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Meta’s 2024 Sustainability Report unveils its ambitious environmental strategy, showcasing efforts to balance ecological goals with the demands of powering global digital infrastructure.
The comprehensive document highlights both successes and challenges in meeting green targets with pioneering renewable energy projects and sophisticated carbon accounting methods being used across operations.
While the report promotes a firm statement of sustainability, it also reveals the complexities and occasional setbacks. Even for an operation the size of Meta, green is a tough shade to pull off.
Before delving into specific data and metrics, I’ll explore Meta’s overarching environmental philosophy and identify key figures spearheading sustainability efforts within the organisation.
Meta’s 2024 Sustainability Report is a slick 94-page document crammed with statements of commitment towards sustainability. It opens with a declaration from Rachel Peterson (VP Infrastructure Data Centres) that Meta has maintained Net Zero emissions in its global operations since 2020. This is a bold claim. Peterson doubles down on this with:
To get there we reduced our emissions by 94% from a 2017 baseline, primarily by matching 100% of the electricity use of our data centers and offices with renewable energy and addressing the remaining emissions with projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere.
These are impressive figures which buck the trend of rising emissions rates seen with Meta’s data-heavy peers, Google and Microsoft. Peterson acknowledges that:
The challenge of reaching our sustainability goals given the increased demand for energy and resources driven by AI is not unique to Meta
Following Peterson’s introduction are messages from Blair Swedeen (Global Head of Net Zero and Sustainability) and Leslie Collins (Director of Sustainability). Both make the right noises in terms of the challenge of decarbonising Meta whilst having a positive impact on the world.
Whilst it’s reassuring to hear affirmations of their environmental challenges, it’s interesting to see how Peterson, Swedeen and Collins slot into Meta’s hierarchy. For that we need to look at the Meta’s AROC.
The 2024 report states that the Audit and Risk Oversight Committee (AROC) of Meta’s board receives regular updates on sustainability priorities. AROC, formally the Audit Committee, is primarily responsible for financial auditing, but its role was increased to include ESG in 2018 following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
AROC is chaired by Tracey T. Travis, an independent director who was recently CFO at Estee Lauder and Ralph Lauren and a former GM at PepsiCo. The other members of the committee, Peggy Alford and Nancy Killefer, are also financiers. AROC committee members are not Meta employees, but do (at least) have a place on the board. According to 2024 Sustainability report, AROC reviews sustainability programs “at least annually”.
Ultimately, AROC’s function is to ensure the integrity of Meta’s financial reporting and the effectiveness of its internal control and risk management frameworks. Placing Meta’s sustainability decisions into the hands of the accounts department hints at financial priorities topping environmental urgency.
There are three main components to Meta’s plan: how it operates, how it creates and how it collaborates. Meta has a list of sustainable goals and commitments including:
Like most other companies, Meta also has an ambition to achieve Net Zero emissions across its value chain in 2030.
Let’s see how the social media giant is getting along.
Meta has reduced its Scope 1 emissions by 36% YOY. This is commendable as last year’s figures were 21% higher than 2021’s. Scope 1 emissions are direct greenhouse gas emissions that come from sources owned or controlled by Meta. Examples include emissions from burning fuel in company-owned vehicles, heating buildings with natural gas, and emissions from refrigerants in data centres.
Unfortunately, Meta’s Scope 2 figures have risen sharply in the past six years. Its market-based emissions rose by over 500% whereas location-based have flatlined, but remain 38% higher than 2021.
Location-based emissions represent the local power grid where electricity is consumed, whereas market-based consider the specific electricity contracts and purchases made by a company, such as renewable energy certificates and power purchase agreements.
As location-based emissions represent the “real world” energy-infrastructure around a data-centre that Meta uses, it can be impossible for the company to make that energy source greener (hence the flatline). Market-based allows organisations to use low-carbon energy sources in which to report lower emissions levels.
The most complex emissions metric for any corporation to resolve is Scope 3, which encompasses indirect emissions for their entire value chain – from mining for copper to the recycling of a Meta Quest headset. Meta has reported a 12% drop from 2023 (which is good) but even this is 28% higher than 2021’s figures.
Meta’s target is to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42% by 2031 (from a 2021 baseline) and its 2024 numbers show that it’s way off course. Scope 1 is currently 21% higher and Scope 1 (Combined) is 38% higher than 2021’s numbers. To hit Its 2031 target, Meta needs to reduce Scope 1 by 34% and Scope 2 by 58%.
Meta’s Scope 3 goal of reducing emissions to 2021 levels is also adrift. That number is currently 58% higher.
Unless Meta cuts real emissions today – yesterday preferably – it will miss its 2031 emissions reduction target by a mile. Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time.
In Meta’s 2021 Sustainability Report, it reiterated its 2017 pledge to reducing emissions by 75% by the end of 2020. Meta’s combined Scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions for 2020 were higher than 2017s by 367%. For clarity, Meta published a target it had already missed.
The irony is that Meta’s 2031 emission-lowering ambition will take the numbers back to where they were in around 2018.
Because climate change is an obstruction to growth and business-as-usual.
Take a glance at page 45 of Meta’s 2024 sustainability report, the writer details their planned resilience to climate risks:
As we continue on our journey to enhance our resilience to climate change, we are embedding climate action into our business strategies
Does this bizarre statement suggest that Meta thinks that climate change can be ignored with a decent business plan?
One page 46, Meta lays out its most “noteworthy” climatic risks to its business:
Meta seems unabashed to publish its top concerns are that climate regulation may cost the company money and extreme weather may disrupt its product. If only carbon emissions weren’t affected by certain tech corporations missing their targets by hundreds of percent.
Phrasing such as this suggests Meta’s culture does not align with the urgency of environmental change. I wonder if it has read their own report, but then again, I’m not 100% certain it wrote all of it. Take page 23:
Failure to reduce emissions today will lock in high-carbon intensity business tomorrow
Go home AI, you’re drunk!
Aside from emissions, the report gives details of Meta’s many partnerships and investments. It has joined ZEROgrid to influence clean energy procurement and invested in Ørsted’s Eleven Mile Solar Center. Meta is a founding member of the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance (SABA), which is pushing environmentally friendly fuels to decrease the footprint of business travel. For similar reasons, it has also joined the Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA) and signed partnerships with 1t.org, CarbonCapture and Heirloom to deliver carbon removal credits.
The list goes on, but the fundamental similarity between these entities is carbon accounting. This dark art is the systematic process of measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions but may not have any similarities to what is being pumped into the environment. This is especially true of carbon credits.
Controversially, Meta has joined Amazon and Intel at the Emissions First Partnership (EFP) with the aim of creating:
a set of new objectives and principles to update purchased electricity GHG emissions accounting systems (Scope 2) and help ensure we have clear ways to measure emissions reductions to unlock decarbonization investments at scale
Earlier in the year, The Financial Times published a story called Big Tech’s bid to rewrite the rules on Net Zero which, IMHO, perfectly encapsulates the problems with carbon credits:
Matthew Brander, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, says the system is akin to buying the right from a fitter colleague to say you have cycled to work, even though you arrived by a car that runs on petrol.
The EPR didn’t agree with the FT and wrote to complain.
Yes. Meta has co-founded the Clean Energy Procurement Academy (CEPA) to help educate its Scope 3 partners on how to transition to clean energy. At the very least, Meta can use its financial muscle to drive change outside of its own walls.
It’s easy to write this off as a method of reducing its own emissions (and that is a benefit) but Meta is trying to improve its supply chain in other ways.
It has committed to the Responsible Business Alliance’s (RBA) Code of Conduct and has published its own guidelines on anti-slavery, human trafficking and responsible mineral sourcing.
Meta is also making promises to tackle biodiversity issues and even initiative to prevent wildlife trafficking with various animal welfare groups.
The report also explains Meta’s plans for dry-cooling its data centres, using air instead of water as the coolant. Meta acknowledges that AI is working its data centres hard but it has used the technology to design a new type of structure that can be smaller as they support denser racks for the AI clusters. The smaller footprint saves costs, time and resources.
Meta also highlights plenty of activities that benefit the local communities that live and work around its data centers.
Most things are mentioned in the report because some of it has been written by AI. Big Tech knows the chapter titles of an ESG but, in Meta’s case, some pages are slender on detail.
For me, the most glaring omission is hardware. The Meta Quest headset is only mentioned four times, one of those is under the heading “Sustainable product design”. The section mentioned the ease of repairing and recycling the Meta Quest but no further details or benchmarks are mentioned. Especially not iFixit’s score of 4 out of 10 for the Meta Quest 3.
Meta mentions an initiative to leverage circularity in its hardware operations. PCR plastics and recycled metals are flagged and a strategy to reuse components within its data centres. Meta proudly says:
some of our oldest racks with reused components are already at two years of age and continue to perform well under real-world production workloads.
Two years? Tell me your organisation has too much money without telling me your organisation has too much money?
Circularity is a term that appears several times in the report but there is zero detail. A circular economy is a vital component of reducing emissions and, at the moment, Meta hasn’t acknowledged this in the report.
Meta, like Google and Microsoft is entering a dangerous phase. In generating infrastructure in order to make mass-market AI a reality, it has created a product which the planet, climatically speaking, cannot sustain for long.
Meta’s recent announcement of its intent to pursue nuclear power in order meet sustainability objectives is a perfect example of what happens when corporate accountants are put in charge of environmental decisions. Nuclear power is a low-carbon energy solution, and its use could help to reduce emissions if – and only if – existing fossil fuel sources are turned off. We’ll leave the unresolved issue of nuclear waste decay for another discussion.
Meta’s own numbers clarify that their CO2 reduction plan isn’t working and the 2024 Sustainability Report is full of contradictions and caveats.
Peterson’s opening statement that Meta “reduced our emissions by 94% from a 2017 baseline” is misleading. It can only make the claim with the inclusion of carbon credits and other forms of offsetting. These work well on paper but the reality is that the tonnes of CO2e spluttering from Meta’s chimneys has not been cut by 94% since 2017.
Meta is far from the only firm indulging in this sleight of hand reporting, but as we move towards the much-promised 2030 net-zero targets, the reality of global CO2 levels will render all of this greenwashing meaningless.
The numbers are up and many multiples what they were half a decade ago. This is one of the most financial successful businesses of the modern era, so it cannot blame its emissions failure on lack of funds. It’s purely a failing of leadership, strategy, priority and desire.
Meta has the power and the funds to change this. One simple way to reduce its emissions is to turn off some of its services and degrow its business until it can be powered at low CO2 levels without the need for offsets.
Funnily enough, the report doesn’t mention that option.
