Study accuses AI industry of greenwashing climate promises

The investigation shows that the positive climate effects promoted by companies like Google or Microsoft almost exclusively relate to "traditional" AI applications, such as models for weather forecasting. However, the current boom and the associated massive expansion of data centers are primarily driven by so-called "generative" AI for end consumers – systems like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Gemini, which create text, images, and videos.

Generative AI in Focus

Julian Bothe, Senior Policy Manager at AlgorithmWatch, explained: "If there are sustainability benefits from Artificial Intelligence, then it's through applications of traditional AI with low resource consumption." At the same time, he criticized the current large models: "The large language and image-generating models like ChatGPT, which are the focus of the current AI hype, consume vast amounts of electricity and water, cause CO2 emissions on the scale of entire countries, but provide no positive benefit for the environment."

The authors describe the linking of climate benefits of traditional AI with the expansion of generative models as a new form of "greenwashing." The study concludes that even with traditional AI, the claimed climate advantage is often greatly exaggerated, while the negative impacts of AI growth are clearly measurable.

Study's Greenwashing Accusation

The researchers found no single case with concrete evidence of a demonstrable and substantial contribution of generative AI to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The criticism is directed not only at the corporations themselves but also at institutions that disseminate similar claims without scientific backing.

The study appears against the backdrop of a continuous expansion of data centers worldwide. The energy and water requirements of generative AI models have increased sharply in recent years, while at the same time, companies like Google and Microsoft are prominently advertising their sustainability goals. AlgorithmWatch and Beyond Fossil Fuels see this as a systematic pattern of misleading consumers and policymakers.