{"id":93022,"date":"2026-02-18T03:52:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T06:52:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/893309132"},"modified":"2026-02-18T03:52:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T06:52:39","slug":"tech-giants-accused-of-greenwashing-over-ai-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/tech-giants-accused-of-greenwashing-over-ai-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech giants accused of greenwashing over AI claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tech giants are facing mounting accusations of \u201cgreenwashing\u201d as a new report claims they are misleading the public by conflating traditional machine learning with energy-intensive Generative AI.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The research, commissioned by nonprofits including Climate Action Against Disinformation<\/strong>, suggests that the industry is using \u201cdiversionary tactics\u201d to mask the massive environmental cost of the current AI gold rush.<\/p>\n

According to energy analyst Ketan Joshi<\/a>, the report\u2019s author, tech companies frequently cite the climate benefits of \u201cold-school\u201d predictive models \u2013 which can optimize power grids or track deforestation \u2013 to justify the explosive growth of gas-guzzling data centres required for generative tools such as OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT or Microsoft\u2019s Copilot.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The analysis of 154 corporate and industry statements failed to find a single example where Generative AI led to a \u201cmaterial, verifiable, and substantial\u201d reduction in global emissions.<\/p>\n

The debate centres on the stark difference in energy profiles. While predictive AI uses relatively modest resources, Generative AI requires massive clusters of high-performance GPUs<\/strong>. Sasha Luccioni, a climate lead at Hugging Face, notes that when the industry discusses AI that is \u201cbad for the planet,\u201d it is almost exclusively referring to large language models and image generators.<\/p>\n

This surge in demand has sparked a critical question. Can Generative AI ever be carbon neutral? Certainly, the hardware fuelling this revolution generates immense heat, requiring sophisticated cooling systems that often consume vast amounts of water and electricity.<\/p>\n

While companies like Google claim their emission reduction estimates are based on robust science, data centres are projected to account for 20% of electricity demand growth in wealthy nations<\/strong> by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n

The report likens these tech claims to fossil fuel companies overstating the potential of carbon capture while their core business continues to drive pollution. As complex functions such as video generation and deep research proliferate, analysts argue that the narrative of AI as a climate saviour is being used to distract from the \u201cpreventable harms\u201d of unrestricted data centre expansion.<\/p>\n

Unless transparency regarding the carbon footprint of GPUs and cooling improves, the industry\u2019s green claims will remain under intense scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Via The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n


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… , the report\u00e2\u0080\u0099s author, tech<\/span> companies frequently cite the climate … . The report likens these tech<\/span> claims to fossil fuel companies … Via The Guardian For latest tech<\/span> stories go to TechDigest.tv … Related Posts Discover more from Tech<\/span> Digest Subscribe to get the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}