Watch one thing
The AI Environmental Transparency Initiative: “I’m calling on every major AI company to measure and publicly disclose the full environmental impact of its systems, carbon, water, and land footprints, and commit to power every data center with renewable energy by 2030. No more hidden costs, no more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it. It’s time to come clean.”
– UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Special Address on the Global Response to the Climate and Energy Crises.
Read one thing
- 40 mayors worldwide endorse a pact to shape data center development
AP News, 24 Jun 2026. “Forty mayors from around the world have signed onto a pact announced Tuesday to try to shape how urban data centers are built and operated. It’s their vision for how urban data center development can be done sustainably — and not at the expense of their cities’ natural resources, energy prices or climate targets. C40 Cities, an alliance of nearly 100 cities seeking to impact climate change, launched it during London Climate Action Week.”
Listen to one thing
- From Everyday AI Podcast – An AI and ChatGPT Podcast: Ep 806: Desktop Agent Lingo Simplified: Goals, Loops, Plans, Subagents and how it works in Codex and Claude Code, 25 Jun 2026
“The differentiator now is controlling long running desktop agents. And it sounds easy in theory until you realize that the language you’ve been building up in the front end AI chat bot era and the language of the long running autonomous agents are not exactly compatible.”
The rest
- Google, Energy Dome Launch Energy Storage Project to Enable 24/7 Clean Energy Access
ESGToday, 24 Jun 2026. “Google and energy storage startup Energy Dome announced an agreement to construct a 23 MW/200 MWh energy storage plant in Ireland, marking the first commercial project under the companies’ strategic partnership aimed at scaling Energy Dome’s CO2 Battery technology globally. The new project will be developed at a former thermal power station near Rhode, Ireland…” - AI’s societal risks make governance a business-wide challenge in Singapore
Eco-Business, 24 Jun 2026. “As AI adoption grows, companies face mounting pressure to address the technology’s trilemma of environmental footprint, workforce disruption and inequality risks, experts say… AI’s rising energy consumption and growing public scrutiny over workforce disruption are adding to governance concerns, now emerging as one of the most significant challenges facing corporate leaders.” - UN Secretary-General Guterres’ Special Address at London Climate Action Week
World Resources Institute, 23 Jun 2026. “UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a Special Address on the Global Response to the Climate and Energy Crises at London Climate Action Week… [He announced] an AI Environmental Transparency Initiative, calling on all major AI companies to disclose the carbon, water and land impacts of their systems and power them with renewable energy by 2030.” - AI’s Role in Building More Sustainable Supply Chains
ESG Today, 23 Jun 2026. “Today’s leaders face rising pressure to meet sustainability commitments while managing large amounts of data across increasingly complex supply chains. The challenge isn’t a lack of information, but the ability to turn that information into actionable insights by identifying risks early, understanding sustainability performance across supplier networks, and navigating ever-changing regulatory requirements with confidence. Since sustainability is increasingly tied to operational resilience and supply chain readiness, organizations need ways to gain greater visibility and make more informed decisions. In response, many are turning to AI to accelerate sustainability efforts and uncover insights that would otherwise be difficult to identify through manual processes alone.” - Shaping the boom: a response to Assistant Minister Charlton
Belinda Dennett, Data Centres Australia, 22 Jun 2026. Last week the Assistant Minister, Andrew Charlton, gave a substantial address on data centres to the Sydney Institute, and we would encourage anyone with an interest in the sector to read it in full. It is serious, carefully argued… - The officer no one can afford to lose – but everyone keeps firing
CSO Futures, 22 Jun 2026. “In January 2026, Apple quietly eliminated one of the most consequential C-suite roles in American business. Lisa Jackson – former EPA Administrator and for thirteen years Apple’s Vice President for Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives — retired. Under her watch, Apple cut its global greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60% and moved hundreds of suppliers onto clean energy. Apple did not name a replacement. It split her responsibilities between the Chief Operating Officer and an incoming General Counsel hired from Meta’s legal team.” - EU tells Big Tech to align AI data centres with climate goals or stay away
The Next Web, 18 Jun 2024. “EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen says AI companies are welcome in Europe only if they commit to the bloc’s climate goals. The warning comes as a planned data centre sustainability label is delayed over a nuclear power dispute, and only 36 per cent of data centres have reported their energy use.” - AWS data centre to use recycled water in Melbourne
SecurityBrief, 18 Jun 2026. “Greater Western Water and Amazon Web Services have agreed to supply a new AWS data centre in western Melbourne with recycled water from the Melton Recycled Water Plant. The connection is expected to be the first of its kind for a data centre in Victoria.” - Anthropic becomes first AI startup to join the Frontier carbon removal coalition
TechCrunch, 17 Jun 2026. “Anthropic is joining Frontier, the carbon removal collective, contributing to a new $915 million tranche of funding and marking its arrival as the first AI startup to join the group.”
How we can help
Pure and Applied has an aim to support sustainability leaders to set sustainability ambitions and tackle the ESG risks in the AI and DC projects of their business.
If this is you, please get in touch – we’d love to help, and we’re always happy to have a yarn.