Artificial intelligence (AI) can be leveraged to accelerate progress towards net zero carbon emissions and improvements in environmental
sustainability. AI can be used to help optimise energy consumption, manage grid demand, reduce waste, monitor ecosystem health, and quantify the impact of climate change
and adaptation strategies.1 To aximise the environmental and societal benefits that AI can offer, however, AI systems and services must be environmentally sustainable on a lifecycle basis.
As AI systems and services are designed, built and used, they place demands on resources such as energy, water and critical materials, which can create new environmental harms or exacerbate existing harms. Moreover, by driving up energy
demand, AI systems and services can increase the challenge of moving to a decarbonised electricity system. There are actions that can be taken now,
across the AI value chain, to better understand and reduce this unsustainable resource consumption
and the related environmental impacts.
This report proposes five foundational steps to begin progress towards environmentally sustainable AI:
1. Expanding environmental reporting mandates
2. Addressing information asymmetries across the value chain
3. Setting environmental sustainability
requirements for data centres
4. Reconsidering data collection, transmission, storage, and management practices
5. Leading the way with government investment