Image Generation

Adobe Firefly Environmental Impact

Q: What is Adobe Firefly's carbon footprint?

Based on the carbon intensity of its inference location (AWS / Azure (Multi-cloud)), each Adobe Firefly query produces approximately 1g of CO2.

Q: How does Adobe Firefly compare to a Google search?

A Adobe Firefly query uses 11x more than a traditional Google search in terms of energy consumption. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Adobe Firefly uses 3.2 Wh per query.

Q: How much water does Adobe Firefly use?

Each Adobe Firefly query consumes approximately 6 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.

HeavyEstimated

Enterprise image generation integrated with Creative Cloud

Architecture: Diffusion model (proprietary)
Provider: Adobe

3.2 Wh

Energy per query

1.0 g

CO₂ per query

6 mL

Water per query

11x more than

vs Google search

Energy per query

3.2 Wh

11x more than a Google search (0.3 Wh)

CO2 per query

1.0 g

US East (Virginia) grid (450 gCO₂/kWh)

Water per query

6 mL

~167 queries to fill 1 litre

Processing location

AWS / Azure (Multi-cloud)

Provider

Adobe

How does Adobe Firefly compare?

Ranked #99 of 152 models by energy per query

View full comparison

Detailed Breakdown

Energy Consumption

Adobe Firefly is estimated at ~3.2 Wh per image generation, comparable to other commercial diffusion models. Adobe runs a hybrid cloud infrastructure. Firefly is integrated into Photoshop, Illustrator, and Express, where quick edit operations (generative fill, expand) may use less energy than full text-to-image generation.

Adobe — Firefly

Power Source & Carbon

Adobe runs on a multi-cloud setup across AWS and Azure. Adobe has committed to 100% renewable electricity for its operations by 2025 and has been carbon neutral since 2021 (via offsets).

Adobe — Environmental sustainability

Water Usage

Estimated at ~6 mL per image, based on typical data centre WUE for Adobe's cloud providers.

Adobe — Environmental sustainability

About Adobe Firefly

Adobe Firefly is a image generation model from Adobe, released in September 13, 2023. Enterprise image generation integrated with Creative Cloud. Each query uses 3.2 Wh of energy and produces 1.0 g of CO₂. That's 11x the energy of a Google search — reflecting the computational demands of image generation.

These figures are estimates derived from hardware specifications and API benchmarks — Adobe has not published official energy data for Adobe Firefly. Actual consumption may vary significantly depending on batching, quantisation, and infrastructure optimisations that we cannot observe from outside.

Adobe Firefly in Context

29.2 kWh

per year

Your yearly Adobe Firefly footprint

At 25 queries per day, your annual Adobe Firefly usage consumes 29.2 kWh — roughly what a fridge uses in a month. That produces 9.1 kg of CO₂.

11x

vs a text query

Image vs text: the energy gap

Generating one image with Adobe Firefly uses 11x more energy than a text conversation with ChatGPT. The diffusion process that creates images requires many iterative passes through the model, each refining the image from noise — far more compute per output than generating text one token at a time.

What does your Adobe Firefly usage cost the planet?

Use our calculator to estimate your personal environmental footprint based on how often you use Adobe Firefly.

Calculate My Compute

Frequently Asked Questions

How much energy does Adobe Firefly use per query?

Each Adobe Firefly query consumes approximately 3.2 Wh of energy. This is 11x more than a traditional Google search (~0.3 Wh).

What is Adobe Firefly's carbon footprint?

Based on the carbon intensity of AWS / Azure (Multi-cloud), each query produces approximately 1.0 g of CO2. The grid in this region has a carbon intensity of 450 g CO2/kWh with 25% renewable energy.

How much water does Adobe Firefly use?

Each query consumes approximately 6 mL of water, primarily used for cooling the data centers that process the request.

How does Adobe Firefly compare to a Google search?

A Adobe Firefly query uses 11x more than a Google search in terms of energy. A Google search uses approximately 0.3 Wh, while Adobe Firefly uses 3.2 Wh.