A large share of marketers think AI is creating a bigger carbon footprint, but many are not measuring the full environmental impact of their tech usage, according to a new report from climate technology and advisory firm 51toCarbonZero.
Among surveyed senior marketing leaders:
| Measure | Share |
|---|---|
| See AI increasing their carbon footprint | 88% |
| Believe AI results in significantly higher emissions | 42% |
| Have comprehensively measured the environmental effects | 36% |
| Have not measured at all | 8% |
"Businesses cannot effectively reduce what they are not measuring — and there is still work to do to build greater visibility around AI's environmental impact." — Richard Davis, 51toCarbonZero co-founder and CEO
Awareness around the pitfalls of the AI boom is in tension with strides elsewhere in marketers' sustainability efforts.
51toCarbonZero chalked some of the gap up to a governance challenge for marketing organizations that otherwise believe they are making improvements in sustainability practices.
51toCarbonZero partnered with Censuswide to survey 100 U.S. and 100 U.K. marketing leaders in June for its Zeroed In: The Brand Marketing Pulse benchmark report. Respondents were senior management or C-suite marketers at large brands across multiple sectors.
| Region | Perceive a significant uptick in emissions from AI |
|---|---|
| U.S. marketers | 51% |
| U.K. marketers | 32% |
Marketers are feeling the steep price tag of AI in addition to the environmental factor.
The report arrives as the early AI hype continues to cool, with growing public outcry against the tech and sharper investor skepticism.
Some AI-focused platforms are using marketing to try to allay consumers' AI fears. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared a video putting an optimistic, human-led spin on AI, and per Adweek, the company plans to put paid media behind the campaign.
Read this as a governance issue, not an ESG one. That is the report's own diagnosis: 88% recognising a problem while 36% measure it is not a belief gap, it is a missing measurement system.
Add an emissions column beside the AI cost line. The same survey found 88% reporting higher operational costs from AI. If cost already reaches the finance line and emissions do not, the place to attach it already exists.
Start per tool, not per category. Attempting to measure the footprint of "AI" as a whole tends to fail; scoping the single most-used workflow first is more realistic.
Treat falling budget concern as an opening. Concern dropped from 37% to 17% — less resistance is the right moment to insert a new measurement line.
Reflect the 51% vs 32% split in global team alignment. One policy pushed simultaneously reads as overreach on one side and insufficiency on the other.
Read it beside AI adoption success rates. Emissions are not the only unmeasured thing — Why 88% of Enterprise AI Projects Fail shows how far the governance vacuum extends.
Consider reducing usage first. Data showing full automation remains rare is in Google Finds AI Is Still a Collaborator, Not a Replacement. Not putting AI in every step is the most reliable reduction lever available.
Don't defer reporting because measurement is imperfect. The pattern recurs across AI metrics generally — see AI Halftime Report H1 2026.
In 51toCarbonZero's survey, 88% of senior marketing leaders see AI increasing their carbon footprint and 42% believe it results in significantly higher emissions — but only 36% have comprehensively measured the impact and 8% have not measured at all.
51toCarbonZero partnered with Censuswide to survey 100 U.S. and 100 U.K. marketing leaders in June 2026 for the Zeroed In: The Brand Marketing Pulse report. Respondents were senior management or C-suite marketers at large brands across multiple sectors.
51% of U.S. marketers perceive a significant uptick in emissions from AI, compared with 32% of U.K. marketers.
88% say AI is pushing up operational costs and 35% say it is doing so to a substantial degree, so cost pressure accompanies the environmental impact.
Just 17% are concerned about budget in this area, down 20 percentage points from 2025, while 85% report moderate to significant progress cutting emissions and under a quarter see internal alignment as a key challenge.
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