New Zealanders worry about AI's environmental impact

One New Zealand has published research showing that environmental and social concerns are shaping public trust in business use of artificial intelligence. The findings point to sustainability as a growing issue alongside privacy and transparency.

Its AI Trust Report 2026: Sustainability Edition found that 45% of New Zealanders are concerned about the environmental impacts of businesses using AI. Concern was higher among younger adults, reaching 63% among those aged 18 to 24.

The main environmental worries were electricity use, cited by 66% of respondents, followed by water consumption at 51%, electronic waste at 50% and carbon emissions at 44%. The results suggest more people now see AI not simply as software, but as a technology tied to physical infrastructure and resource use.

Social concerns also remained prominent. Loss of human jobs was the leading issue, named by 65% of respondents, while 62% pointed to reduced human interaction in customer service and 60% said they were worried about over-reliance on AI at the expense of human oversight.

Privacy also ranked highly, with 59% saying they were concerned about organisations using their personal information without consent.

Concern was not evenly spread across the population. Older New Zealanders and women reported higher overall levels of concern, while people more hesitant about using AI were especially worried about unauthorised use of personal data and AI's effect on employment.

Nicky Preston, Head of Corporate Affairs & Sustainability at One New Zealand, said the findings reflected a broader shift in public expectations around the technology.

"The conversation around AI has largely focused on productivity and innovation to date. But this research shows New Zealanders are starting to consider a broader question: not just what AI can do, but how responsibly it is being powered, governed and deployed. Trust has always been fundamental to technology adoption, and sustainability considerations are part of the trust equation. Businesses that want to scale AI successfully will increasingly need to demonstrate they are thinking carefully about the environmental and social impacts alongside the opportunities. It's evident this is becoming part of the conversation in Australia with their government's recent announcement - and in New Zealand we also need to consider the longer-term implications of growing AI adoption and related infrastructure, both in terms of risks and opportunities," Preston said.

Operational pressure

The report suggests public expectations are moving beyond general principles towards practical measures. Among respondents concerned about AI's environmental impact, the most important actions businesses could take were using renewable energy, cited by 35%, reducing energy use at 32%, and being transparent about environmental impacts at 28%.

Other measures included clearly explaining why AI is being used, selected by 21% of respondents, and carrying out independent audits, chosen by 19%. Those responses indicate that trust is tied not only to what companies say about AI, but also to how they run systems, choose suppliers and account for environmental costs.

The report forms part of One New Zealand's broader work on responsible AI and public attitudes to the technology. It says it has built sustainability into its AI governance framework, introduced mandatory responsible AI training for employees and worked with technology partners to reduce the environmental footprint of some AI workloads.

One example was the relocation of Salesforce Agentforce workloads from the United States to Sweden, which the company said led to an estimated 83% reduction in AI-related carbon emissions. That measure was presented alongside internal staff training focused on responsible AI.

The report also suggests sustainability may become a more prominent factor in business decisions as AI use spreads across customer service, internal operations and consumer products. While privacy and transparency have dominated much of the public debate around AI, the findings indicate that resource use and infrastructure impact are moving closer to the centre of that discussion.

That shift could have implications for companies adopting AI at scale. Businesses may face pressure not just to justify the purpose of AI tools, but also to show how those tools are managed, what energy sources support them and what trade-offs they create.

The national survey covered 1,001 New Zealanders. Its results suggest that for many consumers, trust in AI is no longer defined only by data handling and technical oversight, but also by whether organisations can show practical steps to address environmental and social impacts.

"The next phase of AI trust will be operational. Customers and employees increasingly want evidence that organisations are managing AI responsibly through governance, infrastructure choices, supplier decisions and thoughtful deployment," Preston said.