If Amazon doesn’t know how to eliminate carbon emissions, then who does?
- ID
- 27881
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 24 Sep 2026, 5:21 AM
- Fetched
- 24 Sep 2026, 6:59 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/23/if-amazon-doesnt-know-how-to-eliminate-carbon-emissions-then-who-does/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 3.0
- Created
- 24 Sep 2026, 7:00 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- foundersdevelopers
What happened
At an Axios event on September 22, Amazon chief sustainability officer Kara Hurst said the company "doesn't know" how it will hit its net zero by 2040 target, telling TechCrunch afterward that decarbonization "takes both" companies and governments. Amazon reported $717 billion in revenue last year (up 12%) and holds 42 gigawatts of clean energy capacity, but its carbon intensity rose in the most recent year compared with 2024, though it stayed below 2022 levels.
Why it matters
If you sell SaaS into enterprises that send ESG or scope 3 procurement questionnaires, your cloud footprint is part of their supply-chain reporting — and your largest upstream provider has just said publicly it has no complete plan to decarbonize by 2040. That means 'we run on AWS' will not close an ESG question on its own, and any emissions claim you make about your own infrastructure should be based on your own measurements, not the provider's net-zero target. For founders building AI features on AWS, note that Amazon lists AI among the sectors driving its emissions, so compute-heavy workloads are likely the part of your footprint under the most scrutiny.
Discussion angle
If your cloud provider can't describe a path to its own 2040 target, what do you actually put in an enterprise customer's scope 3 questionnaire — and is it worth measuring your own workload emissions instead of citing your provider's target?