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Tech & AI

What Does Google Environmental Report Say on Sustainability?

By Charlie King

June 30, 2025

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Prioritise Us on Google

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Prioritise Us on Google

Google’s 2025 Environmental Report explores the impact and potential of AI while acknowledging a substantial increase in supply chain emissions

Few companies have more visibility, influence and impact than Google.

The tech giant has evolved into significantly more than the search engine it was built as – earlier this month, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, was ranked as the ninth biggest company in the world.

As one of the world’s largest technology organisations, it's not surprising that Google has taken a lead in the global development of AI. But now, all eyes are on the environmental impact of the data centres that power it.

Google’s Environmental Report 2025 presents a complex picture of progress and challenges as the company navigates the environmental implications of rapid AI expansion.

“Google's 10th annual Environmental Report shows how we’re making AI helpful for everyone—including the planet—while at the same time taking meaningful steps toward our environmental ambitions,” explains Kate Brandt, Chief Sustainability Officer at Google.

“A key highlight for me is that we reduced our data centre energy emissions by 12% in 2024 despite significant growth in electricity demand, showing it's possible to advance the two great transformations of our time—the AI revolution and clean energy growth—hand in hand.

“This is about building for the future through new advanced energy innovations and deeper supplier engagement, both of which are core parts of our strategy as we work toward our climate moonshots, 24/7 carbon free energy and net zero by 2030.

Kate Brandt, Chief Sustainability Officer of Google

“But our impact extends far beyond our own operations. Just five of our AI-powered products—like fuel-efficient routing in Google Maps and our Solar API—enabled others to reduce an estimated 26 million metric tons of CO2e in 2024. That’s more than the emissions from powering 3.5 million US homes for a whole year. This is real-world impact, at scale.”

Key highlights include a 12% reduction in data centre energy emissions, the replenishment of 4.5 billion gallons of water (increasing replenishment from 18% to 64% of consumption year-over-year), procurement of more than 8 GW of clean energy—a record for the company—and the signing of the world’s first corporate agreement for nuclear energy from small modular reactors.

As Kate mentions, Google also reports that its products enabled an estimated 26 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent emissions reductions through tools like Nest thermostats, Google Earth Pro, and fuel-efficient routing in Google Maps.

Yet, these achievements are set against a backdrop of rising overall emissions, with “ambition-based” emissions up 11% in the last year and 51% higher than in 2019, largely due to the surging energy demands of AI.

Inside Google’s AI developments

Google’s 2025 report highlights the profound impact of AI on both its sustainability ambitions and the broader fight against climate change.

AI-driven advances are enabling more granular, efficient risk assessments. Google’s new generative AI method, for example, bridges the gap between large-scale climate models and local needs, producing detailed regional environmental risk assessments at a fraction of the computational cost. This allows city-level planning for floods, heatwaves and wildfires, making adaptation more accessible and affordable.

In disaster response, Google’s AI-powered global hydrological model now forecasts floods up to seven days in advance for more than 700 million people in more than 100 countries.

The company’s AI models also improve cyclone prediction, offering up to 15-day advance warnings and supporting agencies like the US National Hurricane Center.

For wildfires, Google’s FireSat satellite constellation, launched in partnership with Earth Fire Alliance and others, can detect fires as small as a classroom, updating global imagery every 20 minutes to aid rapid response and scientific study.

The first FireSat satellite has launched to help detect smaller wildfires earlier

Beyond research, Google’s products integrate AI to drive emissions reductions.

Fuel-efficient routing in Google Maps, for instance, has helped avoid 2.9 million metric tons of GHG emissions, while tools like Green Light optimise city traffic to cut fuel consumption.

Collectively, these efforts aim to enable partners and users to reduce 1 gigaton of carbon emissions annually by 2030.

Powering data centres

Data centres are the backbone of Google’s digital services and the AI revolution, but they are also major energy consumers.

The 2025 report highlights a 12% reduction in data centre energy emissions in 2024, achieved despite increased demand from AI workloads. This progress is attributed to investments in efficient infrastructure, such as the Ironwood TPU, which is nearly 30 times more power efficient than Google’s first Cloud TPU from 2018.

Google’s sixth-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), Trillium, is also more than 67% more efficient than its predecessor, and the company’s data centres are on average 1.8 times as energy efficient as typical enterprise data centres.

Google’s sixth-generation Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), Trillium

However, these gains are tempered by the reality that overall emissions from data centres remain significantly higher than four years ago, driven by AI’s exponential growth.

Google acknowledges that the deployment of carbon-free energy is not keeping pace with demand in all regions, and that achieving 24/7 carbon-free energy remains a challenge subject to external market and policy constraints.

Increased supply chain emissions

Google’s supply chain emissions are a growing concern, with the report noting that certain categories of supply chain pollution are excluded from the company’s “ambition-based” emissions metric.

When these are included, total emissions rise to approximately 15.2 million metric tons of CO₂—comparable to the annual output of nearly 40 gas-fired power plants.

The company’s efforts to green its supply chain include signing contracts for more than 8 GW of clean energy and pioneering corporate nuclear energy agreements, but these measures have yet to fully offset the emissions associated with the production and delivery of Google’s hardware and services.

Google’s report calls for greater collaboration across industries and governments to accelerate the deployment of carbon-free energy solutions and address the “slower-than-needed” pace of change in supply chains.

Successes in resource efficiency

Resource efficiency remains a cornerstone of Google’s environmental strategy.

In 2024, the company replenished 4.5 billion gallons of water, raising its freshwater replenishment rate from 18% to 64% in just one year.

Google also achieved 100% plastic-free packaging for its latest Pixel devices. These initiatives are part of a broader push to minimise waste, conserve resources and enhance the sustainability of Google’s products and operations.

Google Pixel, Fitbit, Nest devices now have plastic-free packaging

The company’s AI-driven solutions further contribute to resource efficiency by optimising energy use, reducing emissions and supporting partners in their own sustainability journeys.

Practices developed by Google have demonstrated the potential to reduce the energy required to train AI models by up to 100 times and cut associated emissions by up to 1,000 times, all of which are now standard in Google’s operations.

The future of sustainability at Google

Looking ahead, Google’s ambitions remain bold but are shadowed by the mounting challenges of the AI era.

The company is committed to halving its carbon emissions by 2030 (relative to 2019 levels), enabling 1 gigaton of emissions reductions annually through its products and achieving 24/7 carbon-free energy across its operations.

However, the report is candid about the obstacles: rising AI energy demands, slow deployment of clean energy and the need for systemic change beyond Google’s direct control.

Kate adds: “We know there is much more work to be done, but I remain hopeful given the positive impact enabled by AI—from transforming how people engage with information, to enhancing business and economic growth, to enabling scientific breakthroughs and driving sustainable innovation for society."

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