Eco-translation practice in resisting AI’s ecological harms: Towards a preliminary action framework

The significant ecological costs of AI – increasingly intertwined with modern translation practices – are now an often-acknowledged yet still under-examined issue in the field. AI’s rapid expansion seemingly negates the marginal improvements to these technologies’ resource efficiency (Bhardwaj et al., 2025, Luccioni, Strubell, and Crawford, 2025). Big Tech firms wield tremendous power in driving and profiting from this expansion, thereby compounding AI’s environmental impacts. As illustrated by Piñeiro (2022; 2026), translation is vital for challenging such global extractivist regimes. Following this example, this article devises a preliminary action framework for eco-translation practice in defiance of AI’s environmental harms.

First, the article outlines AI’s multifaceted and far-reaching environmental impacts. Subsequently, it explores several narrative framings of the issue, evaluating each as a basis for eco-translation practice in this area. Then, the article maps eco-social relations along AI’s global production chain, applying Princen et al.’s (2002) concept of distancing to demonstrate how accountability is diluted and inhibited. Finally, it proposes concrete actions for reducing distancing along this chain. To this end, the article differentiates between translators’ potential for vocational resistance and structural resistance to resist AI’s environmental harms both within and beyond the translation profession.