"The Hidden Carbon and Water Cost of AI and What Boards Should Do About It"
Every board in the world is now being asked the same question: "What's our AI strategy?" Far fewer are asking the follow-up that will matter just as much over the next five years: "What's the environmental cost of that strategy, and who is accountable for it?" That gap is about to close — whether companies prepare for it or not. ## The scale of the problem is no longer speculative For years, the environmental footprint of computing was easy to ignore. It was a rounding error on the balance sheet and an afterthought in the sustainability report. AI has changed that permanently. According to the International Energy Agency, global electricity consumption from data centres is on track to roughly double, from around 485 TWh in 2025 to about 950 TWh by 2030 — close to 3% of the world's entire electricity demand. To put that in human terms, that is slightly more than the total electricity consumption of Japan today. The AI-specific slice is growing even faster...