amazon's carbon emissions declined slightly in 2023 after the company increased renewable energy purchases and reduced pollution from construction, hardware and equipment, according to its latest report. Sustainability report.
In 2019, amazon pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. Despite that goal, its carbon emissions actually skyrocketed shortly after, rising from around 51 million metric tons of CO2 in 2019 to more than 71 million metric tons in 2021. It now appears that the company’s carbon footprint has shrunk a bit in recent years, declining 3 percent in 2023 to just under 69 million metric tons of CO2.
To put that into context, amazon's carbon footprint last year was approximately equivalent Annual CO2 emissions from 184 gas-fired power plants have fallen, and the company still emits about 34 percent more carbon pollution than when it made its climate pledge in 2019. But it’s notable that amazon’s emissions fell slightly in a year when pollution from other tech giants soared with the explosion of new artificial intelligence tools.
amazon says the decline is largely due to cleaning up carbon pollution from electricity use and indirect emissions from its supply chains, which fell 11 percent and 5 percent, respectively. He also announced that he achieved his goal of pareo 100 percent of its electricity consumption will come from renewable energy by 2023, seven years ahead of its 2030 deadline.
Explaining what “adaptation” means is a bit complicated, but it’s important for understanding any company’s clean energy goals. Simply put, there isn’t enough renewable energy online yet to meet global climate goals, and diverting what’s available to meet a single giant company’s clean energy goals would be pretty unfeasible. Plus, when a company connects to the grid, it doesn’t control whether the electricity it uses comes from a solar farm or a fossil fuel power plant. Instead, companies typically pay to “adapt” their energy use to the grid. Renewable energy certificates (RECs) intended to support renewable energy projects.
The quality of those RECs makes all the difference. RECs can become so cheap that they are no longer a sufficient source of revenue to incentivize new clean energy projects. As a result, many companies have overestimated carbon emissions reductions through RECs, investigation The results were published in 2022. And what is really needed to stop climate change is new, additional sources of renewable energy.
In an attempt to achieve this, other companies, including Microsoft and Googlehave set targets to match their electricity consumption with that of locally generated clean energy on an hourly (rather than annual) basis. This is supposed to support a future where there is enough renewable energy to rely on. 24/7 on any network a company connects to.
Another alternative is to enter a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA)a long-term contract to support the development of a clean energy project and/or purchase electricity from it. amazon is the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy, purchasing more solar and wind power through PPAs than Google and Microsoft combined. amazon-is-top-green-energy-buyer-in-a-market-dominated-by-us/”>According to BloombergNEF.
By comparison, Google and Microsoft saw their greenhouse gas emissions rise by about 13 percent and 20 percent, respectively, last year as they incorporated ai into their products and services. Like amazon, they have seen larger increases since setting climate goals several years ago. Microsoft’s carbon footprint was 30 percent higher in its fiscal year 2023 than in 2020, according to its latest sustainability report. Google’s carbon emissions were 48 percent higher in 2023 compared with 2019. amazon is also incorporating ai into Alexa and other services, but is reportedly struggling to catch up with other big players in the ai race.
amazon also saw a 13 percent drop in emissions from capital goods last year, as amazon-carbon-emissions-fell-in-2023-amid-post-pandemic-pullback”>noticed by BloombergThat includes things like building construction and new servers, vehicles and other equipment. The company's capital expenditures are down by about $10 billion in 2023. amazon-carbon-emissions-fell-in-2023-amid-post-pandemic-pullback”>Bloomberg The company grew during the Covid pandemic, which caused its carbon emissions to skyrocket at the time. But after cutting storage and data center costs, its carbon emissions are also falling.