The Green Future of AI

“Can you rewrite this email so that it sounds more professional?” you ask in the prompt box, as the image of a chainsaw ripping through a lush giant sequoia fills your imagination. The feeling of environmental guilt is all too familiar for people using generative artificial intelligence tools in their daily work lives. A recent study shows that energy efficiency is among the top concerns of citizens when it comes to the governance of artificial intelligence. In the political sphere, the potential adverse effect of AI on the global power grid was one of the principal subjects of the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in February 2025. 

But is the adverse environmental impact of these tools the entire sustainability story that AI has to tell? Is our focus on the high resource consumption of AI myopic? Can artificial intelligence generate a net benefit to environmental sustainability in the long-term? While AI does have an environmental cost, it also holds significant potential to create a more sustainable future — an opportunity that is often overlooked in public discourse.

By focusing solely on AI’s energy footprint, policymakers and influencers risk overlooking artificial intelligence’s potential as a sustainability tool, one that could optimize energy grids, catalyze systems change, and drive efficiencies across varied industries. If reactionary regulation continues to dominate the discourse, we may hinder AI’s ability to contribute to long-term environmental solutions. Numerous examples from both public and private sectors demonstrate how AI can – and already does – serve as a powerful sustainability stimulus.

Smarter decision making

Artificial intelligence is an invaluable tool to accelerate sustainability endeavours because of its ability to make prognostications informed by colossal amounts of data. These predictions span both the academic and the practical. By expediting key decisions concerning resource allocation and the efficiency of entire systems, this capability to analyze big data efficiently has wide-ranging and practical implications for the planet.

A recent analysis of 67 countries, for example, found that “AI significantly reduces ecological footprints and carbon emissions while promoting energy transitions.” One way this is happening in practice is the World Environment Situation Room (WESR). This United Nations “mission control centre for planet earth” uses AI to curate, aggregate and visualize the best available Earth observation data from around the world. Decision makers have leveraged the insights from this tool to create multilateral environmental agreements, inform domestic environmental policies and support more robust responses to climate emergencies. 

The information available on the tool includes a broad collection of climate change information, from metrics on regional carbon dioxide emissions and visualizations of sea ice cover, to tracking the supply of fresh water around the world. WESR has also become a critical tool for building climate response capacity in developing countries and monitoring their progress on key Sustainable Development Goals. These outcomes will have positive environmental implications for decades to come.

An agent of systems change

AI is also being leveraged for environmental benefit in more tangible ways, with a recent surge of applications in both the non-profit and private sectors. Some of these technologies have the potential to contribute significantly to the systems change needed to meaningfully address climate change. For example, optimizing the efficiency of energy grids is often cited as a “must do” for developed nations to ultimately become carbon neutral. Starting in 2019, the Midwest Independent System Operator, which moves electricity over parts of the American Midwest and Canada, leveraged artificial intelligence technologies to predict energy demand and identify the most effective way to meet it across its network. This forecasting involves millions of mathematical calculations that can be done 12 times more efficiently by AI – a giant leap towards an optimal grid.

In the private sector, startups aim to significantly reduce carbon emissions from commercial operations by leveraging artificial intelligence. A new London-based firm called Mortar IO uses AI to quickly generate carbon-reduction plans for commercial buildings. The heavily-polluting oil and gas production industries can leverage a platform from Eugenie.ai to monitor data from satellites and their machines and processes to track and trace emissions by 20 to 30 per cent. In the agricultural space, Israeli startup AgroScout analyzes millions of crop images to allow farmers to detect diseases and pests early. This allows for the expeditious application of precise treatments that can reduce agro-chemical use by up to 85 per cent. 

Without the help of artificial intelligence, all of the big data analyses in these examples would be nearly impossible. The associated datasets, from macro Earth observations to farm pictures, are too large for human-performed synthesis.

A green AI agenda

These projects are a mere preview of the transformative power that artificial intelligence can have to accelerate global sustainability in tangible ways. Going forward, policymakers, industry leaders and innovators have an opportunity — and a responsibility — to foster an environment where artificial intelligence is leveraged sustainably and ethically.

To start, policy makers should embrace a balanced regulatory framework for AI that incentivizes both the creation of energy-efficient systems and the deployment of innovative sustainability solutions. In the commercial sphere, firms must actively pursue the implementation of advancements in green technology and infrastructure while being transparent about their potential environmental impact. A positive first step for firms involved in the development of AI technologies would be to publish data showing the resource consumption of each step in the generative process.

Finally, it is incumbent on thought leaders and researchers to deepen public discourse beyond simplistic headlines about the world coming to an end because of the latest technology. Educational and informational initiatives that clearly articulate AI’s positive environmental potential are essential to fostering informed public understanding.

When these actions are collectively embraced, people will be able to see the forest through the trees when it comes to artificial intelligence. Focusing on the potential of AI will ensure it becomes a tool to build a more sustainable and resilient future — and not the chainsaw in our environmental nightmares.

Joel Tatlow is an MBA student at Smith School of Business. A version of this essay originally appeared in Global Voices magazine, a publication of the Council on Business and Society. Smith School of Business is one of 12 business schools in this global partnership that seeks evidence-based solutions to large-scale issues.