Global data-center electricity demand is on track to double by 2030. We're making sure that growth doesn't cost the Earth.

AI for Ecology is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit shepherding the Age of AI into sustainable ecosystems that benefit the Earth, Everyone, Everywhere — with Efficient use of energy and resources.

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Update AIforE has opened its Year 1 fundraising campaign — $250K–$500K to fund our benchmark framework, site rebuild, and first year of programs.
Why This Matters

The case for sustainable AI, in numbers we can cite

Energy

~2×

Global data-center electricity demand is on track to roughly double this decade — from ~415 TWh in 2024 to ~945 TWh by 2030 — as AI build-out accelerates.

Source: IEA, Energy and AI (2026)
Fossil Power

~60%

Nearly 60% of the electricity powering data centers today still comes from fossil sources — natural gas, coal, and oil.

Source: IEA / Carbon Brief (2025–26)
Climate

10 of 10

The ten warmest years ever recorded have all occurred in the past decade, with 2024 the hottest year in 175 years of global records.

Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
Cost

+42%

U.S. residential electricity prices have risen 42% over the last five years — climbing as much as 94% in data-center-heavy regions like Washington, D.C.

Source: U.S. EIA, via PolitiFact (2026)
AI-Specific

50%

AI-focused data centers' electricity use jumped 50% in 2025 alone — over 16 times faster than overall global electricity demand growth.

Source: IEA, Key Questions on Energy and AI (2026)
Water

71%

Groundwater levels are falling in 71% of the world's monitored aquifers, with the pace of decline accelerating in nearly a third of them over the last four decades.

Source: Nature, global groundwater study (2024)

"A choice, not physics" — leading scientists argue today's energy-hungry mega data centers reflect a competitive business strategy, not a technical requirement. AI can be built dramatically more efficiently. (Source: Nature commentary, Aug. 2026)

What We Do

Sustainable AI doesn't just reduce harm — it actively heals.

We're a collective of tech and sustainability professionals with hundreds of years of aggregate experience at the top tech companies and sustainable organizations. We shepherd the Age of AI toward ecosystems that benefit the Earth, Everyone, and Everywhere — with Efficient use of energy and resources.

Our operating framework is the Five R's: ROI, Right-Sized, Renewable, Recycled, and Remediate — a practical way to make AI sustainability measurable instead of aspirational.

See the Five R's framework →
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Flagship Tool

The Token Cost Calculator

Part of our Year 1 build: a community tool that estimates the cost, energy, water, carbon and heat behind AI queries, using the same method as the Stardust browser extension — and a step toward the tokens-to-carbon-output benchmark methodology we're publishing as part of our Certification & Benchmark Framework v1.

Learn more →
–
Cost–
Tokens in / out–
Electricity–
CO₂e–
Water–
Data-center cooling–
Power generation–
Heat released–
Energy source–
Confidence–
Same electricity, if generated entirely from:
Natural gas–
Coal–
Oil–
Young Pacific Northwest conifer forest needed to absorb this CO₂e:
–

Uses the same draft methodology (v0.2) as the Stardust browser extension. Energy per token by model size (small, mid, frontier), anchored to ~0.3 Wh for a typical frontier-model reply — Oviedo et al., Joule (2026), and Epoch AI (2025). Unlisted models use the frontier figures and are marked Estimated. Prices are list prices per token, September 2026. Grid carbon: U.S. EIA (2023) and Ember (2024 world average); France and Sweden are approximate 2023 mixes. Water: 1.8 L/kWh on-site cooling (LBNL, 2016) plus 3.14 L/kWh for power generation (Li et al., 2023). Heat: essentially all electricity used by servers becomes heat. Indicator code = impact grade (CO₂e per 1,000 tokens, A best to F) + cost tier (per query, 1 lowest to 5, X unknown) + size (tokens per query, XS to XL). Energy, grid and grade figures are draft placeholders pending review, published openly on GitHub. Forest equivalent: ~1.5 Mg C/ha/yr (≈0.55 kg CO₂ per m² per year) for 20–100-year-old Pacific Northwest conifer stands, from Fig. 5 of Gray, Whittier & Harmon, Ecosphere 7(1):e01224 (2016); excludes soil carbon and varies widely by site. Each icon ≈ 0.1 m². Chat apps resend the whole conversation with each message, so input grows as a chat goes on; reasoning models also use hidden thinking tokens.

Projects

What we're building

Universal Open Source AI Sustainability Operating System and SDK

Observability and Actions to See what AI really costs — in dollars and impact, Connected to sustainability services for ROI – Return on Investment + Impact

An open-source operating system and SDK that shows real-time tokens, cost, energy, water, and carbon per prompt or workload — in a browser extension alongside your AI chat apps, in developers' own AI applications, and in the monitoring tools teams already use through OpenTelemetry. Free, forever, for everyone.

Client-Subscriber on GitHub ↗ · Open source (Apache-2.0)

501(c)(3) nonprofit · EIN 42-2272946 · tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law

Sustainable AI Telemetry & Big Data

The measurement layer behind every sustainability claim AI companies make.

Open benchmarks and telemetry standards that let "sustainable AI" be verified, not just claimed — the evidence base for AIforE's certification program.

Telemetry code on GitHub ↗ · Open source (Apache-2.0)

501(c)(3) nonprofit · EIN 42-2272946 · tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law

Provider-Service Plugin (Driver) Model

A common way for regenerative services to plug into AI.

A driver model for technology-based and nature-based carbon sequestration, renewable energy, water restoration and recycling, heat recovery, materials recycling, and habitat rehabilitation — carbon-negative services that contribute positively to Earth's ecology, in harmony with AI.

Provider-Service on GitHub ↗ · Open source (Apache-2.0)

501(c)(3) nonprofit · EIN 42-2272946 · tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law

The Core System

Connecting AI's footprint to the services that can restore it.

Project Stardust's core connects clients to providers, and to exchanges for carbon, renewable energy, recycled water, heat, and recycled materials, so that value helps offset the cost of sustainable operations.

Project Stardust on GitHub ↗ · open source (Apache-2.0)

501(c)(3) nonprofit · EIN 42-2272946 · tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law