We regularly bring together people from across the impact space, including investors, B Corps, social enterprises, foundations and ecosystem support organisations, to discuss key themes of purpose-beyond-profit. At a recent roundtable, we explored how purpose-driven businesses can understand the risks and impacts of AI, and how in-house legal teams can develop strategies to support responsible and ethical AI use.

Climate impacts

For purpose-driven organisations, a key consideration during the assessment process for adopting new products is environmental impact.

The climate impacts of AI technologies are already well documented: AI data centres, which currently account for 2.5% of the UK’s electricity consumption, require great volumes of water to cool, with some reports estimating that 4.2-6.6 billion cubic meters of water withdrawal will be accounted for by global AI training and use in 2027. The expansion of these data centres also necessitates the mining and processing of vast amounts of minerals and metals which in turn leads to emissions generated, deforestation, soil contamination, biodiversity loss and groundwater depletion.

While purpose-driven organisations should not avoid adopting AI technology altogether, businesses have the influence, and the responsibility, to limit AI’s negative impact on society.  During our roundtable, participants suggested that purpose-driven businesses could apply “Standards of Efficient AI Usage”, to bring AI use in step with their values. These standards included:

  • using ‘prompt libraries’, to ensure tools provide specific results, preventing the need for repeat searches;
  • working with AI suppliers to incorporate sustainability clauses into contracts; and
  • ensuring that all key documents are AI-readable to prevent duplication of processing throughout workstreams.

Purpose-driven businesses can also be at the forefront of initiatives that seek to push the technology industry towards sustainability, such as writing white paper recommendations for AI-specific legislation or contributing to consultations on AI.

More broadly, businesses can look to simple solutions to mitigate the impact of their AI usage on the environment. For example, by researching a variety of AI providers, businesses can decide which system is most suitable for their use-cases; for simple tasks such as summarising small amounts of text, using a lighter model would deliver results more efficiently, and providing training to staff would ensure appropriate use. Choosing providers with clear renewable energy commitments and green policies is also an indirect way for businesses to reduce their AI-related carbon footprint.

Social impacts

Another key consideration for purpose-driven organisations is that AI tools do not discriminate against vulnerable groups.

Purpose-driven businesses should be aware of the risks under the Equality Act 2010 of using AI tools which have been trained on biased historical datasets, as they can skew hiring, lending and marketing policies, and exacerbate existing inequalities. For example, this 2024 study showed that AI would discriminate against people with disabilities when their CVs were compared with the CVs of those without disabilities. It is crucial that guardrails are put in place and that discretion is applied when using AI for human resourcing.

While AI has great potential as an accessibility aid, businesses should be conscious that not all AI tools have fully integrated accessibility features, and that adopting and training employees on these features should be as high a priority for businesses as organisation-wide implementation.  Consulting disabled employees during the adoption process, aligning policies with legal and regulatory requirements, and ensuring human oversight of tools are all ways that purpose-driven businesses can ensure their adoption of AI tools does not have a discriminatory social impact.

The topic of AI adoption continues to dominate conversation, and we’re keen to help our clients take social and environmental impact into account as part of their processes for assessing and contracting for AI products and services. If you’d like to know more about the work we’re doing in this area, please get in touch.

The material in this article is provided for guidance and general information only and is not intended to constitute legal or other professional advice upon which you should rely. In particular, the information should not be used as a substitute for a full and proper consultation with a suitably qualified professional. Please do contact the Bates Wells team if you require advice.