Server farms require lots of concrete and steel, both of which require abundant energy to produce. (Lexi Critchett/Bloomberg)
key takeaways:
- Amazon.com Inc. emit the equivalent of about 81 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2025.
- The company said emissions would increase by 16% from 2024 and 58% from 2019.
- Data center construction, purchased power, distribution fuel and more package deliveries contributed to the growth.
Amazon.com Inc. U.S. carbon emissions increased for the second consecutive year in 2025, driven by fuel consumed by data center construction and its delivery operations.
Amazon said in its annual sustainability report published on Wednesday that the cloud computing and e-commerce giant emitted about 81 million metric tons of carbon dioxide last year, a 16% increase from 2024. Amazon’s emissions last year were 58% higher than 2019, when the company pledged to eliminate them by 2040.
Years after promising to reduce its carbon emissions to zero, Amazon and other tech companies have become increasingly involved in data center construction that has undermined those efforts.
Server farms require lots of concrete and steel, both of which require abundant energy to produce. These facilities consume large amounts of electricity, leading to a wave of investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, including natural gas power plants, in the US. Amazon said its emissions from purchased electricity rose 34% last year.
Emissions also increased in the company’s e-commerce business as it delivered more packages.
Chief sustainability officer Cara Hurst said in the report, “While the pace and scale of AI adoption is unparalleled – and change is happening faster and more broadly than anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes – the need to remain stubborn on our vision and flexible on the details is familiar territory.”
Amazon.com Inc. Ranked No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies in North America, No. 15 on the TT Top 100 list of the largest private carriers, and No. 1 on the TT Top 50 global freight forwarder list.
