Are Meta’s carbon emissions shrinking? Depends upon the way you have a look at it

Untangling corporations’ environmental claims lately could be a head-spinning endeavor, and studying Meta’s newest sustainability report isn’t any exception. Relying on the way you have a look at it, the corporate’s greenhouse fuel emissions both grew or fell final yr.

Confused? The discrepancy has to do with whether or not you’re assessing complete or internet emissions and, crucially, whether or not you’re contemplating the native affect Meta has in locations the place it operates.

It helps to try the graph under from the sustainability report. The sunshine grey bars present Meta’s complete “location-based” greenhouse fuel emissions. These bars have risen steadily since 2019, climbing to a complete of 14,067,104 metric tons of carbon dioxide equal in 2023. It’s a slight enhance in planet-heating air pollution over the previous yr.

The darker bars on the identical graph, however, present “market-based” emissions falling over the previous yr. Taking a look at these numbers, Meta’s carbon footprint seems almost half as small, reaching simply 7,443,182 metric tons in 2023.

So, which quantity ought to we imagine? Meta, unsurprisingly, highlights the smaller determine close to the highest of its report, a pair pages forward of the graph. Nevertheless it’s necessary to maintain each figures in thoughts — particularly given how troublesome it’s to suss out how efficient market-based mechanisms can actually be in eliminating the fossil gasoline air pollution inflicting local weather change.

“They’ve virtually halved their emissions on paper, nevertheless it’s actually troublesome to say how a lot they’ve lowered it in actuality,” says Rachel Kitchin, senior company local weather campaigner on the environmental group Stand.earth.

In the case of the bigger, location-based emissions, she says, “You possibly can argue that it’s what their emissions truly are.” These taller grey bars on the graph replicate native air pollution stemming from the electrical energy the corporate makes use of wherever it units up store. Information facilities sometimes join into the native energy grid, so that they run on the identical mixture of fossil fuels as everybody else. A majority of Meta’s information facilities are positioned within the US, the place 60 p.c of electrical energy nonetheless comes from fossil fuels.

However Meta says it matches 100% of its electrical energy use with renewable power purchases, which is the way it’s in a position to present a a lot smaller carbon footprint on paper. It could actually try this by one thing known as a Renewable Power Certificates, or REC, that represents a declare to the environmental advantages of renewable power. Energy corporations producing renewable power can promote each the electrical energy itself and the REC, which is meant to offer further earnings to help the event of latest renewable initiatives. 

Firms like Meta can ostensibly cancel out or offset carbon emissions from their electrical energy use by buying these RECs. Sadly, the math doesn’t at all times add up in the true world. Firms typically overestimate the quantity of greenhouse fuel emissions they suppose they’re decreasing by RECs, a 2022 examine of 115 corporations discovered. The issue is that RECs have gotten so low cost that promoting them isn’t essentially sufficient to fund new clear power initiatives.

There are methods to keep away from these pitfalls, nonetheless. That’s why it’s nonetheless price wanting into Meta’s market-based emissions, which take RECs and different commitments to help renewable power development into consideration.

Shopping for regionally makes an enormous distinction. Firms like Meta can comply with buy bundled RECs particularly tied to new renewable power initiatives in the identical area the place they function. That manner, they will help get extra clear power onto the native energy grid and into native houses, companies, and its personal information facilities. Commitments to match electrical energy use with renewable power on a 24/7 foundation quite than on an annual accounting sheet may have extra affect. It incentivizes the development of further clear energy sources that may stability one another out when the solar doesn’t shine or winds die down.

To its credit score, Meta says supporting new wind and photo voltaic initiatives close to its information facilities is a precedence. An financial affect examine it performed final yr discovered that its help for 86 new wind and photo voltaic initiatives throughout 24 states within the US ought to add as much as 9,800MW of renewable power to native grids by 2025. For comparability, Texas had greater than 15,000MW of utility-scale photo voltaic capability as of final yr.

“I’d say, from studying their report, it appears as if Meta has broadly pursued a high-impact method to renewable power,” Kitchin says. This week, for instance, Meta introduced a brand new initiative to develop geothermal power for brand spanking new information facilities.

Discovering new sources of fresh power has turn out to be an excellent larger problem due to how energy-intensive it’s to coach new AI instruments. “As we need to construct extra information facilities, it’s going to be actually necessary that the electrical energy grids round us proceed to decarbonize,” Urvi Parekh, head of renewable power at Meta, mentioned in a name with The Verge this week. “Our information facilities are on-line 24 hours a day in order that customers can entry the merchandise like Instagram and WhatsApp and others. And so what’s nice about geothermal power is that it may possibly additionally provide electrical energy across the clock.”

There’s nonetheless loads of progress to be made. Meta sourced 8.5 p.c of its renewable power purchases from much less efficient, unbundled RECs, in response to an evaluation of tech corporations’ renewable power spending that Stand.earth revealed earlier this yr. In an e-mail, Meta didn’t affirm whether or not that determine remains to be correct — simply that unbundled RECs make up a “small share” of its portfolio. Meta says it principally enters into long-term agreements to buy renewable power from new initiatives.

However whether or not you have a look at the placement or market-based emissions in its newest sustainability report, Meta’s carbon footprint remains to be considerably bigger than it was in 2020. That’s the yr it pledged to succeed in net-zero emissions by 2030 throughout its operations, provide chain, and client use of its merchandise. Now, it’s even farther from that aim than when it began.