Environmental Groups Say Nvidia's Emissions Rose 725% Since 2020, Estimate Chip-Use Pollution Rivals a Russian Coal Giant

What the report actually found

A coalition of eight environmental and advocacy groups, led by Greenpeace International and including Friends of the Earth, Beyond Fossil Fuels, and Stand.earth, published a briefing this month arguing Nvidia's climate footprint is far bigger than the company admits.

The headline number: Nvidia's Scope 3 emissions, the indirect kind tied to its supply chain rather than its own offices, rose from about 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in fiscal 2020 to 10.7 million tonnes in fiscal 2026, according to figures the report's authors compiled from Nvidia's own sustainability disclosures. That's a 725% increase, or roughly 9.4 million additional tonnes, largely from raw materials and manufacturing for GPUs, according to Greenpeace East Asia.

The report goes further than Nvidia's own disclosures. Lead author Ketan Joshi, an Oslo-based climate and energy analyst, estimates that actually running Nvidia's sold chips could have generated between 4 and 21 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2025. That range is the report's own estimate, not a Nvidia-reported figure, and it depends heavily on what electricity mix is assumed to be powering the data centers where those chips sit. Nvidia does not currently disclose use-phase emissions at all.

The Russian coal comparison

The groups compare the high end of that estimate, 21 million tonnes, to the 2024 product-use emissions of Russian Coal, a Russian state-owned coal producer. That comparison is what generated headlines across Euronews, Yahoo Australia, and multiple aggregator sites this week. It's a striking visual, but it rests on the top of a five-times range (4 to 21 million tonnes), not a confirmed figure.

Joshi's charge: greenwashing

Joshi didn't stop at the numbers. "The biggest AI profiteer also has one of the world's most obscured and opaque climate footprints," he said. "NVIDIA's claims that AI has a 'net climate benefit' are a greenwashing tactic used by the industry to mask ballooning pollution."

Greenpeace's own writeup of the report, titled "NVIDIA's AI climate hoax," goes further still, accusing the company of "tech colonialism" for relying on East Asian manufacturing supply chains and arguing this "offloads its ecological burden onto lower-income nations." That's the coalition's characterization, not an independently verified finding. These are advocacy groups whose stated goal is to slow data center buildout, not neutral auditors.

Jill McArdle of Beyond Fossil Fuels was even blunter, saying "Europe is being sold a fantasy of 'green' AI" and accusing Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang of hyping "overblown climate claims while urging our governments to build gas for their data centers."

Nvidia's side of it

Nvidia has pushed back on the net-benefit accusation before this report came out. Josh Parker, Nvidia's head of sustainability, told the climate outlet Heatmap in May that "the very rapidly growing consensus is that AI is most likely to lead to net emissions reductions, especially if it's deployed broadly." He cited the International Energy Agency, the World Economic Forum, Boston Consulting Group, and the Grantham Institute as sources backing that view, arguing AI can cut emissions elsewhere through efficiency gains in other sectors.

The report's authors reject that framing, arguing efficiency gains get outpaced by sheer growth in compute demand. Neither side's projection about net future impact is settled science. The IEA and similar bodies Parker cites have published estimates, not certainties, about AI's economy-wide emissions effect, and the report's own use-phase number is likewise an estimate built on assumed utilization rates and grid mixes, not a metered figure.

On one thing there's no real dispute: Nvidia's own Scope 3 numbers, which the company reports itself, did jump nearly eightfold since 2020. Nvidia says it has run its own operations on 100% renewable electricity for two straight years, covering Scope 2, but that doesn't touch the supply chain emissions the report is focused on.

What's unresolved

Nvidia has not published use-phase emissions data and has not, in these sources, responded specifically to the 21-million-tonne estimate or the Russian Coal comparison. The report's authors are demanding Nvidia extend its renewable-energy commitments across its full manufacturing supply chain by 2030 and disclose downstream emissions from chip use. Whether Nvidia adopts either demand, and whether third-party auditors independently verify the report's use-phase estimate rather than relying on assumed grid factors, remains an open question.

Sources

Euronews, Crypto Briefing, Beyond Fossil Fuels, Yahoo Australia (au.news.yahoo), Green Web Foundation, Greenpeace International.