Amazon added 8GW to clean energy portfolio in 2022

Amazon's overarching emissions goal is net-zero by 2040

The e-commerce giant is the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy—a position it’s held since 2020, according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BloombergNEF).

On Tuesday (31 January) the company revealed that it added 8.3GW of clean energy capacity last year, by supporting projects across the globe. Amazon’s total clean energy portfolio is more than 20GW, which could power more than 15 million European homes.

The company added 133 new projects across 11 countries. It has now supported 401 renewable energy projects in 22 countries. Projects were added in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Singapore, Spain, and the US, with ground broken for additional projects in Brazil, India, and Indonesia. Amazon now has 164 wind farm projects and 237 rooftop solar projects on Amazon facilities.

Amazon has more than 30 UK-based projects, which have a capacity of more than 560 MW. These projects are expected to generate enough energy to power in excess of 600,000 UK homes annually.

Amazon is moving closer to its 100% renewables goal set for 2025, five years ahead of its original 2030 target. 85% of the electricity used in Amazon operations was from renewable sources in 2021, this includes Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centres, Amazon fulfillment centres, and physical stores around the world.

Once operational, Amazon’s global renewable energy projects are expected to generate 56,881 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of clean energy each year.

“As we continue to launch new renewable energy projects around the world, we’re pleased to be on track to power our operations with 100% renewable energy, five years ahead of our original target. With 133 projects in 11 countries announced in 2022, Amazon had another record year,” AWS’s chief executive Adam Selipsky said.

“These projects highlight the diversity of our renewable energy sources and showcase our ability to bring new technologies to new markets and further reduce the impacts of climate change.”

Amazon’s overarching emissions commitment is to reach net-zero across all scopes by 2040 at the latest. It has pledged to prioritise emissions reductions over offsetting, and to ensure that any offsets which are used are “ additional, quantifiable, real, permanent and socially beneficial”.

However, the e-commerce giant recorded an 18% year-on-year increase in absolute emissions in 2021. The company’s sustainability report states that Amazon’s absolute emissions footprint in 2021 was 71.54 million metric tonnes, up from 60.4 million metric tonnes in 2020 and around 51 million metric tonnes in 2019. All scopes are covered in Amazon’s calculations.

The firm measures carbon emissions against each dollar of gross merchandise sales to calculate carbon intensity. After posting a 16% year-on-year reduction between 2019 and 2020, the latest report reveals a further 1.9% year-on-year reduction between 2020 and 2021.

The announcement was made on the same day that the RE100 – a group of businesses committed to procuring 100% renewables – released its annual progress report.

There are 370 RE100 members with revenues of more than $6.6trn. Collectively, these members account for 1.5% of global electricity consumption – more than what is consumed by the UK.

RE100 members procured at least 85 TWh of renewable electricity from projects commissioned or re-powered in the past 15 years, accounting for almost half of all purchasing decisions.