Company AI carbon footprint calculator
When a whole company uses AI assistants every working day, the totals become worth tracking. This calculator gives a first estimate you can refine with data from your provider.
Result
11.9 kg CO2CO2 per year
- Prompts per year
- 165,000
- Energy per year
- 56.1 kWh
- CO2 per employee per year
- 239 g CO2
- Same CO2 as driving a petrol car
- 99.6 km
These are estimates. Real figures depend on the model, the data center and the length of the answer.
How this is calculated
- OpenAI (2025). Sam Altman states an average ChatGPT query uses about 0.34 Wh and 0.32 mL of water. blog.samaltman.com
- Google (2025). A median Gemini text prompt uses 0.24 Wh, 0.03 g CO2e and 0.26 mL of water. arxiv.org
- IEA, Electricity 2024. Earlier estimate of 2.9 Wh per ChatGPT request, used here as the high case. iea.org
- Ember, Global Electricity Review 2025. Carbon intensity of electricity in 2024 (Poland 2023). France and Sweden come from a study based on Ember data and are approximate. ember-energy.org
- Our assumptions. A phone charge is 15 Wh, an LED bulb is 10 W, boiling one litre of water takes 110 Wh, a petrol car emits 120 g CO2 per km.
Questions
Which scope does AI use fall under?
AI assistants bought as a service usually count in Scope 3, under purchased goods and services. Ask your provider for its own figures when they exist.
How can a company lower this number?
Choose a provider whose data centers run on a low carbon grid, use smaller models for simple tasks, and keep image and video generation for when it is needed.