Legal & General Says Meta Isn’t Doing Enough to Keep AI Clean
As the world’s hyperscalers throw vast sums of money into the infrastructure needed for AI, some of their investors are voicing concerns over the potential environmental sacrifices being made in the process.
The asset-management unit of Legal & General Group Plc, which oversees roughly £1.2 trillion ($1.6 trillion), has revealed that it backed resolutions earlier this year designed to force Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. to show investors how their artificial-intelligence ambitions can align with their previously stated emissions-reduction goals.
The shareholder proposals, all of which failed to gather enough support to pass, requested the companies explain how they will meet climate change-related commitments given the growing energy demand from AI.
London-based Legal & General, which has a history of supporting climate-friendly actions, voted for the resolutions at the three hyperscalers and singled out Meta for the quality of the information it provides to investors.
“Upon benchmarking Meta’s practice and disclosures against its peers, we believe the company could improve its disclosures on how it balances the need for ‘speed to power’ against the need for clean and reliable power,” L&G said in a report published earlier this month.
L&G also said it wanted greater clarity on “how Meta sees the role of gas as grid-connected power and on-site generation within its decarbonization pathway.”
The concerns led the asset manager to support a resolution put forward at an annual general meeting held at the end of May. L&G also said it would like Meta to take “more measures to decrease its Scope 3 emissions from capital goods,” referring to emissions generated by customers and suppliers.
Responding to the requests made in the shareholder resolution, Meta said in its recent proxy filing that the company strives to build “the future of human connection and the technology that makes it possible” in a way “that supports a more sustainable world.” Given the company’s existing efforts to address its environmental footprint, such as reporting its data-center energy consumption and other environmental metrics, Meta’s board of directors said the requested report “wouldn’t provide additional benefit to our shareholders.”
Over the past weeks and months, investors have got an early glimpse of the environmental impact of Big Tech’s AI ambitions, via sustainability reports. Amazon.com Inc. said in June that its data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water worldwide last year, while in July it said its emissions rose 16% from the previous year. In July, Microsoft Corp. reported that its carbon emissions climbed 25% in 2025.
At Alphabet Inc.’s Google, “ambition-based” emissions climbed 18% overall last year, due in part to its expanding data-center portfolio, the company said in its latest sustainability report. OpenAI and Anthropic PBC are expected to start publishing some sustainability data in connection with their planned initial public offerings.
A Meta spokesperson told BloombergNEF in July that it has an “ongoing goal to match our electricity use with 100% clean and renewable energy” and said the company has added more than 30 gigawatts of new clean energy to grids across 28 states.
At the same time, BNEF notes that Meta has been leaning more heavily on power from natural gas. In March, the company agreed to fund seven new gas-fired plants to provide 5.2 gigawatts of power to its data center in Louisiana. That one announcement equates to nearly three-quarters of the clean-energy offtake capacity that Meta has signed in 2026, as of July 27.
L&G said it has been engaging with hyperscalers within AI and data-center value chains since 2025 “to better understand their practices and risk exposures.”
Photograph: The Legal and General Group Plc logo; photo credit: Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg