After two years of modest declines, Amazon reported today that its carbon footprint grew by 6% last year.
The global cloud and online retail giant hit 68.25 million metric tons of carbon emissions — for comparison, that’s about two-thirds of the annual amount emitted by entire state of Washington.
The increase mirrors the challenges being faced by fellow cloud giants Microsoft and Google, which are all deploying more electricity-hungry data centers to try and keep up with the expanding use of artificial intelligence.
But also like its tech rivals, Amazon has set climate targets whose deadlines keep creeping closer. The Seattle-area company aims to hit net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
“As we harness generative AI’s potential and our AI business continues to grow rapidly, we are investing in the infrastructure that we’ll need to make AI innovation possible. We’re also tackling one of its greatest challenges head on, rising energy demand,” said Kara Hurst, Amazon’s chief sustainability officer, in the forward to the company’s annual sustainability report.
In addition to AI’s climate impacts, the company is addressing emissions related to its massive online sales and deliveries through Amazon.com; its film and TV production units Amazon Studios and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM); Whole Foods; the manufacturing and use of Amazon electronics; and other businesses.
While Amazon’s carbon emissions increased in 2024, the company emphasizes a more hopeful trend by looking at its “carbon intensity.” This measurement tallies greenhouse gas emissions relative to business operations. By that metric, Amazon’s carbon intensity declined 4% as the business grew significantly.
Over the years, critics of Amazon’s sustainability efforts have dinged the company for not including emissions from merchants on its retail platform. They also note that while its energy use is matched on paper by the purchase of clean power, its actual operations tap into dirty supplies.
Other highlights from the report:
- 76 new signatories joined the Climate Pledge, an international effort led by Amazon to get companies working towards zero carbon emissions. The effort has 549 participants.
- Amazon has more than 31,400 electric delivery vans in its fleet and is working towards 100,000 by the end of this decade.
- The company matches 100% of its electricity use with clean power sources, a target that it hit in 2023 and has sustained.
- Amazon Web Services is 53% of its way toward the goal of being water positive by 2030, which means returning more water to communities than it uses. Traditional data centers gulp water to keep their electronics cool.
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