Have you seen the claims on social media? • “Every AI response consumes a bottle of water.” • “ChatGPT is an environmental disaster.” • “A ChatGPT response requires 10x more energy usage than a Google search.” If you’re someone who cares about sustainability, it’s easy to feel uncomfortable about your AI use after seeing claims like these. But here’s the thing: most of these headlines are either misleading or deflect your attention from the actual significant drivers of climate impact. We’ll be taking a look at the energy usage of generative AI, on a big picture level to show that, at present, the environmental concern around generative AI is out of proportion to its impact right now. Note: This piece draws heavily on Andy Masley’s Substack post A cheat sheet for why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment (April 2025). Highly recommended for further reading. It’s not as bad as they say Although it’s hard to know for sure how much energy a ChatGPT prompt uses, claims often made online are that it uses 3 watt-hours (Wh) of electricity, which is likely an overestimate by as much as a factor of 10. Regardless, if we assume that the average ChatGPT prompt uses 3 Wh, this is roughly the same as: -Leaving a single incandescent light bulb on for 3 minutes. -Running a microwave for 10 seconds -Play a gaming console for 1 minute -Brewing coffee for 10 seconds Using a laptop for 3 minutes – if ChatGPT helps you turn of your laptop sooner by finishing your work quicker then it may actually be saving energy. So, when we focus on ChatGPT usage in isolation we assume it’s much more power hungry relative to other parts of our life than it actually is. In addition, for the claim that a ChatGPT response is 10x more energy intensive than a Google search: this is true, but multiplying a tiny number by 10 still gives you… a tiny number. What about water? The situation with ChatGPT water usage is similar. People focus on the ChatGPT impact in isolation and assume it is highly significant: “20-50 ChatGPT responses is a bottle of water.” What people fail to see is that the average American is using 1200 bottles (60 gallons) of water per day. This is mostly due to energy consumption, which is typically generated through heating water to create steam to turn a turbine. You could prompt ChatGPT 40 times and offset the water use by ending your shower one second earlier. What’s more, even compared to online activity, ChatGPT water usage is relatively very low compared to video streaming and zoom calls. What’s important If we want to make meaningful climate progress, we need to focus our energy on the right things—and not be distracted by marginal ones. The graph below says it all If you choose not to take a transatlantic flight, you save 3,500,000 ChatGPT searches. Here’s where that leads us: 1. Don’t be distracted — demand more Pointing fingers at AI tools while empty private jets criss-cross the globe to reposition them for their owners? That’s a distraction. Demand more: Holding companies, industries, and governments to account is one of the most powerful actions we can take. For example, your pension fund – often overlooked – could be financing fossil fuel giants. One simple switch could do more than a lifetime of prompt avoidance. 2. Be empowered — your actions still count Feeling bad for asking ChatGPT to help write your email? That’s a distraction. Climate guilt is often misdirected. It’s not that “nothing we do matters”—far from it. But some actions matter far more than others. Flying less, going car free, switching to green power at home, having a higher plant-based diet – all of these actions have tangible impact. And what about us? At HRW, we’ve applied the same logic to our own footprint. We’ve: • Measured our carbon impact • Identified where our emissions come from • Focused on the biggest contributors first AI use doesn’t feature in the “biggest contributors” list, and so we won’t let it distract us from making other more impactful change. To find out more, click here In conclusion The environmental impact of ChatGPT sounds bad in isolation, but this is often because we don’t have a clear sense of how much energy and water we consume per day as individuals. Once we look at the big picture of our individual use, we see that other lifestyle changes like living car-free and reducing long haul flights will have a significantly larger impact than stopping our use of ChatGPT. Not to mention the impact of holding companies, industries and governments to account. References Masley, A. (2025). A cheat sheet for why using ChatGPT is not bad for the environment. Ibid. Water usage per prompt includes data centre cooling and electricity generation. Ibid. A ChatGPT prompt may use 10x the energy of a Google search, but both are negligible in personal or global energy budgets. Ibid. ChatGPT’s total energy use globally estimated at equivalent to 20,000 U.S. households. Ibid. YouTube’s usage scaled from data centre estimates. Ibid. Fortnite’s energy estimate based on server usage and user engagement. Ibid. Total daily energy usage globally contextualises ChatGPT’s share as 0.0006%. Synthesia, 2025. Internal sustainability communications. Masley (2025), citing Google’s shift toward carbon-free regional data centre operations. Apply Now!