#113 Kathryn Dovey & Alex de Vries-Gao: Responsible AI - What You Need to Know
episodePreviously titled “Kathryn Dovey & Alex de Vries-Gao: Responsible AI - What You Need to Know” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 5, 2026
Frankly Speaking - A Podcast on Responsible Business
47 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the overall focus of this episode on responsible AI and sustainability?
Welcome to Frankly Speaking, the podcast on responsible business by Frank Bold, the European public interest law firm. I'm Richard Howitt, and after many years leading debates on responsible business inside the European Parliament, I lead our discussions about the very latest developments in corporate sustainability, sustainable finance, business and human rights. Today, artificial intelligence, AI and sustainability. What companies need to know and to do. You'll have heard the bold claims and the scare stories. Let's try to make sense of it all. Two guests join me to explain all of this. Catherine Dovey, founder of Recalibrate, working on responsible AI issues and for 10 years at the OECD Centre for Responsible Business Conduct, including the period in which the OECD AI principles were agreed.
Catherine, welcome to Frankly Speaking.
Thank you, Richard. It's great to be here.
And my second guest is Alex de Vries-Gau, data scientist and researcher at the Institute for Environmental Studies at University VU Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where he has undertaken extensive research on the environmental impact of AI. Alex, welcome to Frankly Speaking.
Thanks for having me.
Now, Alex, first, your research shows that data centers powering AI already use energy equal to the entire nation of the United Kingdom and enough water to equal every bottle of water sold in the world for a year. Exactly how sustainable is AI?
Yeah, let's first of all make this even more specific. It's just AI that's nowadays responsible for just as much electricity consumption as the UK as a whole and data centers in general are actually kind of heading to the level of Japan in the coming few years. So essentially you're talking right now for all data centers globally about close to 500 terawatt hours of electricity consumption annually. You're talking about 1.5% of global electricity consumption that is all used by data centers. And about 20 to 30 or even 40% of this number is nowadays related to AI specifically. And like I said, this number is still growing. So if you look at reports from the International Energy Agency or the UN University, you'll see that they're projecting that this number will double in the coming few years, potentially by 2030.
So by then we would be using 3% of global electricity just for data centers. And of course, this is associated with, at one hand, significant growth. carbon emissions as well, because all this electricity use is being generated for a big part by fossil fuels, so there's lots of carbon emissions. Potentially half to one percent of our total fossil fuel based carbon emissions globally. And then there's water. which is in itself also a huge number. Water is used for cooling inside the data centers, but on the other hand also for cooling the power generators. A lot of people forget that when they talk about water consumption by data centers, but actually this is the biggest part of it. And all of these data centers in total probably consume, at least according to the university now,
about 4,500 billion liters of water annually. So you're talking about nine times the global bottled water consumption just for data centers.
Nine times. Unbelievable. And something else you wrote about emissions was that AI is quickly overtaking air travel for total emissions, which, you know, so many of us are trying to stop flying and really conscious about that question. How many of us are actually thinking about when we use AI on our phones or on our devices day by day?
Yeah, indeed. And just for reference, so global aviation is often quoted to be responsible for about 2% of global fossil fuel-based carbon emissions. So if data centers are now doing half a percent to 1%, they're actually already quite rapidly heading towards the same level, especially if this is going to double again in the coming few years. Things will be getting very close.
And last year, Investigate Europe, an investigative journalist body, came up with the fact that some of the major US-based AI companies, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta,
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the overall focus of this episode on responsible AI and sustainability?
0:02–8:08
2
How much energy and water do AI‑related data centres consume worldwide?
8:08–15:52
3
Why did major US tech companies lobby the EU to hide data‑centre environmental data?
15:52–22:32
4
What are the most promising AI use‑cases for climate monitoring and healthcare?
22:32–31:37
5
Which frameworks (OECD AI Principles, Due‑Diligence Guidance, EU AI Act) should companies start using now?
31:37–40:28
6
Is there such a thing as ‘good AI’ versus ‘bad AI’ and how can we tell the difference?
40:28–45:39
7
How will AI‑driven automation affect jobs and what can companies do to protect workers?
45:39–46:59
8
What practical step should sustainability leaders take today to embed responsible AI in their organisations?
46:59–47:02
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Frankly Speaking - A Podcast on Responsible Business
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