Recent environmental reports from Google, Amazon and Microsoft indicate that emissions and water use have continued to rise as they expand AI infrastructure. At the same time, the level of detail and the types of metrics each company publishes vary substantially.
Why this matters
The AI boom has concentrated data-center buildout and its environmental consequences among a handful of firms. How openly those firms disclose their carbon, water and land impacts is shaping market perceptions and public debate almost as much as the impacts themselves.
Key developments and voices
- António Guterres, U.N. Secretary-General, this week urged tech companies to publicly disclose the “full footprint” of their data centers, including carbon, water and land use. The appeal aligns with the U.N.’s AI Environmental Transparency Initiative unveiled last month.
- Boris Gamazaychikov, co-founder of Sustainable AI Group, said companies’ competitive dynamics and public-company status can create reluctance to share detailed information.
- Kara Hurst, chief sustainability officer at Amazon, has said that all companies building data centers should disclose their environmental footprints and expressed support for a single interoperable reporting standard.
What the reports and independent reviews show
- Financial firm Jefferies estimates that Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Meta account for roughly two thirds of data-center power capacity in a top-15 ranking, meaning their choices affect the wider market.
- Alex de Vries-Gao, a researcher at VU Amsterdam and founder of Digiconomist, assessed the companies on transparency alone and ranked Meta first, with Google and Microsoft in a close second, and Amazon last. He cautions that comparisons are difficult because companies publish different metrics.
- Across the latest disclosures, emissions and water use reported by these firms have continued to rise with AI workloads.
Specifics on metrics
- According to de Vries-Gao’s analysis, Google and Meta disclose the strongest energy-efficiency metrics.
- Microsoft’s most recent report includes newly disclosed, site-level water and power metrics for individual data centers; de Vries-Gao called this a significant transparency improvement.
- Amazon reports a strong water-efficiency figure but provides fewer overall metrics — including not disclosing comprehensive companywide electricity consumption — which contributed to its lower transparency ranking.
- Google does not publish a single companywide water-efficiency metric, arguing that a global average would obscure its local risk-based approach. Using Google’s own data, de Vries-Gao estimates that Google would rank poorly by that measure.
Indirect water use and a notable omission
Only Meta currently discloses the water associated with electricity generation tied to its operations — an omission by others that could be material, because water used to produce electricity commonly far exceeds the water used directly at data centers. De Vries-Gao calculated that, based on Meta’s 2025 disclosures, the indirect water use associated with electricity was roughly 24 times larger than the water Meta reported as consumed at its data centers. Comparable figures are not available from the other companies, so it is unclear whether that ratio applies industrywide.
Disagreement among experts
Not all environmental advocates agree that companies should be held fully accountable for water used to generate their electricity. Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, said it may be unfair to assign full responsibility for that water to tech firms, but acknowledged it is a legitimate question that could hasten a shift toward low-water renewable energy sources.
Transparency, investment and regulation
Disclosure is only one dimension. These companies are also investing billions in clean-energy projects whose climate benefits may take years to materialize. On clean-energy investment and long-term climate commitments, Google is widely viewed as a leader alongside Microsoft.
There is currently no legal requirement obliging firms to report many AI-related environmental metrics, nor is there an industry-wide standard for the metrics that are disclosed. Gamazaychikov of Sustainable AI Group expects that pressure from customers and corporate clients will likely push companies toward greater transparency faster than government regulation. “I don't think anything regulatory is going to happen soon,” he said. “It's going to take business to make this happen.”
Bottom line
As AI infrastructure grows, so do reported emissions and water demands, but inconsistent reporting hampers direct comparisons and comprehensive oversight. Researchers, the U.N. and some corporate leaders are calling for clearer, standardized disclosure of the full environmental footprint of data centers; for now, market pressure rather than binding rules seems most likely to drive change.
