g MetaImpact.
Illumination Index
14/22
Lower values indicate greater alignment. Higher values indicate more gaps detected.
The Index evaluates how clearly a company’s sustainability communications align with available evidence. It does not measure the company’s overall sustainability performance or determine the company’s intent.
What The Index Examined:
Meta shows how a company can publicly report the relevant information while still making the full picture difficult to see in one place. Its sustainability reporting explains its emissions, while its financial reporting documents the scale of the infrastructure investment connected to those emissions.
The Illumination Index connects these sources so consumers can more clearly understand how Meta’s business growth relates to the climate targets it communicates publicly.
Key Finding
Pattern Identified
The information needed to understand Meta’s emissions is available, but it is spread across separate reports.
What The Pattern Means
Meta reports its emissions in its sustainability materials and its infrastructure investment in financial filings. Viewed separately, each document answers a different question. Viewed together, they show how rapidly expanding servers, data centers and network infrastructure relate to the capital-goods emissions that make up 63% of Meta’s Scope 3 footprint. The Illumination Index connects those sources so consumers can understand that relationship more easily.
Part A - Communication Pattern Analysis
7/12
Part B - Claims vs. Data Comparison
7/10
What The Illumination Index Found
Meta set a target based on its 2021 Scope 3 emissions baseline. The target is to keep Scope 3 emissions from exceeding that baseline by 2031. In 2024 mentioned in the 2025 Sustainability Report, Meta’s Scope 3 emissions were approximately 44% above the 2021 baseline. Meta’s sustainability report describes changes in these emissions as fluctuation. The Index also considers the longer-term distance between the reported emissions level and the company’s target baseline.
1
Capital goods account for most of Meta’s Scope 3 emissions
Capital goods are the physical assets a company buys or builds to operate and grow its business. For Meta, this includes items such as servers, computer equipment and data-center facilities. Capital goods account for 63% of Meta’s Scope 3 emissions. This figure appears in financial filings. It does not appear in sustainability communications or annual sustainability report.
2
The information appears in different types of reports
Meta reports that capital goods make up 63% of its Scope 3 emissions. These include servers, computer equipment and data-center infrastructure. In a separate financial filing, Meta reported about $72 billion in 2025 capital spending, including major investment in data centers and network infrastructure. The gap is that consumers have to connect these two reports themselves to see that the same infrastructure Meta is rapidly expanding is also a major source of its emissions. The Illumination Index makes that connection clear.
3
Meta invested approximately $72 billion in infrastructure.
Meta’s sustainability report identifies capital goods as a major source of Scope 3 emissions, while its financial filings separately report spending on servers, data centers and network infrastructure. Because the two reports do not directly connect these disclosures, consumers cannot easily see how Meta’s infrastructure expansion is driving its emissions.
4
Meta’s Scope 3 emissions remain above its target baseline.
Indicator Breakdown
Each indicator: 0 = not detected · 1 = partially present · 2 = clearly and systematically present. Illumination Index values are not derived from impressions . Every indicator is anchored to a specific source.
What is ESG?
ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance. It is a broad way of looking at how a company affects the environment, treats people and communities, and manages leadership, oversight and accountability.
What is the TCFD?
TCFD stands for Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. It is a framework that helps companies explain how climate-related risks and opportunities could affect their business, strategy and financial planning. TCFD helps make climate reporting easier to evaluate and compare.
References
As You Sow. (n.d.). https://www.asyousow.org/
Global Witness. (2023, February 15). Fossil fuel greenwash. https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/fossil-fuels/fossil-fuel-greenwash/
Global Witness. (2025). AI chatbots' greenwash and bothsidesism about Big Oil. https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/digital-threats/greenwashing-and-bothsidesism-in-ai-chatbot-answers-about-fossil-fuels-role-in-climate-change/
InfluenceMap. (2025). Meta Platforms: Climate policy engagement . https://lobbymap.org/company/Meta-Platforms
Meta. (2025). 2025 sustainability report. https://sustainability.atmeta.com/
Meta. (2025). Annual report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Form 10-K). U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. https://investor.fb.com/financials/sec-filings/annual-reports/default.aspx
Meta. (n.d.). Sustainability. https://sustainability.atmeta.com/
Net Zero Tracker. (n.d.). Meta Platforms [Database entry]. Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, Oxford Net Zero, NewClimate Institute, & Data-Driven EnviroLab. https://zerotracker.net
Science Based Targets initiative. (n.d.). SBTi target dashboard [Database]. https://sciencebasedtargets.org/companies-taking-action