Everything You Need To Know About AI Data Centers: Part 4
By reading big tech's environmental reports, analyzing them with common sense and some basic math, we found that major data center developers cannot be trusted to share accurate and complete information.
While we spent the last decade being warned about climate change, big tech is now presenting us with carefully crafted sustainability narratives—filled with uplifting visuals of new jobs, clean energy, social programs, and environmental initiatives surrounding data centers.
Taken together, we found numerous inconsistencies in both what these companies report and how they report it. In some cases, important information appears to be omitted altogether.
There is no clarity on which data centers are metered and which rely on estimates.
They hide behind efficiency metrics while avoiding disclosure of raw resource consumption.
Their sustainability reports highlight water conservation projects without explaining how aquifers are naturally replenished through precipitation and water infiltration from rivers, lakes, and ponds.
Reading the appendix of Google’s 2025 Environmental Report, we find that water usage across Google’s facilities is sometimes estimated. In some cases, it isn’t measured at all.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that fewer than one-third of U.S. data center operators measure their water consumption. A separate 2021 study by Uptime found that 50% of surveyed data centers tracked water use in some way, while fewer than 10% measured water consumption across their entire fleet.
There’s no excuse for avoiding actual measurements—which, if publicly disclosed, might reveal the true impact data centers have on local water resources.
These companies have an undeniable obligation to measure and disclose their use of water—our planet’s most precious resource.
Sustainability Report Breakdown
We’ve reviewed the sustainability reports published in 2025, covering resource usage during 2024, so you don’t have to. Here’s a summary.
Google — Google publishes its total electricity consumption (32 TWh), total water withdrawal (11 billion gallons), and power and water usage by site. However, it’s unclear how many facilities report measured values versus estimated ones.
Meta — Meta’s report showcases carbon emissions, renewable energy, and biodiversity initiatives. You need to dig into the Environmental Data Index to find its total electricity use (18 TWh) and total water consumption (5.625 billion liters). The report also breaks down power and water usage by site, but it’s unclear how many facilities report measured values versus estimates.
Microsoft — Microsoft publishes global totals: 30.207 TWh of electricity consumption and 10.377 billion liters of water use. According to the company, most of its water comes from third-party suppliers, primarily local municipalities.
Amazon — Amazon publishes a sustainability report but provides neither total electricity consumption nor water usage. Instead, it focuses primarily on efficiency metrics rather than actual facility-level consumption.
On the other hand, we were unable to find recent environmental or sustainability reporting from X, Anthropic, or OpenAI at the time of writing.
After going private in 2022, X was no longer obligated to publish environmental disclosures. Historically, Anthropic and OpenAI rented computing capacity from cloud providers. As of 2026, however, both are developing data center capacity of their own.
One Golf Course, Two Golf Courses…
If you think all of this is unacceptable, listen to this.
Google uses the term “golf course equivalents” to describe the water impact of each data center.
A reader might reasonably ask:
“How much water could a golf course actually use?”
Reading the fine print, we find that Google is referring to large golf courses in the arid southwestern United States—courses that require more water than almost anywhere else in the country.
An average golf course in that region can consume around 150 million gallons of fresh water per year.
Does this make Google’s data centers look better?
Not really.
It makes golf courses look worse.
Who Is Holding Them Accountable?
The organizations responsible for managing local water resources often have limited authority to enforce meaningful restrictions.
There is a massive accountability gap when it comes to large-scale water users, and it’s unlikely we can rely solely on local water authorities to prevent abuse.
It would be naive to expect someone else to protect our water. We need to speak up, demand transparency and accurate reporting, and oppose data centers that are draining our water resources.
Read more about big tech’s sustainability reporting in Chapter 7 of our Report, and learn how our water system works in Chapter 8.
If you come across additional data on data center electricity or water consumption, please share it with us using our contact form.
Want the full picture? Explore the rest of the series here.