Google is facing mounting scrutiny over its environmental impact, as a new report challenges the tech giant’s claims about its progress toward carbon neutrality. Despite setting a 2030 net-zero target in 2021, Google’s greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise—by 51% according to its own figures, and by 65% according to a new analysis by the non-profit advocacy group Kairos Fellowship.
The report, titled Google’s Eco-Failures, paints a stark picture of the company’s environmental trajectory, highlighting a 1,515% increase in total emissions since 2010. The sharpest annual rise occurred between 2023 and 2024, when emissions jumped by 26%.
Kairos attributes the discrepancy between its findings and Google’s official figures to differing methodologies. Google uses market-based accounting, which includes renewable energy certificates and offsets, while Kairos applied location-based metrics, which reflect the actual energy mix from local grids. “Market-based emissions are a corporate-friendly metric that obscures a polluter’s actual impact,” said Franz Ressel, the report’s lead author.
Campaigners argue that Google’s AI ambitions are accelerating its energy consumption. The electricity required to power its data centres has surged by 820% since 2010. Between 2019 and 2024 alone, electricity-related emissions rose by 121%, equivalent to the annual energy use of the US state of Alaska, according to the report.
Nicole Sugerman, campaign manager at Kairos Fellowship, warned: “It’s not sustainable to keep building at the rate Google is building. We do not have enough green energy to serve the needs of Google and certainly not the needs of Google and the rest of us.”
Google’s emissions from its own operations (Scope 1) have marginally decreased, but these account for just 0.31% of its total footprint. Most of its emissions come from electricity consumption (Scope 2) and its broader supply chain and product use (Scope 3).
Concerns also extend to water use. Google withdrew 11 billion gallons of water globally in 2024—up 27% from the previous year. That volume would be enough to meet Boston’s potable water needs for 55 days, Kairos claims.
The report accuses Google of overstating progress and relying on speculative technologies, such as nuclear energy, to meet its targets. It also critiques the company’s use of relative efficiency metrics, which can obscure the rise in absolute energy use—up 1,282% since 2010.
While Google acknowledges that the rapid expansion of AI poses challenges, it defends its commitment to sustainability. In its latest sustainability report, it warned that its emissions trajectory may become more difficult to control due to “the uncertain scale of clean energy and infrastructure needed to meet this growth.”
The report comes amid growing pressure on tech firms to rein in the environmental footprint of their data centres. In a joint open letter published in US newspapers, environmental groups urged the CEOs of Google, Amazon, and Microsoft to reject new fossil fuel projects and accelerate coal plant retirements. The groups warned that data centres could consume as much electricity as 22 million US homes within five years.
