Asia Tech Wire (Aug 22) -- A Bloomberg analysis has found that Amazon, Microsoft and Meta Platforms are hiding their actual carbon footprints.

The U.S. tech giants are buying a type of credit called unbundled renewable energy certificates (RECs), which make consuming power from coal-fired power plants look like it's coming from solar power plants.

They rely on several unbundled RECs to claim emissions reductions each year in their voluntary disclosures to CDP, a nonprofit organization that operates a global environmental reporting system.

Current carbon accounting rules allow the use of these credits to calculate a company's carbon footprint.

However, work done by many scholars suggests that accounting standards need to evolve in order to accurately reflect greenhouse-gas emissions.