Are Meta’s carbon emissions shrinking? Depends on how you look at it

Untangling companies’ environmental claims these days can be a head-spinning endeavor, and reading Meta’s latest sustainability report is no exception. Depending on how you look at it, the company’s greenhouse gas emissions either grew or fell last year.

Confused? The discrepancy has to do with whether you’re assessing total or net emissions and, crucially, whether you’re considering the local impact Meta has in places where it operates.

It helps to take a look at the graph below from the sustainability report. The light gray bars show Meta’s total “location-based” greenhouse gas emissions. Those bars have risen steadily since 2019,…

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