)
Scope 2 location-based GHG emissions up from 9,252,900 - 11,283,200 tCO2e
Scope 3 GHG emissions up from 10,794,000 - 12,053,000 tCO2e
Total Energy Consumption up from 25,910,500 - 32,727,800 MWh
Total waste generated up from 52,000 - 58,500 metric tons
Water consumption up from 6,352 - 8135 million gallons.
So given that they're significantly worse on every major indicator, you might be wondering how Google spins this as 'driving sustainable innovation' (p4) and a 12% reduction in datacentre emissions (p4)...
The answer is that they're buying more electricity under Power Purchase Agreements - meaning that increasing amounts of renewable energy isn't used for decarbonisation, instead they're used to power the growth in AI and datacentre capacity.
This, alongside the focus on efficiency metrics that obfuscate the growing energy and resource demands of Big Tech needs to be recognised as corporate greenwash that
... Show more...Having slogged through Google's 2025 Environmental Report, here's my summary...
(all figures are changes from 2023-2024)
Scope 2 location-based GHG emissions up from 9,252,900 - 11,283,200 tCO2e
Scope 3 GHG emissions up from 10,794,000 - 12,053,000 tCO2e
Total Energy Consumption up from 25,910,500 - 32,727,800 MWh
Total waste generated up from 52,000 - 58,500 metric tons
Water consumption up from 6,352 - 8135 million gallons.
So given that they're significantly worse on every major indicator, you might be wondering how Google spins this as 'driving sustainable innovation' (p4) and a 12% reduction in datacentre emissions (p4)...
The answer is that they're buying more electricity under Power Purchase Agreements - meaning that increasing amounts of renewable energy isn't used for decarbonisation, instead they're used to power the growth in AI and datacentre capacity.
This, alongside the focus on efficiency metrics that obfuscate the growing energy and resource demands of Big Tech needs to be recognised as corporate greenwash that is driving climate change, not fixing it
#Google #AI #DataCenters #sustainability #Tech #ClimateChange
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