Amazon’s scale makes its climate challenge unusually difficult: the company operates a vast logistics network while AWS is rapidly expanding data-center capacity to meet demand for artificial intelligence. The company has made measurable progress in reducing emissions intensity and expanding carbon-free energy, but its absolute emissions still increased in 2025, highlighting the tension between rapid growth and its commitment to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

Amazon Is Cutting Carbon Intensity, Not Yet Absolute Emissions

Amazon’s latest sustainability report shows that absolute carbon emissions increased in 2025. At the same time, overall carbon intensity has fallen 38% since 2019, while revenue has increased 156%. The distinction is important: Amazon is becoming less carbon-intensive as its business expands, but the total volume of emissions remains a challenge.

The company has also reduced emissions per shipped unit by 7% year over year. Its progress includes packaging changes, transportation initiatives and improvements across its operating infrastructure. Amazon is more than halfway toward its goal of deploying 100,000 electric delivery vehicles globally by 2030, while its broader operations continue to scale.

AI Creates a New Energy Test for AWS

The biggest emerging challenge is the rapid growth in electricity demand from data centers. Amazon added more data-center capacity in 2025 than any other company globally, while advances in generative AI are increasing demand for computing infrastructure.

Efficiency improvements can partly offset that pressure. Amazon’s data centers recorded a global average Power Usage Effectiveness of 1.14 in 2025, 9% better than the public cloud industry average. The company is also investing in more energy-efficient chips, cooling systems and infrastructure. Yet greater efficiency does not necessarily mean lower total emissions when the underlying computing demand is expanding rapidly.

Renewable Energy Is Necessary but Not the Entire Solution

Amazon matched 100% of the electricity consumed by its global operations with renewable energy sources for the third consecutive year. Its carbon-free energy portfolio now includes more than 700 projects across 30 countries, representing more than 40 gigawatts of capacity. The company is also investing in nuclear energy, geothermal power and long-duration energy storage.

However, Amazon’s carbon footprint extends beyond the electricity it directly consumes. More than two-thirds of its emissions come from its broader supply chain, including suppliers, transportation and construction. That makes supplier decarbonization essential to reaching the 2040 target and limits how much progress can be achieved through renewable electricity alone.

The next phase will test whether Amazon can continue growing rapidly while bringing absolute emissions onto a sustained downward path. Investors will be watching data-center energy demand, the pace of electrification, supplier decarbonization and investment in new carbon-free energy sources. For Amazon, the broader question is no longer whether large-scale decarbonization is possible, but whether it can keep pace with the energy demands created by the next phase of e-commerce, cloud computing and AI.