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Impact & Commitments

Increase climate-ready AI through transparency and capacity

Cloud computing has become an essential part of the digital infrastructure for government and businesses worldwide, enabling scalable and efficient operations. However, this widespread adoption comes with a significant environmental cost, including increased energy consumption and carbon emissions from data centers. As organizations look to align their operations with sustainability goals, green cloud computing is gaining attention as a solution to reduce the environmental footprint of digital services.

AI and the environment

Continuous innovation in AI and its applications is crucial for addressing global challenges like climate change. However, the computational power needed to sustain AI’s growth is escalating energy requirements. As organizations increasingly rely on cloud computing to support their AI initiatives, it becomes vital to establish and adopt proper guidelines and standards that mitigate the environmental impact of these technologies.

Advancing green computing and AI

Sharing best practices on AI measurement and sustainable software

Email us to join the GDA working group on Green Computing to share your organization’s reporting challenges on energy usage and GHG emissions from AI, and exchange best practices

Harmonizing methodologies

Consult the first international standard to measure the footprint of AI Systems, developed by ITU-T Study Group 5.

Email us at green@itu.int to test the methodology and join future standardization activities.

Building capacity

Complete this e-learning course developed to inform practitioners on how to green data storage investments and create an enabling environment conducive to green data infrastructure. 
  • 2024 – Launch of the GDA Green Computing pillar
  • 2025 – Measuring What Matters: How to Assess AI’s Environmental Impact
    The group published the report Measuring What Matters: How to Assess AI’s Environmental Impact offering a comprehensive overview of current approaches to evaluating the environmental impacts of AI systems.
  • 2025 – AI Environmental Footprint Measurement Hackathon
    The group organized a hackathon to bring together innovators from around the world to create proof-of-concept solutions that can accurately measure, monitor, and report the environmental impact of AI systems. Winning solutions were announced at COP30. Learn more.
  • 2025 – Guidelines for Developing Energy Efficient and Environmentally Sustainable Software
    Partners from the GDA Green Computing pillar launched an open-access repository listing sustainable software practices. These comprehensive guidelines for developing energy-efficient and sustainable software enable access to practical, actionable solutions that can help digital developers, system architects, and any organization using technologies meet international standards, enhance efficiencies across their value chain, and reduce their environmental impact.
  • 2025 – Launch of AI Climate Institute
    The new AI Climate Institute was launched at COP30 to strengthen the technological capabilities and unlock local innovation in developing countries, so that AI can help address the climate crisis.
  • 2026 – First international standard for measuring the footprint of AI Systems
    With Recommendation ITU-T L. 1801, ITU-T Study Group 5 published the first international standard for assessing the full life cycle impact of AI systems.
  • 2026 – Measuring what matters: Closing the gaps in assessing AI’s environmental impact
    The report assesses: Which components of AI systems’ environmental impact are currently being measured? How accurate, transparent, and methodologically sound are these measurement practices? How actionable and relevant are these insights for decision-makers, operational teams,
    and policy-makers?