Sustainable IT Services News 10 December 2025: AI Energy Consumption Scores; Jeff Bezos Funds Startup; More

Here is today's sustainable IT services news, research and analysis for channel partners, MSPs, climate accounting professionals, consultants and the chief sustainability officers (CSOs) they serve.

A. Sustainable IT Partnerships, Strategic Alliances and Strategies

1. Partner of the Year: Omdia (formerly Canalys) has named ICT Zone Asia Bhd, a technology financing firm in Malaysia, as the Sustainability Partner of the Year for 2025.

2. Research - AI Reasoning and Energy Consumption: AI reasoning models used 30 times more power on average to respond to 1,000 written prompts than alternatives without this reasoning capability or which had it disabled, Bloomberg reported. The research -- involving the AI Energy Score project -- was led by Hugging Face research scientist Sasha Luccioni and Salesforce head of AI sustainability Boris Gamazaychikov, the report noted.

3. Research - Climate Data Errors?: A study on the impacts of climate change on the global economy has been retracted due to "substantial" issues, according to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Bloomberg reported. Related: List of sustainability research reports.

4. AWS - AI Chip Energy Efficiency: Amazon's new Graviton5 delivers up to 25% better compute performance than the previous generation while "maintaining leading energy efficiency, enabling you to run applications faster, reduce costs, and meet sustainability goals," AWS asserted. Related: Amazon sustainability strategy and channel partner implications

5. Partnership - Data Center Energy Management: Hanwha and Microsoft are partnering to "set new standards in data center energy management," the two companies said. Related: Microsoft sustainability strategy and channel partner implications

6. Partnership - Power Purchase Agreement: Facebook parent Meta Platforms has signed 11 power purchase agreements (PPAs) and two energy storage agreements with NextEra Energy Resources. The overall engagement involves 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy, the companies said.

7. Executive Leadership - IT Services and AI: NTT DATA has hired Bratin Saha as CEO of the newly formed AI Company, NTT DATA AIVista. Saha previously held executive positions at DigitalOcean, Nvidia and AWS. Related: NTT Data sustainable IT services strategy.

8. Executive Leadership - CSP: M&G plc has hired Marian D’Auria to succeed Kathy Ryan as CSO. D’Auria reports to Group Director of Corporate Affairs Louise Shield.

9. Executive Leadership - Professional Services: EY has named Alexis Gazzo as global climate change and sustainability services (CCaSS) Leader. Gazzo essentially succeeds Matthew Bell, who departed to lead Anthesis as group CEO.

10. Executive Leadership - Government: The city and county of Honolulu, Hawaii has promoted Kealoha Fox from deputy director to executive director and chief resilience officer for the Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency (CCSR).

11. Executive Leadership - Financial Services and Education: The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), the world’s largest educator-only pension fund, has named Nick Abel as sustainable investment and stewardship strategies investment director. Related: List of sustainability executive moves in December 2025.

12. Real Estate - Clean Energy Microgrid: The new Manchester Public Library in Connecticut will leverage a clean energy microgrid from Eaton. Scheduled for completion in 2026, the project aims to achieve zero net energy (ZNE) ready status, Eaton said.

13. Real Estate - Climate Risk Data Challenges: When Zillow removed climate risk scores from its home listings in November 2025, following a complaint from the real estate industry, many observers took to the press and social media to warn that disappearing the data doesn’t eliminate the risk, Bloomberg reported.

14. AI Lawsuit - New York Times vs. Perplexity: The New York Times filed a lawsuit against Perplexity for copyright infringement. The Times accuses Perplexity of illegally crawling its material and using its original journalistic reporting without permission or compensation. (Source: AI Business)

15. AI Lawsuit - Anthropic Settlement Update: Attorneys for authors and publishers asked the court for $300 million in legal fees, or roughly 20% of the $1.5 billion settlement fund. (Source: JD Journal) Related: Timeline of generative AI lawsuits, judgments and court rulings.

B. Sustainable IT Investments, Funding, Earnings and Business Launches

1. M&A - EV Charging Management Software: Nayax has acquired EV charging platform provider Lynkwell for US$25.9 million plus a potential earnout based on certain profitability metrics within the first 12 months post-closing. The deal "unites payment acceptance with advanced operational management software across the verticals it serves. In EV charging," Nayax said.

2. Seeking Acquisitions: Energy Impact Partners, an investment firm that recently closed a new fund of nearly $1.4 billion, is looking to acquire struggling energy transition companies, Bloomberg reported.

3. Startup - AI Chip Energy Efficiency: Unconventional AI, a startup backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Andreessen Horowitz, wants to build energy efficient AI chips inspired by nature, The Register reported.

4. Green Bay Sustainable Business Accelerator: The accelerator, launched in December 2025, is "designed to help small and mid-sized businesses in Green Bay, Wisconsin, strengthen their sustainability practices and contribute to community resilience." Daybreak Fund provided a grant for the accelerator's launch.

5. National Climate Tech Accelerator (NCTA): Barclays and Sustainable Ventures launched in December 2025 launched NCTA, which is "designed to rapidly scale high-potential climate tech startups across the UK." Related: List of sustainability accelerators.

C. Regional and Global Sustainability Policies, Regulations and News

1. United States - Environmental Groups vs. Data Centers: More than 200 environmental organizations signed a letter to Congress supporting a national moratorium on the approval and construction of new data centers, Inside Climate News reported.

2. European Union: The European Union will strive to reduce greenhouse gases by 90% through 2040 compared with 1990 levels, a target that seeks to keep the EU on track to reach net zero by 2050, Bloomberg reported.

3. Africa: Microsoft and African Development Bank (AfDB) partnered to launch a pan-African blended finance facility aimed at "empowering agriculture-focused small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with digital tools and capital," IT News Africa reported.

D. Sustainability Conferences, Summits and Events

1. CES 2026 (January 6-9, Las Vegas)
2. World Future Energy Summit 2026 (January 13-15, UAE)
3. Sustainable and Impact Investments International Conference (January 22-23, Hamburg, Germany)
4. IMPACT Sustainability Travel and Tourism Summit 2026 (Victoria, BC, Canada)
5. Complete Sustainability Conference Calendar

E. Previous Updates & Future News

1. Previous News: All of our daily news updates are here.
2. Future Updates: If you have news to share then please email me the details.