Sustainability
Environmental costs
It is difficult to calculate the exact environmental costs of GenAI. The size of the model, the training approach used and the capabilities of the tool influence how much energy and water the model uses. Likewise, there are very different energy needs for training a model and for using it. That said, the energy costs of training and running the tools are estimated to be considerable.Keep in mind that generating images , audio, and video uses even more energy than generating text. Generating a few seconds of video, for example, uses at least 30 times as much.
In its Environmental Report 2025 Google indicates that its data centers consumed 27% more enery in 2024 than the previous year, partially due to the arrival of AI. A recent study from the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that by 2030, the annual electricity consumption of data servers could be equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of a country like Spain. MIT estimates that AI data centers in the US alone have now consumed as much energy as 7.2 million households combined.
As for water consumption – used for electricity generation and cooling of the data servers: according to a study by Shaolei Ren et al. from 2025 , as much water would currently be needed as all of Denmark consumes.
Guidelines
- When writing a prompt for a GenAI tool one should provide as much context as possible by specifying the desired style, target audience, and output format. Breaking the assignment down into clear steps, and inclusion of examples increases the likelihood of receiving accurate results without the need for follow-up prompts.
If one wants a factual answer, please use search engines and critically reflect on the available sources.
Image generation through genAI tools uses up even more resources, and thus image search in search engines should be prioritized. Drwaings from Unsplash, Pixabay or Flaticon also offer great alternatives. One can ask:
- Can I do it just as quickly myself?
- Are there alternative digital tools available?
- What benefit does using genAI have?