# 3 Things Sustainability Professionals Can’t Afford to Outsource to AI.

1 Opinion May 22, 2026By Amy Skoczlas Cole

Trellis ![Amy Skoczlas Cole headshot](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/2026-05/asc_low_res_2024_1.jpg?itok=UG1gQARq)Like all knowledge workers, sustainability professionals are trying to navigate the accelerating deployment of artificial intelligence along with its ravenous appetite for energy, water and other critical inputs.

Another important question is less considered: What can we not afford to turn over to AI? Where should a human-in-the-loop become a human calling the shots? Here are three instances:

## Don’t let AI dictate your level of sustainability ambition

AI optimizes against the value model it inherits. For most companies, that model is the financials as currently structured — where carbon intensity doesn’t show up in sourcing decisions, water risk isn’t booked as a cost and supply chain fragility is invisible until it becomes a crisis.

Read the full [*Trellis* article](https://trellis.net/article/3-things-sustainability-cant-afford-outsource-ai/).
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*Amy Skoczlas Cole is a Clinical Professor of Business and Society and Director of the Center for Sustainable Business.*

## More from Amy Skoczlas Cole

- [The Sustainability Profession Has Been Given a Mulligan. Let’s Take It.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/faculty-research/opinion/sustainability-profession-has-been-given-mulligan-lets-take-it)