Q&A: AWS’ Hilary Tam on Data, AI & Conservation Projects

Hilary Tam, Sustainability Leader for EMEA at AWS, returned to Sustainability LIVE for the third time in early March 2025, delivering a presentation about how businesses can unlock data to drive their sustainability efforts.

After stepping off stage, she stopped to explore her speech, her start in sustainability and the future of AWS’ sustainability.

She touched on AWS’ global supply chain, the role that AI can play in the sustainable transition, the need for curiosity and much more.

Could you introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your role and how you first got into sustainability?

It's great to be back – this is my third year at Sustainability LIVE. I'm Hilary and I lead sustainability for AWS for EMEA. 

That means I have the privilege of working with customers who are as excited about sustainability as I am, and who see sustainability as a commercial innovation opportunity and a way to create value for people, planet and business. 

No longer is sustainability just a reporting and compliance topic, but it's really a path to which folks can grow in harmony with people and planet. 

And then how I got into sustainability. I mean, I've been very lucky to be able to work with purpose and impact throughout my career. 

It really started off in the early days – I was a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace.

I started off at Greenpeace Canada, and then I was seconded to Greenpeace International, had a taste of European summers and I've been working in sustainability for well over a decade now.

Let’s dive into your talk today – what did you speak about?

My talk today was around unlocking data for sustainability innovation. 

Data might feel a little bit like a headache to sustainability practitioners but I want to flip that narrative because we know that data is going to be critical in terms of how we transform our organisations to be future-fit, successful, competitive and relevant. 

While we don't want to just focus too much on reporting and compliance, we have seen that as a driver for this once-in- a-generation data transformation, where all of this data that lives in spreadsheets offline is coming online for the first time.

How has data been a focus for you at AWS in recent years?

Data is really our bread and butter, but we're leveraging all of our experience and expertise in that space to really turn it towards sustainability. 

There's a lot of challenges with collecting data. Often it's siloed in different places. We have a stat that 86% of organisations are still capturing their data on spreadsheets. 

We know that data isn't often integrated or organised in a way that makes it useful, so a lot of what we're doing at AWS is really bringing together the best practices of data management.

Data is the fuel for AI. How is AWS incorporating AI into its operations?

That's a really exciting space, because we know that technology will help us accelerate sustainability goals, but we're also seeing it the other way around because, as I was saying, we're starting to see this data transformation driven by compliance reporting. 

That's paving the way for AI acceleration because I think folks get really excited, but you don't go from zero to AI, right? It's only as good as that data foundation. 

In terms of internal tools, we have folks who are experimenting. We have Amazon Q, which is available to businesses, but also internally for us to experiment and play around with. 

But I think more importantly, it's the use cases that we're starting to see with customers. 

We have financial services companies that are leveraging AI to get a really holistic view of what their portfolio looks like, what the climate risks are, what the opportunities are. 

Then it’s about translating that into recommendations of actions that can actually be taken to improve their performance.

One of the big areas we're focusing on is nature and biodiversity – we know that we can’t solve the climate crisis without thinking about nature. They're intrinsically connected.

We wrote a story very recently about AWS’ partnership with the Natural History Museum actually. It’s a fantastic initiative.

I saw that article! That's a partnership that I've been working on over the last few years, so it's great that you guys have picked that up.

Obviously AWS has a huge supply chain. You work with people all over the world, thousands upon thousands of suppliers. How much of a challenge is net zero for a company with such a large supply chain?

I think it's a complex and evolving roadmap and, as part of Amazon, we do have a commitment to get to net zero in our operations by 2040. 

That is really going to be through collaboration and partnership, which is why we co-founded the Climate Pledge, which is over 500 plus signatories working together to see how we can go further and faster. 

It's definitely not an easy roadmap, but I think we're all on a journey here. 

I think the key message today was really for sustainability professionals to tap into IT within their organisation to be able to accelerate impact, but also to learn and be curious.

Check out some of the incredible tooling, digital solutions and software out there that could really transform your business.

Finally, if you had to give one piece of sustainability advice, what would it be?

I think my piece of advice would be to embrace data and embrace technology. 

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