AWS sustainability strategy for AI data centers: renewables, water, and low-carbon materials

Amazon Web Services is rolling out data center components to support AI growth while advancing its sustainability goals. The company reports matching 100% of its global electricity consumption with renewable energy since 2023, maintaining a power usage effectiveness of 1.15 versus the industry average of 1.25. AWS has also committed to being water positive by 2030, reaching 53% of that target by end of 2024 with a water use efficiency of 0.25 liters per kilowatt-hour. On the construction side, AWS is using lower-carbon concrete and reducing steel volumes in new builds. A partnership with Rio Tinto aims to source lower-carbon copper for US data centers. These moves address embodied carbon, which makes up a significant share of a data center's lifetime emissions. The company also cut the publishing time for customer carbon footprint data to 21 days, enabling near-real-time emissions tracking for cloud workloads.