Canada’s push to build data centres is renewing questions about environmental accountability, as a recent survey from CPA Canada suggests six in 10 CPAs believe AI companies should be required to disclose their environmental impact.
Budget 2026 says Canada is expanding AI compute capacity with plans to build more than 200 data-centre projects.
“These projects will require enormous amounts of power, putting new demands on the power grid,” says CPA Canada director Peter Swift. “There’s also water use, carbon emissions and Canada’s climate commitments to consider as COP31 gets underway.”
“There’s a balance to strike between moving these major projects forward and ensuring their environmental impacts are properly understood.”
But with sustainability disclosure still voluntary, Swift notes that getting consistent, comparable information remains a challenge.
“If we’re going to move faster on homegrown AI, there’s a strong case for revisiting mandatory sustainability disclosure and the role it can play, not only in protecting the environment but in giving businesses, investors and policymakers better information to make decisions,” Swift says.
CPA Canada’s AI in Accounting Study found 60 per cent of CPAs favour required environmental disclosure for organizations that develop or provide AI, compared with 18 per cent who favour voluntary disclosure.
“The findings point to an appetite for greater transparency,” says Swift. “If we’re serious about balancing innovation with our climate commitments, we need to understand its environmental cost. CPAs can help measure and report those impacts consistently, while sustainability disclosure standards provide a common framework to do so.”
Methodology
CPA Canada conducted the AI in Accounting Study between Aug. 17 and Sept. 7, 2026, through an online survey of 5,000 Canadian CPAs.
