Climate Balance of Tech Giants: Google's Emissions Rise by 50 Percent, Amazon's CO₂ Output Grows More Than Ever

At competitor Amazon, the increase was proportionally somewhat smaller, but enormous in absolute numbers: The group's total emissions rose by 16 percent to 80.85 million tons of CO₂ equivalent. As the sustainability report shows, this is the largest increase within a single year since data collection began. For comparison: according to the Federal Environment Agency, the state of Lower Austria emitted only 14.5 million tons of CO₂ equivalent in 2024, and all of Austria comes to just over 66 million tons.

The main reason for the increase is the massive expansion of data center capacity. In the fourth quarter of 2025 alone, it is said to have been more than 1.2 gigawatts at Amazon – more than ever before. According to its own statements, Amazon built more data center capacity worldwide in 2025 than any other company. Amazon's electricity-related emissions rose by 34 percent compared to the same period of the previous year, including 3.74 million tons from purchased electricity. At Google, 42.4 megawatt-hours of electricity – almost the entire amount – flowed into the data centers.

In the previous year, Google consumed a total of 44 megawatt-hours of energy – 43.5 of which via electricity. Compared to the previous year, this represents an increase of almost 50 percent. The group emphasized that more than 80 percent of the electricity came from renewable sources. Amazon also stated that it had covered its entire energy demand from renewable energy sources for the third year in a row.

Efficiency Gains Are Overcompensated

However, Amazon qualifies this statement: Amazon does not publish absolute figures on energy consumption, but limits itself to efficiency metrics such as PUE and Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE). The information on 100 percent renewable energy coverage is, however, based on a global balancing of Amazon's facilities and not on an hourly, site-based view.

A key efficiency metric is Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), which describes the ratio of a data center's total energy demand to actual IT consumption. Amazon reports a PUE value of 1.14 for its data centers – and states: "that the efficiency of its own data centers, referred to as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), is at a value of 1.14 despite the sharp rise in emissions". This value is indeed below the industry average of 1.25. However, the efficiency gains are overcompensated by the sheer growth in capacity.

CO2 intensity at Amazon also rose by three percent, showing that emissions grew more strongly than revenue. Emissions related to the construction of data centers shot up by more than 40 percent within a single year.

Water Consumption in Risk Regions

In addition to electricity consumption, water consumption is increasingly coming into focus. Google's net water consumption rose to 41.14 billion liters in 2025 – one third more than the previous year, equivalent to around 274,000 full bathtubs. Amazon's data centers consumed 9.4 billion liters of water, about 63,000 bathtubs. Particularly problematic: 28 percent of the water consumed by Google was drawn in regions with medium or high risk of water scarcity.

At Amazon, 22 percent of the water was consumed in areas with medium risk of water scarcity, 15 percent in regions with high risk, and 7 percent even in regions with very high risk. This regional distribution contrasts with the companies' global sustainability goals.

Conflict of Goals with Climate Targets

Despite the bleak balance sheet, the groups are sticking to their ambitious targets: Google actually wants to halve its emissions by 2030, and Amazon wants to be climate-neutral by 2040. Amazon therefore also writes in the sustainability report that a continuous CO2-free energy supply continues to be pursued.

In the strategy texts of the sustainability reports, the balancing act between climate targets and the AI gold rush is reflected. In Google's Executive Summary, it states that artificial intelligence should not only consume resources, but can help "to create a better future for everyone." Amazon Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst writes about AI: "What alternative do we have but to continue investing, learning, and moving forward to try to solve one of the world's most demanding problems?" The reports were picked up on July 3, 2026 in the Deutschlandfunk program (Michael Windisch, 3.7.2026).

Independent observers assess the developments as a setback for the climate balance of the digital economy. Electricity consumption at Amazon had actually been declining year by year since around 2019 and had only begun to pick up again slowly in 2024 – but with the ramp-up of AI capacities, the trend is now clearly reversing. Since 2023, the figure has almost doubled. Critics are calling for mandatory disclosure obligations and more honest reporting on actual site balances rather than global averages.