What Google's Environment Report Says About Energy
The explosive development of AI is having an impact on the energy industry thanks to its reliance on energy-intensive data centres.
As one of the world’s largest and most influential technology companies, Google is driving the future of AI developments – and paying the price in emissions.
Google has released its 10th annual Environmental Report, a milestone that arrives at a pivotal moment for both the company and the broader tech industry. The 2025 report offers a candid look at the company’s achievements, setbacks and the mounting challenge of balancing AI-driven growth with sustainability commitments.
“This year’s most important highlight demonstrates a pivotal milestone: We reduced our data center energy emissions by 12%,” says Kate Brandt, Chief Sustainability Officer at Google.
The energy usage of Google’s data centres
The 2025 report reveals the increase in Google’s overall carbon emissions, which rose by 11% last year, reaching 11.5 million tonnes—marking a 51% increase from 2019 levels.
This surge is attributed largely to the company’s aggressive expansion in AI, which has driven up energy demand across its global data centers.
Despite these rising emissions, Google has taken steps in reducing the carbon footprint of its data centres. In 2024, data centre energy emissions dropped by 12%, even as electricity demand surged by 27% to support AI workloads.
This decoupling of operational energy growth from emissions is underpinned by the addition of 2.5 GW of new clean energy to the grids powering Google’s operations—equivalent to more than four million solar panels coming online.
However, the overall emissions trajectory places Google further from its goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 relative to 2019.
The report acknowledges that certain “ambition-based emissions”—including supply chain and food programme emissions—remain outside the company’s direct control, complicating progress toward its targets.
Clean energy investments and efficiency breakthroughs
Google’s sustainability strategy is anchored in record investments in clean energy.
In 2024, the company executed its largest-ever clean energy procurement, adding 8 GW to its portfolio.
As a result, Google’s carbon-free energy use increased from 64% to 66% on an hourly basis, demonstrating that it is possible to scale AI and digital operations while making progress toward cleaner energy sourcing.
“Powering the next wave of innovation—especially AI—requires us to solve some of the most significant challenges of our time: not only generating vast amounts of clean, reliable energy, but also using it efficiently,” says Kate.
“We’re focused on building and operating the world’s most energy-efficient data center infrastructure, optimising our models and hardware to use less electricity and pushing the frontiers of advanced energy development.”
In 2024, Google data centers used 84% less overhead energy than the industry average, a testament to ongoing efficiency improvements. Hardware innovation has also played a role, with the introduction of the Ironwood TPU (Tensor Processing Unit), which uses nearly 30 times less energy than Google’s first Cloud TPU from 2018.
AI’s true energy cost
While Google highlights the environmental benefits of AI—such as optimising water usage, improving logistics and supporting climate research—the report is less forthcoming about the precise energy cost of running advanced AI models.
When addressing the resource consumption of AI, the company acknowledges the uncertainty and difficulty in forecasting future energy requirements.
“We’ve learned a tremendous amount over the last several years,” Kate shares.
“We now have a better understanding of what it takes to get further down the path toward our climate moonshots — including what’s actually possible in different parts of the world, and how we can apply our resources and unique capabilities to have the greatest possible impact.
“We remain focused on our environmental ambitions as we advance the frontiers of AI and all the ways it can benefit humanity.”
Read more on Google Environmental Report 2025
- What Does Google Environmental Report 2025 Say About AI?
- What Does Google Environmental Report 2025 Say About Data Centres?
- What Does Google Environmental Report 2025 Say About Sustainability?
- What Does Google Environmental Report 2025 Say About Procurement?
- What Does Google Environmental Report 2025 Say About Supply Chain?
- What Does Google Environmental Report 2025 Say About Technology?
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