Amazon and AWS Sustainability News, Milestones, Partnerships and Net Zero Timeline
May 8, 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.
May 2024: Sustainability News Developments
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.
January 2024: Sustainability News Developments
IT Services, AI and AWS: Capgemini and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have expanded their partnership to focus on AI. The effort will include steps to help customers address their sustainability goals, the two companies said.
Power Purchase Agreement: Amazon has signed a corporate power purchase agreement (CPPA) with ENGIE. The deal will allow Amazon to source power from an offshore wind farm in Scotland.
Solar and Wind Projects: With more than 500 solar and wind projects globally, Amazon's portfolio is now big enough to power 7.2 million U.S. homes each year, the e-commerce and cloud giant said.
United Kingdom Wind Power: Amazon is reportedly set to announce a "significant investment" in the Moray West offshore wind farm, aiming to power its entire UK operations, Energy Live News reported.
Consumer Electronics: The latest Amazon Echo devices and Fire TV Sticks tout enhanced AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities, while also emphasizing progress on sustainability.
Software Partner: AVEVA has achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) Energy Competency status. The distinction recognizes AVEVA’s expertise in "helping customers leverage AWS’ cloud technology to transform complex industrial systems and accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy future," AVEVA asserts.
Continue to page 2 of 2 for updates spanning September 2023 and earlier.
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