How to cut the environmental impact of your company's AI use
- Much of the public discourse around AI centres around cybersecurity and such issues, but its environmental impact also needs to be considered.
- While AI and the data centres it relies on use large amounts of energy and water, the technology can also be used to help tackle climate change.
- By adopting practical strategies, there are actionable steps that organizations can take to align their AI strategies and sustainability goals.
Conversations around the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in business typically centre around data security, ethical uses and the risk of over-reliance on the emerging technology. But there is also growing discussion and concern around AI’s environmental footprint and rightly so.
AI’s growing appetite for energy and water
Over the past decade, demand for cloud computing and digital services has focused minds on energy optimization, with modern data centres increasingly adopting energy-efficient hardware and advance cooling systems leading to improved power usage effective averages across the industry. However, the reality is that the energy demands of AI, powered by data centres, significantly outpace current efficiency gains.
0 seconds of 0 secondsVolume 90%
Lastly, operational logistics, including construction and maintenance, account for up to two-thirds of a data centre’s lifetime emissions. Emissions from building infrastructure, manufacturing IT equipment and chip manufacturing requirements of data centres contribute significantly to AI’s environmental footprint.
As AI workloads expand, so do their power demands. The World Bank estimates that AI’s wider industry category of information and communications technology currently generates at least 1.7% of global emissions. While this percentage may seem modest, current figures only reflect today’s reported AI usage and not tomorrow’s actual consumption.
AI adoption continues to accelerate – and also considering increased global digital penetration, expansion of cloud storage, internet of things uptake and the growing prevalence of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies – the collective impact on climate change could become significantly larger, even as environmental efficiencies are factored in.
Under current growth trajectories, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts global data centres may consume up to 1,000 TWh of electricity in 2026 – an increase of 400% from 2022.
Meanwhile, reports from major tech giants support these projections with Google and Microsoft recently disclosing year-on-year increases in emissions, warning these trends challenge their climate commitments. That said, many businesses are still innovating new ways to respond to the impacts of their energy use.
Mitigating the impact of AI energy consumption
Many prominent organizations associated with cloud computing and AI development have taken strong stances on tackling emissions and climate. For example:
Amid continued investment in computing infrastructure and AI development, looking to industry leaders can provide inspiration for improving energy management and reducing emissions.
Reducing AI energy consumption
As we consider the need to address the environmental impact of AI use as part of global efforts to build a sustainable future, organizations of all sizes can pull their weight in the following ways:
1. Measure emissions and reduction efforts
- Leverage tools to measure, analyse and report your emissions over time
- Work with suppliers to know how your AI use translates to energy consumption
2. Use efficient AI models and optimize AI workflows
- Leverage pre-trained models and APIs
- Compress models or use batch processing wherever possible
3. Comply with ISO 42001 requirements
- When determining which ISO 42001 standards affect your organization’s AI management system, include climate change as a relevant factor
- Conduct an AI system impact assessment, which evaluates societal impacts of your AI system, including the effects on environmental sustainability
4. Partner with sustainable vendors
- Utilize AI and cloud platforms committed to renewable or carbon-free energy and that publish sustainability metrics and goals
- Seek vendors who are ISO 14001 and ISO 42001 certified, which demonstrates their commitment to improving sustainability performance and using ethical AI systems
5. Foster a company-wide sustainability culture
- Educate and train employees on emissions, energy demands and water use related to business and AI operations
- Source ideas for sustainability-related efforts from employees and create an environmental sustainability employee resource group to lead the implementation of such measures
- Engage with customers and suppliers to collaborate on ways to mitigate energy use and emissions
AI’s positive environmental impact
Amid the public discourse around AI and its undeniable environmental impact, many argue that it can also be a powerful tool in the fight against climate change – and they’re right.
AI can quickly and effectively analyse significant volumes of data to provide insights into climate trends and the effectiveness of emissions reduction strategies that can lead to faster action. Additional capabilities for AI to positively contribute to fighting climate change include:
- Providing greater understanding of extreme weather climate risks
- Modelling climate scenarios
- Improving resource utilization and management
- Expediting the development of new sustainable, energy-efficient materials
- Reducing carbon footprints by forecasting demands and optimizing operations
- Developing product life-cycle assessments to improve the accuracy of supply chain emissions calculations
Tackling AI-driven emissions
Maintaining awareness of the sustainability expectations of investors, suppliers and consumers, and tracking and reporting energy use and emissions, is best practice for organizations wanting to tackle AI-driven emissions.
Publishing an annual emissions inventory that is subject to third-party assurance or by becoming ISO 14001 certified, gives stakeholders confidence that you are committed to sustainability, while ISO 42001 certification also demonstrates a commitment to using ethical, trustworthy and accountable AI systems. It’s also vital to ensure you keep up with and emerging sustainability and AI regulations as they evolve.
What’s the World Economic Forum doing about the transition to clean energy?
Moving to clean energy is key to combating climate change, yet in the past five years, the energy transition has stagnated.
Energy consumption and production contribute to two-thirds of global emissions, and 81% of the global energy system is still based on fossil fuels, the same percentage as 30 years ago. Plus, improvements in the energy intensity of the global economy (the amount of energy used per unit of economic activity) are slowing. In 2018 energy intensity improved by 1.2%, the slowest rate since 2010.
Effective policies, private-sector action and public-private cooperation are needed to create a more inclusive, sustainable, affordable and secure global energy system.
Benchmarking progress is essential to a successful transition. The World Economic Forum’s Energy Transition Index, which ranks 115 economies on how well they balance energy security and access with environmental sustainability and affordability, shows that the biggest challenge facing energy transition is the lack of readiness among the world’s largest emitters, including US, China, India and Russia. The 10 countries that score the highest in terms of readiness account for only 2.6% of global annual emissions.
Additionally, the Mission Possible Partnership (MPP) is working to assemble public and private partners to further the industry transition to set heavy industry and mobility sectors on the pathway towards net-zero emissions. MPP is an initiative created by the World Economic Forum and the Energy Transitions Commission.
Is your organisation interested in working with the World Economic Forum? Find out more here.
AI’s energy and water consumption remains a hot topic – be it in the media or with large ICT corporations seeing it impact their ambitious climate goals. From startups to global enterprises, everyone must do what they can to curb the resource consumption and emissions driven by AI use and make efforts to preserve our planet.
By learning about the measures being taken from leading businesses and adopting practical strategies, there are actionable steps your organization can take today to align your AI strategies and sustainability goals. The time to act is now.