Amazon and AWS Sustainability News, Milestones, Partnerships and Net Zero Timeline
December 10, 2024 by Joe Panettieri
Amazon ($AMZN) expects to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across its business by 2040. Moreover, Amazon is marching toward powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of its original 2030 target, the company said in January 2023.
In terms of seeing and maintaining a companywide sustainability focus, the name to know is Kara Hurst (pictured above), VP of worldwide sustainability at Amazon. Hurst communicates regularly about the company's march toward net-zero carbon emissions.
Meanwhile, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) business now promotes dozens of Partner Sustainability Solutions to help customers "build towards net-zero carbon, mitigate climate risk, and drive business growth," the cloud giant assets. And the AWS Clean Energy Accelerator aligns energy organizations to work with startups on "solving their clean energy and decarbonization challenges."
Challenges: Still, the e-commerce company and its cloud business also face heavy scrutiny on multiple sustainability fronts.
For instance, some employees are pushing the company to commit to net-zero carbon emissions by 2030 -- the date that cloud rival Microsoft is targeting. In some ways, the comparison vs. Microsoft is not fair. After all, most of Microsoft's business now involves subscription-based, cloud-delivered software. In stark contrast, Amazon's business depends heavily on global distribution and transportation supply chains -- planes, trains and automobiles that offer rapid delivery of physical products to millions of customers worldwide.
The timeline below, update regularly, further explains Amazon's sustainability strategy, key milestones, customer engagements, partner integrations and more. Check back regularly for updates.
Partnership - Cloud Operations: Cloudera and AWS are partnering to deliver "cost efficient and sustainable infrastructure for AI and analytics," the two companies said.
Conference: At the AWS re:Invent 2024 conference, dozens of guest speakers (and roughly 25 content sessions will focus on sustainability, energy efficiency, carbon reduction and net-zero business strategies.
November 2024: Sustainability News Developments
Employee Survey: Most Amazon corporate workers are worried that senior leadership is misleading the public about Amazon's climate impact, according to an independent survey spanning 800 Amazon workers.
Quantum Computing: Amazon has launched Quantum Embark, an advisory program that "aims to help customers get ready for quantum computing by providing an expert-led approach, as they embark on their journey." Rivals such as IBM already offer some quantum cloud services to selected customers and researchers. The IBM quantum effort includes. sustainability working group -- which is researching new methods to help "store and deliver energy more efficiently, improve our power systems, and tackle climate change overall."
Cloud Services - Building Energy Management: In an expansive blog, Amazon executives explain how how organizations can "use Amazon Web Services (AWS) services to optimize energy consumption in their buildings."
Partnership - Supply Chain Management:Amazon.com and IKEA, in alliance with about three dozen other companies that depend on ocean freight, will invite shipping firms for the first time to bid on a contract in January 2025 to move their cargo on vessels powered by near-zero emissions e-fuels like e-methanol, Reuters reported.
Nuclear Commitment: Amazon.com will continue to back a deal for an AWS data center in Pennsylvania powered by Talen Energy's nuclear power plant, despite regulatory pushback, SeekingAlpha reported.
Nuclear Deal Expansion - Rejected: The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rejected an expanded Amazon-Talen Energy nuclear power agreement. FERC members said the deal could raise power bills for the public and affect the grid's reliability, SeekingAlpha reported. Talen Energy is "exploring other solutions" to move forward. The news pressured multiple nuclear energy stocks -- which had benefitted in recent months from various data center partnership news. Related: Nuclear power for data centers.
October 2024: Sustainability News Developments
Amazon - Nuclear Power: Amazon has signed a nuclear power agreement with Energy Northwest. The deal, focused on the state of Washington, will enable the development of four SMRs (small modular reactors), the company said.
Partnership - GreenOps Cloud Services:Xebia has signed a five-year Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Together, the two companies plan to serve customers in the Netherlands, UK, Middle East, the United States and central Europe. Key services include migration and application modernization; GreenOps; FinOps; machine learning and generative AI; and digital sovereignty.
Recycling - Cloud and Data Center Infrastructure: Amazon Web Services is opening a reverse logistics facility in Dublin, Ireland. An Amazon subsidiary -- known as Re:Cycle Reverse Logistics -- operates the facility.
September 2024: Sustainability News Developments
Help Wanted - Nuclear Power Expertise: Amazon is seeking to hire a principal nuclear engineer who can has experience in "end-to-end nuclear power project development process from design, regulatory licensing, site permitting, constructability and operations," the company said. The Amazon Web Services hire will be expected to "influence key external partners such as OEMs and developers to design operationally efficient and safe modular nuclear plants" that can deliver "carbon free capacity" to AWS data centers.
Net Zero Debate: Amazon has pushed back against greenwashing allegations, The Loadstar report. An investigation that questions Amazon's green commitment -- conducted by Stand.Earth Research Group, Ship It Zero and Pacific Environment -- was based on “inaccurate data”, Amazon told Loadstar.
Partnership - Cloud Services and IT Consulting: Global IT consulting firm Accenture and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are helping customers to gather and manage their ESG data. The partnership involves AWS Sustainability Data Fabric (SDF), a framework that "enables faster and more accurate sustainability insights," the two companies assert.
Data Centers and Renewable Energy Concerns: Tech giants Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta say they buy enough wind, solar or geothermal power every time a big data center comes online to cancel out its emissions, The Washington Post reports. But critics see a shell game with these contracts: The companies are operating off the same power grid as everyone else, while claiming for themselves much of the finite amount of green energy, the Post asserted. Utilities are then backfilling those purchases with fossil fuel expansions, regulatory filings show, the report claimed.
Amazon - AI Robotics Strategy: Amazon is hiring Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, and Rocky Duan and licensing Covariant’s robotic foundation models to "advance the state-of-the-art in intelligent and safe robots," Amazon said. The combination talent hire and licensing deal is an increasingly popular strategy that allows big tech companies to avoid M&A scrutiny from the U.S. government.
Jeff Bezos Investments - Climate Standards Concerns: Ties between Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' $10B charitable group and organizations that set corporate climate standards are raising concerns of potential influence in setting these norms, the Financial Times reported and SeekingAlpha recapped.
GenAI Data Centers and Carbon Footprints: Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are concealing their actual carbon footprints, buying credits tied to electricity use that inaccurately erase millions of tons of planet-warming emissions from their carbon accounts, a Bloomberg Green analysis alleges.
AI Cloud Services & Clean Energy: Iberdrola, one of the world’s largest clean energy companies, has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider for generative artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. Iberdrola will use Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker, to develop GenAI applications that "drive efficiency, personalize customer-facing interactions, and improve energy production processes," the companies said.
July 2024: Sustainability News Developments
Solar Farms: Amazon is leveraging Maximo -- an AI-powered robot developed by energy company AES -- to accelerate solar farm installation times.
AWS - New Chip: Amazon has introduced the Graviton4 chip for AWS. Among the benefits, according to Amazon: Graviton4 offers four times the performance of Graviton1. Graviton3 uses 60% less energy for the same performance as comparable Amazon EC2 instances (where the compute happens in a data center), and Graviton4 is even more energy efficient, the company said -- though a specific percentage improvement was not disclosed.
Information Sharing: Amazon has launched the Sustainability Exchange, which provides "shared guidance and information that helped Amazon decarbonize its operations." At launch, the Amazon Sustainability Exchange focus on seven areas: Buildings, Carbon Neutralization, Carbon-Free Energy, Human Rights, Transportation, Waste and Circularity, and Water Stewardship, the company said.
Carbon Emissions: In Amazon's 2023 sustainability report, the company says its carbon emissions fell for a second straight year. How? After aggressive expansion during the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon cut spending on new warehouses and cloud-computing data centers, Bloomberg reported. The results are in stark contrast to Microsoft and Google, which saw carbon emissions skyrocket in 2023 amid AI data center rollouts.
May 2024: Sustainability News Developments
Accelerator: The latest Amazon Sustainability Accelerator includes 15 startups from across Europe. The startups focus on such areas circular economy, energy in buildings and packaging. The four-week program is "designed to help start-ups navigate the challenges of scaling a sustainability business." Participants will "meet and work with experts in Amazon’s Sustainability, Climate Pledge Fund and Climate Pledge Friendly teams, attend workshops, receive mentorship and £10,000 worth of AWS Activate Credits." And new this year, startups can "can pitch for the chance to pilot their technology with Amazon, with a potential investment of between £50,000 - £2 million," Amazon said. Related: Special thanks to HT Materials Science (HTMS) -- a startup in the accelerator -- for sending us the news.
Shareholder Vote: Amazon.com investors voted against all 14 resolutions that asked the retailer to disclose more about its carbon emissions and its directors' donations, and to form a committee to oversee artificial-intelligence development, among other issues, Reuters reported.
AI Chips - Nvidia Partnership: Amazon will transition from Nvidia Grace Hopper chips to Nvidia Blackwell chips for project Ceiba, a supercomputer that AWS and Nvidia are building together, Reuters reported.
Electric Vehicles (EVs) - Cargo Trucks: Amazon.com unveiled the first of a dozen Volvo electric big rigs it plans to deploy this year to pick up cargo from the nation's busiest container seaport in Southern California, Reuters reported.
Partnership: IBM's software portfolio -- spanning AI, security, sustainability and more -- is now available in the AWS Marketplace across 92 countries. The latest additions include Finland, Norway and Sweden.
Data Management: AWS has released Data Analytics Lens, a "collection of customer-proven design principles, best practices, and prescriptive guidance to help you adopt a cloud-centered approach to running analytics on AWS." The lens includes a focus on sustainability. Key topics include benchmarking, trading data accuracy for carbon, encouraging a data minimization culture, implementing data retention processes, optimizing data modeling, preventing unnecessary data movement, and efficiently managing analytics infrastructure, AWS said.
Wind Farms: By performing large scale simulations on HPC clusters in the cloud, built using Amazon EC2 P4d instances and powered by Nvidia A100 GPUs, customers can "get a better understanding of how wind energy affects our atmosphere and the environment as a whole," according to AWS and Whiffle.
Cloud Services - Saudi Arabia: AWS will launch an AWS infrastructure Region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2026. AWS plans to invest more than $5.3 billion (approx. 19.88 billion Saudi riyal) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. AWS emphasized sustainability in the announcement, but we don't know if the Saudi Arabia infrastructure will leverage renewable energy at launch.
Amazon Server Lifespan:Amazon is increasing the "useful life" of servers from 5 years to 6 years beginning in January 2024. The move will improve operating income by approximately $900 million in Q1, CFO Brian Olsavsky said.
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