AWS Makes Water+ Commitment To Return More Water To Communities Than It Uses By 2030
Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced on Monday that it will be water-positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations. AWS has been driving four key strategies to achieve a water+ company by 2030. The strategies include improving water efficiency, using sustainable water sources, returning water for community reuse and supporting water replenishment projects.
According to the company, it continues to support water replenishment projects with the nonprofit WaterAid that include rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge and piped water installations in communities in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and this collaboration has resulted in nearly 650 million litres of water provided annually to communities and schools through 420 water point installations, 126 rainwater harvesting projects and 120 groundwater recharge structures.
WaterAid also directly engaged more than 30,000 community members through a water conservation education campaign, teaching residents practical ways to conserve clean water, use rainwater harvesting and conduct water audits, according to the statement.
Earlier this year, alongside WaterAid, AWS announced its collaboration with Water.org in India, where over 210,000 people across Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Telangana have benefitted through microfinance loans that help nearby communities finance water pipe connections and toilet installations in homes and the projects with Water.org provide more than 500 million litres of clean water per year to people who previously lacked consistent access to clean water, the company said in a statement.
Adam Selipsky, CEO of AWS says that water scarcity is a major issue around the world and with today’s water-positive announcement we are committing to do our part to help solve this rapidly growing challenge.
In just a few years half of the world’s population is projected to live in water-stressed areas, so to ensure all people have access to water, we all need to innovate new ways to help conserve and reuse this precious resource, Selipsky said.
AWS also announced its 2021 global water use efficiency (WUE) metric of 0.25 litres of water per kilowatt-hour, demonstrating AWS’s leadership in water efficiency among cloud providers.
AWS says that it is already well on the path to becoming water+ and as part of this new commitment will report annually on its WUE metric, new water reuse and recycling efforts, new activities to reduce water consumption in its facilities and advancements in new and existing replenishment projects.
Water efficiency: AWS is constantly innovating across its infrastructure to reduce water consumption. It achieves its industry-leading water efficiency by using advanced cloud services, such as Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, to analyse real-time water use and identify and fix leaks. AWS further improves operational efficiency by eliminating cooling water use in many of its facilities for most of the year, instead relying on outside air. AWS also invests in on-site water-treatment systems that allow it to reuse water multiple times, minimizing water consumed for cooling.
Sustainable sources: AWS uses sustainable water sources, such as recycled water and rainwater harvesting, wherever possible. Using recycled water, which is only suitable for limited applications such as irrigation and industrial use, preserves valuable drinking water for communities. AWS already uses recycled water for cooling in 20 data centres worldwide and plans to expand recycled water use in more facilities as it works toward becoming water+.
Community water reuse: After maximizing the use of water in its data centres, the spent water is still safe for many other uses, and AWS is finding more ways to return it to communities. In Oregon, AWS provides up to 96% of the cooling water from its data centres to local farmers at no charge for use in irrigating crops like corn, soybeans, and wheat.
Water replenishment: To meet its water+ commitment, AWS is investing in water replenishment projects in the communities where it operates. Replenishment projects expand water access, availability, and quality by restoring watersheds and bringing clean water, sanitation, and hygiene services to water-stressed communities. To date, AWS has completed replenishment projects in Brazil, India, Indonesia and South Africa, providing 1.6 billion litres of freshwater each year to people in those communities.
AWS customers are also using its cloud technology to ingest, analyze, and manage sustainability data. Innovation is key to achieving sustainability goals and AWS offers the broadest and deepest set of capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT), data analytics, and computing to build sustainability solutions.
According to the company, today’s announcement adds to Amazon’s commitment of USD 10 million to Water.org to support the Water and Climate Fund launch, which will deliver climate-resilient water and sanitation solutions to 100 million people across Asia, Africa and Latin America. This donation will directly empower 1 million people with water access by 2025, providing 3 billion litres of water each year to people in water-scarce areas.
“Our work with Amazon is supported by the shared belief that solving the global water crisis is possible. We commend AWS for committing to return more water than it uses by announcing Water+ by 2030,” said Matt Damon, co-founder of Water.org.
Gary White, Water.org CEO and co-founder added, “Our collaboration with Amazon and AWS already brings over 805 million litres of safe water to communities around the world every year, and we are excited to continue to work with Amazon to bring even more safe water to families in need.”
