Tech and AI Decouple Amazon's Growth From Emissions Total

Amazon’s 2025 Sustainability Report shares the company’s achievements from the past year and shows how it uses advanced technology to meet changing infrastructure and environmental needs.

For the third year in a row, Amazon matched all the electricity used in its global operations with renewable energy. This was possible thanks to its growing carbon-free energy portfolio, which now includes 712 projects and a total capacity of 42GW.

This growth in renewable energy supports Amazon’s worldwide expansion of data centres. In 2025, Amazon added more data centre capacity than any other company to keep up with the growing demand for its AWS and AI services.

Amazon’s next move in low-carbon energy is to explore new nuclear solutions. In 2025, the company invested in X-energy, a developer of small modular reactors, aiming to add 5GW of new nuclear energy to the US grid by 2039.

Using AI to streamline operations

Amazon is expanding its use of AI for sustainability throughout its operations. For instance, it has installed AI tools in 820 facilities to detect leaks and mechanical problems.

Its engineers also created an AI system that can identify what materials are in unsellable or non-donatable items to help improve recycling efficiency.

“For Amazon’s work in sustainability, we laid out our long-term vision starting back in 2015 when we first suggested net-zero goals in a planning meeting, which culminated in setting The Climate Pledge in 2019,” says Kara Hurst, CSO at Amazon.

“Sure enough, we’ve encountered tremendous change in each of the seven years since.

"Perhaps none bigger than AI, which is both transforming what's possible—accelerating discovery, optimising systems and unlocking solutions that weren't within reach before—yet also creating new demands for energy, water, and infrastructure.”

Decarbonising delivery

Although Amazon’s total emissions increased by 16% over the past year as the business grew, its carbon intensity dropped by 38% compared to 2019. This demonstrates how its emissions are becoming less tied to growth.

The company also expanded its global electric delivery van fleet by 68% in 2025, deploying more than 52,700 electric vans that delivered 2.4 billion packages. Middle-mile logistics also added over 360 electric heavy goods vehicles.

By updating its packaging machines to use custom-fit paper, Amazon avoided using 288 million single-use plastic bags in North America. As a result, 73% of shipments in the region arrived in materials that can be recycled at home.

Water positivity in India

Water management was a major achievement for Amazon in 2025. The company is now 75% of the way to its goal of making its global data centres water-positive by 2030.

Amazon reached its 2027 water-positive goal for India two years early. The company achieved a 120% water positivity in its direct operations there by using leak detection and on-site wastewater treatment.

“As we recently shared, we’ve been inventing and investing in technology to increase our water usage efficiency across our data centre footprint for many years already, and today our data centres are seven times more water-efficient than the industry average,” says Kara.

“We also have more buildings than any other cloud provider using reclaimed water, and we’re investing in water replenishment projects around the world that have helped us get 75% of the way toward our goal to be water positive by 2030.

“These things don't happen overnight, but I'm proud of where we are and we're pushing to go faster.”