After two years of reducing its overall carbon footprint, Amazon now reports that its emissions increased in 2024. The company’s surge in data center construction and electricity use to support an increased use of AI helped fuel that rise, as did expanded delivery operations.
Amazon’s total carbon emissions in 2024 reached 68.25 million metric tons, according to the company’s latest sustainability report. That’s a 6% increase from the year prior—and a 33% increase from 2019, when the company launched its Climate Pledge commitment to reach net-zero emissions across its operations by 2040.
Amazon breaks down its carbon footprint into direct emissions, indirect emissions from purchased electricity, and indirect emissions from other sources. All three of these categories saw an increase in 2024. Direct emissions, primarily from its delivery services, grew 6% compared to 2023; the company cites supply constraints for EVs and low-carbon fuels. Direct emissions in total account for 15.13 million metric tons of carbon.
Indirect emissions from purchased energy grew 1%, “in part due to the higher electricity usage required to support advanced technologies” like AI, according to the report. These emissions account for the smallest slice of Amazon’s overall footprint at 2.8 million metric tons.
Indirect emissions from other sources also grew 6%, and these emissions make up 74% of Amazon’s total carbon footprint. That increase was driven “primarily from data center construction and fuel consumption by third-party delivery service providers,” per the report, which states that the company is using generative AI in “virtually every corner” of its business.
Amazon says it’s continuing to work toward its 2040 net-zero goal, and that its progress “will not be linear.” It also claims it continues to “match 100%” of its electricity consumed in data center regions with renewable energy sources.
But Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, an organization of workers at the tech giant pushing for more climate action, argues the numbers are misleading. The group says that in areas of the U.S. that are home to more than 70% of Amazon data centers, electricity comes primarily from gas or coal. Utility companies are also building out new fossil fuel infrastructure to support these data centers.
To “match” its electricity consumption with renewables, Amazon uses mostly renewable energy credits—which have faced criticisms of greenwashing. In some cases, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice says, “the company has simply purchased the ‘credit’ for existing renewables, which would have been used anyway.” Bloomberg reported that if these credits weren’t counted, Amazon’s 2022 emissions would have actually been three times higher than what the company disclosed.
Amazon isn’t the only tech company building out data centers to support AI. A Meta data center in Louisiana will require three new gas plants for power. Google’s 2023 emissions grew 13% compared to the year prior because of AI and data center growth. Microsoft’s emissions are up 23% since 2020 for the same reason. But Business Insider recently reported that Amazon’s data centers “are on pace to command the highest electricity demand” from all the tech companies it examined.
“I’m frustrated that nobody talks about what AI is doing to the environment,” an Amazon software engineer said in a statement from Amazon Employees for Climate Justice. “They want people to think that AI is this magical tool that lives in the cloud, but what they don’t tell us is that AI literally uses coal and fracked gas for its power. Our CEOs want to dupe us into focusing on how efficient shiny new AI features are, as if we don’t know we’ll be killing the planet with the few hours we’re saving on code. And in a year, I might not even have a job.”
No comments