Google, Amazon and the problem with Big Tech’s climate claims

Amazon recently trumpeted that it had purchased enough clean electricity to cover the energy demands of all the offices, data centers, grocery stores, and warehouses across its global operations, seven years ahead of its sustainability target. That news closely followed Google’s acknowledgment that the soaring energy demands of its AI operations helped ratchet up its corporate emissions by 13% in 2023—and that it had backed away from claims that it was already carbon neutral. But while both companies are coming up short in their own ways, Google’s approach to driving down greenhouse-gas emissions is now arguably more defensible. In fact, there’s a growing consensus that how a company gets to net zero is more important than how fast it does so. And a new school of thought is emerging that moves beyond the net-zero model of corporate climate action, arguing that companies should focus on achieving broader climate impacts rather than trying to balance out every ton of carbon dioxide they emit.