Google & Amazon sustainability reports reveal AI's growing carbon cost
Original: A warning sign about AI’s real cost, courtesy of Google and Amazon
Why This Matters
Rising Scope 3 emissions signal that AI infrastructure build-out is materially threatening Big Tech's net-zero climate commitments.
Google and Amazon released their 2025 sustainability reports showing significant emissions increases. Google's total carbon emissions rose 25% year-over-year, while Amazon's climbed 16%, with both companies pointing to surging AI-driven energy and infrastructure demand as key indirect contributors.
Both Google and Amazon released sustainability reports this week, revealing sharp increases in carbon emissions that make their respective net-zero pledges harder to achieve. Google's total carbon emissions rose 25% compared to the prior year, while Amazon's increased 16%. Neither company directly blames AI, but indirect evidence is clear throughout both reports.
The primary driver in both cases is Scope 3 emissions — a category covering pollution from goods and services a company purchases or sells, rather than direct energy consumption. For Google, Scope 3 emissions increased by 2.1 million metric tons last year and are now double their 2019 baseline levels. The likely culprit is data center infrastructure, including GPU procurement. Amazon's Scope 3 spike stems largely from capital goods — including data centers and warehouses — plus fuel and energy purchases.
Both companies have managed direct energy-related emissions reasonably well through years of renewable power investments. However, that may shift as tech firms, including Google, are now investing in natural gas power plants to meet AI's surging electricity demands.
Amazon noted it "added more data center capacity globally than any other company" in 2025, including more than 1.2 GW in Q4 alone. Both reports also devoted several pages to how AI can help the environment — a position that sits in tension with the emissions data they simultaneously disclosed.