Google’s expansion of generative AI technologies is causing the corporation to increase its greenhouse gas emissions and total energy and water consumption, but it is not accurately reporting those figures, according to a report from non-profit advocacy group Kairos Fellowship titled “Google’s Eco-Failures,” released July 2nd. 

Google’s 2025 environment report, indicates that the company’s total greenhouse gas emissions increased 1,515% from 2010 to 2024, but that figure is “misleading,” the report’s authors say.  “While Google reports a decrease in its data center emissions, it is doing so by only reporting ‘market-based emissions,’ which use renewable energy purchased elsewhere to obscure real emissions,” the organization said in a press release July 2. “Google’s only emissions that have ever decreased are its Scope 1 emissions, which merely account for 0.31% of Google’s reported total emissions.”

Kairos Fellowship says that Google’s aggressive investment in Generative AI and its infrastructure has led to a massive increase in the company’s Scope 2 emissions, which measure the emissions from energy that Google purchases to power its data centers. Those, the report claims, have increased by 820% since 2010.

The report concludes that Google is unlikely to achieve any emissions reductions by 2030.

It also points to Google’s use of water as a cause for concern. From 2016 to 2024, Google’s “water withdrawal,” which measures how much water they take out of aquifers and reservoirs, increased 340%, to 11 billion gallons, the press release said. “This is more water than 750,000 households, or more people than the entire city of Phoenix, Arizona, use for a year of daily showers.”

The Guardian reports that Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the figures.