As the world works towards net-zero carbon goals, the importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in the corporate world has become almost universal. This trend is putting pressure on technology suppliers as customers scrutinise every aspect of their operations, including the role that technology plays in sustainability. As a result, end-users and organisations worldwide are demanding that vendors take ESG seriously and companies are beginning to comply.
According to estimates, proactive action on climate change could add $43 trillion to the global economy by 2070.
For technology companies, committing to sustainability goes beyond just improving energy efficiency and managing e-waste. To fully align with their customers’ environmental goals, a company’s underlying values and philosophies can be just as crucial.
In line with this, tech majors such as Amazon Web Services are incorporating sustainability into their business strategies to venture into new opportunities for innovation and growth not only for themselves but also for their customers.
In 2019, Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge – a commitment to be net zero carbon across our business by 2040 – ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement. As part of this pledge, Amazon has made a commitment to power its own operations with 100 percent renewable energy by 2025.
Staying true to this pledge, Amazon has earned the leadership position as the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy.
“We work closely with renewable energy developers in the regions where we have data centres to identify cost-effective projects that also have a positive impact on the local community,” said Charley Daitch, Director – Energy & Water, AWS.
“We commit to purchasing all of the renewable energy generated by these projects over a long period of time, which allows the developers to secure financing and build the projects. Previously, our focus was primarily in the United States and Europe where we have a significant footprint and the renewable energy industry was more mature.”
In November last year, AWS also announced it will be water-positive (water+) by 2030, which meant that it will return more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations.
“This is an internal goal that we are excited to share with our customers and track our progress towards achieving. To achieve this, we are focusing on three main strategies: reducing our water consumption, using sustainable sources of water, and investing in water replenishment projects,” said Daitch.
Water scarcity is increasingly becoming a major issue around the world. Data centres from major hyperscalers such as AWS consume a significant amount of water to cool the computers that support various data-intensive activities such as teleworking and streaming. Even when not cooled directly by water, the warehouses often indirectly consume water through the generation of electricity used to power the buildings and air conditioning systems. Therefore, cloud players can play a pivotal role in solving the global water crisis.
“For AWS, we are addressing the water crisis in four key ways. Firstly, we are working to use water as efficiently as possible, and we have recently released our water use efficiency metric, which is 0.25 litres per kilowatt hour,” explained Daitch.
According to Daitch, the second step is by using sustainable water sources, such as recycled water and rainwater harvesting, wherever possible.
“In our Virginia region, we work with the utility to build a recycled water system to cool our data centres, instead of using potable drinking water,” he said.
“We also minimise the use of water in our data centres,” added Daitch.
In AWS’ region in Oregon, the company provides up to 96 percent of the cooling water from its data centres to local farmers at no charge for use in irrigating crops like corn, soybeans, and wheat.
The final pillar to achieving its water-positive commitment is water replenishment. “We work with organisations around the world to restore watersheds that have been impacted. These projects include wetland restoration projects, removal of invasive plant species and in India, working with NGOs to provide clean potable drinking water for communities,” said Daitch.
The bigger picture
While the data centre industry has made significant strides in sustainability through improved operational efficiency in the past decade, the environmental impact of data centre construction, particularly the embodied carbon of materials and equipment used, has received relatively little attention.
With a wider vision for sustainable operations across its entire supply chain, Daitch also noted that AWS seeks to reduce the carbon emissions of its data centres from the ground up.
“One of the major challenges in constructing data centres is reducing the embodied carbon associated with the materials used in construction. Specifically, cement is a difficult industry to decarbonise,” he said.
Two of the biggest sources of embodied carbon in a data centre building are concrete and steel used in its construction. Concrete and steel are major materials used in data centre construction, with concrete accounting for up to 40 percent and steel accounting for 10 percent of the materials used. Using sustainably made concrete and steel in construction can lead to a reduction of up to 13 percent in carbon emissions in a data centre construction project.
“To address this, we have set a goal to reduce embodied carbon in cement by 20 percent in the United States. In our US West Oregon region, we have worked with suppliers to create a sustainable concrete mix that reduces carbon emissions by 20 percent.
“This not only decarbonises the building but also sends a signal to cement manufacturers that there is a market for low-carbon cement. Additionally, we have also found ways to reduce the embodied carbon in steel by 70 percent, by using electric arc furnaces powered by renewable energy instead of traditional manufacturing methods,” explained Daitch.
Daitch further reiterated that AWS is committed to fostering a culture of innovation across its entire operations and finding new ways to tackle the challenge of decarbonisation.
“Sustainability is a vital aspect of our business strategy. We are aware of our carbon footprint and have made substantial progress in making various parts of our business more sustainable. However, some areas may take more time to address, but we are dedicating resources to protect the environments of the communities we serve, both now and in the future.”
