After two years of decreasing its total carbon footprint, Amazon now stories that its emissions elevated in 2024. The corporate’s surge in knowledge middle development and electrical energy use to help an elevated use of AI helped gas that rise, as did expanded supply operations.
Amazon’s complete carbon emissions in 2024 reached 68.25 million metric tons, in line with the corporate’s newest sustainability report. That’s a 6% enhance from the yr prior—and a 33% enhance from 2019, when the corporate launched its Local weather Pledge dedication to succeed in net-zero emissions throughout its operations by 2040.
Amazon breaks down its carbon footprint into direct emissions, oblique emissions from bought electrical energy, and oblique emissions from different sources. All three of those classes noticed a rise in 2024. Direct emissions, primarily from its supply providers, grew 6% in comparison with 2023; the corporate cites provide constraints for EVs and low-carbon fuels. Direct emissions in complete account for 15.13 million metric tons of carbon.
Oblique emissions from bought vitality grew 1%, “partly as a result of greater electrical energy utilization required to help superior applied sciences” like AI, in line with the report. These emissions account for the smallest slice of Amazon’s total footprint at 2.8 million metric tons.
Oblique emissions from different sources additionally grew 6%, and these emissions make up 74% of Amazon’s complete carbon footprint. That enhance was pushed “primarily from knowledge middle development and gas consumption by third-party supply service suppliers,” per the report, which states that the corporate is utilizing generative AI in “just about each nook” of its enterprise.
Amazon says it’s persevering with to work towards its 2040 net-zero aim, and that its progress “is not going to be linear.” It additionally claims it continues to “match 100%” of its electrical energy consumed in knowledge middle areas with renewable vitality sources.
However Amazon Staff for Local weather Justice, a corporation of employees on the tech big pushing for extra local weather motion, argues the numbers are deceptive. The group says that in areas of the U.S. which might be dwelling to greater than 70% of Amazon knowledge facilities, electrical energy comes primarily from fuel or coal. Utility corporations are additionally constructing out new fossil gas infrastructure to help these knowledge facilities.
To “match” its electrical energy consumption with renewables, Amazon makes use of principally renewable vitality credit—which have confronted criticisms of greenwashing. In some circumstances, Amazon Staff for Local weather Justice says, “the corporate has merely bought the ‘credit score’ for current renewables, which might have been used anyway.” Bloomberg reported that if these credit weren’t counted, Amazon’s 2022 emissions would have really been thrice greater than what the corporate disclosed.
Amazon isn’t the one tech firm constructing out knowledge facilities to help AI. A Meta knowledge middle in Louisiana would require three new fuel crops for energy. Google’s 2023 emissions grew 13% in comparison with the yr prior due to AI and knowledge middle development. Microsoft’s emissions are up 23% since 2020 for a similar purpose. However Enterprise Insider just lately reported that Amazon’s knowledge facilities “are on tempo to command the best electrical energy demand” from all of the tech corporations it examined.
“I’m pissed off that no one talks about what AI is doing to the atmosphere,” an Amazon software program engineer mentioned in a press release from Amazon Staff for Local weather Justice. “They need individuals to assume that AI is that this magical software that lives within the cloud, however what they don’t inform us is that AI actually makes use of coal and fracked fuel for its energy. Our CEOs need to dupe us into specializing in how environment friendly shiny new AI options are, as if we don’t know we’ll be killing the planet with the few hours we’re saving on code. And in a yr, I won’t also have a job.”
