Reducing its greenhouse gas emissions has already been a high priority for the GFZ in recent years. As part of the user community of the "Albert Einstein" science park on the Telegrafenberg, the GFZ has been obtaining its electricity from renewable energy sources since 2017. Specifically, this electricity comes from a hydropower plant in Austria and meets the highest standards in terms of ecological parameters. As a result, the GFZ's carbon footprint  (in German only) has been reduced by about 3000 tons of CO₂ which means a reduction of about 50%.

However, this alone is not enough for the GFZ to become a truly climate-friendly center in the coming years, as required by the CO2 reduction targets in Germany. The goal is for the GFZ to become climate neutral by a date still under discussion in the period 2030 to 2040.

The largest shares of the GFZ's CO₂ footprint are emissions from business flights, procurement/purchasing, natural gas combustion for heating purposes, and daily workplace mobility. Sporadically, significant emissions also occur in the course of construction measures. The main ways to achieve climate neutrality are to avoid and reduce emissions, the latter for example through technical modernization. Any unavoidable base of emissions must then be offset by compensation payments.