Environmental impact

AI-related objective: The environmental footprint of developing and operating the AI system, including energy and resource use, is understood and managed. Used when establishing risk criteria (6.3.4), identifying consequences (6.4.2.6) and evaluating risk (6.4.4). The artefact behind the answer is assessment of the AI system's energy and resource use. Read environmental impact against the objective the use threatens most.

What it asks

AI-related objective: The environmental footprint of developing and operating the AI system, including energy and resource use, is understood and managed. Used when establishing risk criteria (6.3.4), identifying consequences (6.4.2.6) and evaluating risk (6.4.4).

Where generative AI changes the answer

The environmental cost of generative inference is a real objective in the risk set, and it is the one most often left out of an AI risk register.

Reading it in practice

Environmental impact is the objective most often missing from an AI risk register, and generative inference makes it material. The evidence is an estimate of the compute and energy the use consumes at its expected volume, with the basis stated. The estimate can be rough. An absent estimate is the finding, because it means the objective was never considered.

Who it binds

The AI risk owner, with the objective owner named in the risk treatment plan. For A.5 the named role is the owner of assessment of the AI system's energy and resource use.

Evidence an auditor normally samples

• Assessment of the AI system's energy and resource use

The test you can run

Take assessment of the AI system's energy and resource use and trace it to the decision it supported; if the trail stops before a named person, the control is not evidenced.

Common failures

• Compute cost tracked in money and never in environmental terms

Before the draft publishes

For A.5, pick the two objectives the use most affects, write the test you would apply, and record the result before the draft is published. The first artefact to produce is assessment of the AI system's energy and resource use.

Where this sits against the draft

A.5 carries the annex a: ai-related objectives part of the draft's published scope, which names risk sources, the stakeholders exposed to them, risk analysis, risk treatment and controls. When the draft publishes, compare its wording on A.5 (environmental impact) with this record and note the change in the register.