Despite its size and financial resources, AWS lags behind every other major company that operates data centers on a large scale. Unlike Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, Amazon has disclosed very little information about its energy use and its impacts on the climate, and it’s easy to understand why. Google and Apple have longstanding commitments to running on 100% renewables and have provided updates on their progress to the public for years. Amazon now has a goal of moving to 100% renewables but no stated timeline for doing so.

Greenpeace rates AWS as a C in their 2017 ClickClean report. While this is an improvement over previous years, AWS still seriously lacks in many areas, most notably in the transparency category, where it received an F. We must continue to push AWS to report accurate environmental impact data and to release comprehensive yearly reports to public. Without this transparency there is no way to hold them accountable for their energy use.