"Meta's electricity emits only 1,358 tonnes of CO2e"

Since 2015, the GHG Protocol has asked companies to publish the emissions of their purchased electricity, the Scope 2, in 2 ways. With the location-basedmethod, emissions are calculated with the average carbon intensity of the grid where the electricity is consumed. With the market-basedmethod, they are calculated with the intensity of the contracts purchased: power purchase agreements with wind or solar farms, renewable origin certificates. A company that covers all its consumption with contracts can report Scope 2 emissions close to zero.

For 2025, Google reports Scope 2 emissions of 2.8 million tonnes with its contracts and 15.1 million with the grid. Microsoft reports 2.7 and 12 million for its 2025 financial year. At Microsoft, the market-based figure was multiplied by 10 in a year: the company stopped buying so-called "non-additional" renewable certificates, which finance no new installation.

Climate

Electricity emissions, by contract or by grid

Emissions from purchased electricity (scope 2), 2 methods, in tCO2e, logarithmic scale · 2024 and 2025

Meta, contracts20241,358t

Meta, grid20245.97Mt

↑1 to 4,400the same scope 2 at Meta, depending on the method

Google, contracts20252.82Mt

Google, grid202515.1Mt

Microsoft, contractsfinancial year 20252.71Mt

Microsoft, gridfinancial year 202512Mt

1,00010,000100,0001 M10 M100 M

Source: Meta, 2025; Google, 2026; Microsoft, 2026 · projetcelsius.com/en/ai · CC BY 4.0

PNGCSV

Contracts that finance new installations genuinely reduce the emissions of an electricity system; certificates bought from existing installations make no difference to the power stations already running. To understand what data centres are doing to the climate today, the grid figure is the closest to the physics. That is the hub's choice: its calculations use grid intensity, 458 gCO2e/kWh as a world average (Ember, life cycle).

A company that buys AI services counts them in its Scope 3, using its provider's figures. If the provider reports only its market-based figure, the emissions of these uses are underestimated by a factor of 4 to several thousand. In a Bilan Carbone®, both 2 figures must be requested, and the one used must be stated.