AI’s Growing Environmental Footprint. As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes integrated into everyday life, demand for the infrastructure needed to power it is rapidly growing. Processing the vast amount of data required by AI consumes volumes of electricity in specialised data centres, fuelling a data centre building frenzy that contributes to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and pressure on natural resources. According to the International Energy Age

Plastic pollution is easy to see on a beach—but much harder to measure, understand and prevent. Artificial intelligence, or AI, can be used as a tool to collect and analyse information on plastic pollution. This can help guide positive action. Not all AI is the same “AI” is often discussed as though it is one single technology. That can be misleading. Much of the current debate focuses on generative AI: tools that produce text, images, audio or video. These systems are linked

The substantial water and energy consumption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) usage is acknowledged by many in the scientific community, yet public awareness of the ecological impact of AI usage is remarkably small. While certain social stigmas surround its usage - namely how it facilitates laziness or lack of creativity by the user - discussions around how AI damages the environment are rare outside of scientific debates. GenAI works by using large-scale machine