Why the carbon footprint of generative large language models alone will not help us assess their sustainability

Reference Type:

Journal Article

Bossert, Leonie N., and Wulf Loh. 2025. “Why the Carbon Footprint of Generative Large Language Models Alone Will Not Help Us Assess Their Sustainability.” Nature Machine Intelligence, February, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-025-00979-y.

There is a growing awareness of the substantial environmental costs of large language models (LLMs), but discussing the sustainability of LLMs only in terms of CO2 emissions is not enough. This Comment emphasizes the need to take into account the social and ecological costs and benefits of LLMs as well.