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Amazon opens up its cloud emissions data

Amazon has redesigned the emissions information dashboard that it provides to Amazon Web Services customers so sustainability professionals can access the data directly.

The new resource, AWS Sustainability console, calculates customer-specific totals of a company’s carbon footprint related to its usage of Amazon’s cloud services. 

The information is available across all three emissions categories and can provide metrics based on a specific service or region, using a methodology Amazon updates several times annually; it reaches back to January 2022. 

Caveat: The console doesn’t yet include metrics specific to Amazon’s artificial intelligence services.

“You can’t break out AI yet, but it is part of the total bucket,” said Alexis Bateman, head of global sustainability for Amazon Web Services.

Amazon has offered a Customer Carbon Footprint Tool since March 2022, but it is part of a billing system that’s only accessible by corporate IT or finance teams that have certain account security permissions. The AWS Sustainability console sidesteps that prohibition, a feature Amazon developed in response to customer requests, Bateman said. 

The new resource was tested by 20 of the company’s largest cloud services customers before launching widely on March 31.

The console offers two big features that weren’t part of the original tool: a way to visualize and compare data on a monthly basis and a programming interface that enables sustainability teams to plug a feed of the data into their company’s emissions reporting systems.

Amazon plans to update the console based on feedback from a group that meets quarterly. For example, the company is considering customer requests to provide metrics related to Amazon’s data center water consumption.

Amazon Web Services is positioning AWS Sustainability as a differentiator for its cloud services. “The availability of this console is appealing to potential customers,” Bateman said.

Both Google and Microsoft offer carbon footprint information dashboards similar to Amazon’s original resource. Google did not respond to a request for comment about its future plans. Microsoft, through a spokesperson, said it continues to build “tools that empower customers on their own sustainability journeys.”

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