Skip to content

State of the Fossil-Free Internet 2026

The dirty data centre edition

A fossil-free internet is possible, so why are tech companies burning up so much oil and gas? We believe the internet should serve everyone: openly, fairly, and without wrecking the planet in the process.

But a handful of corporations are failing to publicly disclose their energy use in a way that makes it easy to monitor. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google control two-thirds of the internet’s cloud infrastructure and are emitting more CO2 gasses every year despite their net-zero targets. Internet companies are building data centres the size of small cities in communities that never asked for them, and obscuring the details from the public.

This is the finding at the heart of Green Web Foundation’s first State of the Fossil-Free Internet report.

Watch our public event

State of the fossil-free Internet 2026: Public briefing

A fossil-free internet is possible, so why are tech companies burning up so much oil and gas?

We believe the internet should serve everyone: openly, fairly, and without wrecking the planet in the process. But a handful of corporations are failing to publicly disclose their energy use in a way that makes it easy to monitor. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google control two-thirds of the internet’s cloud infrastructure and are emitting more CO2 gasses every year despite their net-zero targets.

Internet companies are building data centres the size of small cities in communities that never asked for them, and obscuring the details from the public. This is the finding at the heart of Green Web Foundation’s first State of the Fossil-Free Internet report, and on May 27 we hosted a public briefing to explore what we found.

Whether you work in tech, in climate, or you simply use the internet and think the corporations running it should be held to account, this conversation is for you.