Meta has withdrawn from RE100, a global initiative whose member companies commit to using 100% renewable energy. The reason: Meta has been investing in new natural gas power plants, and those investments violate the program's rules. The departure was first reported by Recharge and confirmed by Climate Group, the UK nonprofit that runs RE100. Climate Group told Recharge that Meta "is no longer able to meet the technical criteria due to investments made in new gas power." (Engadget)

Meta joined RE100 in 2016, promising to source 100% renewable energy by 2020. The company had previously reported cutting its operational emissions by 94% compared to a 2017 baseline, mainly by powering its data centers and offices with renewable energy. Roughly half of that renewable energy came through utility partnerships covering facilities in Virginia, Oregon, and Utah. Meta also launched the Clean Energy Procurement Academy (CEPA) to help other organizations buy more clean energy.

The withdrawal follows a major shift in Meta's energy strategy. Earlier in 2025, Meta announced it would fund seven new natural gas plants to power its data centers. Since last year, the company has committed to 10 natural gas plant projects in total. According to TechCrunch, those 10 plants will produce enough energy to power the entire state of South Dakota.

Meta has also explored other clean energy sources that are not solar or wind. Last year the company signed a deal with Sage Geosystems for 150 megawatts of geothermal power — energy generated from heat deep underground — for its data center operations. This is part of an effort to find clean energy that can run around the clock, which is what AI systems need when they are training or answering user requests.

Meta told TechCrunch it remains committed to "100% clean and renewable energy" and described leaving RE100 as a "mutual" decision. The company's public sustainability materials still reference net-zero ambitions and clean energy programs.

RE100 has more than 400 member organizations, including Microsoft, Google, and Apple — Meta's closest competitors in the large-scale data center space, all of which remain in the initiative. The program requires members to meet specific rules around renewable energy sourcing. Climate Group's statement makes clear that Meta's gas investments put it outside those rules, rather than the company simply choosing to leave.

The reason behind this shift comes down to how AI uses electricity. AI training and the systems that respond to user queries run constantly, drawing large amounts of power around the clock. That is different from how people use the internet for things like browsing or streaming, which rises and falls throughout the day. Renewable energy through solar and wind depends on the weather, so companies like Meta have been buying renewable energy in amounts that match their yearly use overall. But that approach does not guarantee that the power flowing into a data center at 2 a.m. actually comes from a renewable source. It only requires that, over a full year, the company's renewable energy purchases match or exceed what it consumed.

Ten natural gas plants change that picture. Gas-fired power can be turned on whenever it is needed and runs regardless of weather — which is exactly why Meta is turning to it. But natural gas is a fossil fuel, and the scale of Meta's commitments, enough to power South Dakota, means the company's energy mix is shifting in a real way, not just adding a small backup.

In my view, the most telling detail is not that Meta left RE100. It is that Climate Group described the departure as a consequence of breaking the program's rules, while Meta called it "mutual." Those are two different ways of describing the same event, and the gap between them is where the story lives. Meta is not giving up on clean energy as a stated goal. It is building the kind of infrastructure that makes that goal harder to keep on the terms it previously accepted.

The large-scale data center industry has gone through energy phases before. The cloud computing boom of the 2010s drove massive purchases of renewable energy and made corporate clean energy buying a real market force. The AI boom is driving something different: demand so high and so constant that even companies with large renewable energy portfolios are turning to fossil fuel generation. Meta's geothermal deal suggests the company is not uninterested in clean energy that runs around the clock. But 150 megawatts of geothermal is a small fraction of what 10 gas plants will deliver.

What remains is a company simultaneously funding a clean energy academy, maintaining public net-zero commitments, and building fossil fuel generation at a scale that got it removed from the world's most prominent corporate renewable energy initiative. Whether those things can be reconciled over time, or whether AI-driven demand has permanently changed how large tech companies buy energy, is the question the rest of the industry will now be weighing.