NFTs Are Shaking Up the Art World. They May Be Warming the Planet, Too.

Making the digital artworks requires colossal amounts of computing power, and that means greenhouse gases.

By Hiroko Tabuchi

When Chris Precht, an Austrian architect and artist, first learned about nonfungible tokens, the digital collectibles taking the art world by storm, he was so enthralled, he said, he “felt like a little kid again.”

So Mr. Precht, who is known for his work on ecological architecture, was devastated to learn that the artworks, known as NFTs, have an environmental footprint as mind-boggling as the gold-rush frenzy they’ve whipped up.

“The numbers are just crushing,” he said from his studio in Pfarrwerfen, Austria, announcing that he was canceling his plans, one of a growing number of artists who are swearing off NFTs, despite the sky-high sums some have fetched at auctions. “As much as it hurts financially and mentally, I can’t.”

Financially, for sure. Last month, a montage of art that had been turned into an NFT by the digital artist known as Beeple sold for more than $69 million at a Christie’s online auction. (Also last month, an NFT created from a New York Times technology column sold for more than $500,000, with the proceeds going to the Neediest Cases Fund, a Times-affiliated charity.)

But, by Mr. Precht’s own calculations, creating the 300 items of digital art that he had planned to sell, 100 each of three art pieces, would have burned through the same amount of electricity that an average European would otherwise use in two decades, he said in an Instagram video late last month.