The e-commerce behemoth Amazon announced on Wednesday that it had achieved its target of using 100% renewable energy to power all of its operations worldwide, resulting in a 3% decrease in emissions overall last year. As artificial intelligence (AI) grows, there is increased scrutiny of the power used and emissions produced by these tech giants.
Amazon set a goal in 2019 to match 100% of its electricity consumption with renewable power by 2030, a goal it has now met. The company wants to reach net zero carbon by 2040. According to Amazon’s annual sustainability report, the company’s total emissions decreased to 68.82 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023 from 70.74 million tonnes the year before.
The company’s direct operations saw a 7% increase in emissions to 14.27 million tonnes, which Amazon attributed to both overall business growth and an increase in the volume of packages delivered by its internal logistics team. Its data centres are also included in this figure.
We are aware that generative AI demands a high processing power. We’ll need different energy sources than we’d originally projected to power this demand while still moving towards our climate goals,” said Chris Roe, Director of Worldwide Carbon at Amazon, in an email.
Also Read:
Microsoft Resigns From the OpenAI Board in Response to Regulatory Scrutiny.
UAE and Russia will Increase their Industrial and Trade Cooperation
