How Amazon is helping customers reduce their cloud carbon footprint

Alexis Bateman, head of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Sustainability, brings a background in environmental governance and supply chain research to one of tech's biggest challenges: understanding and reducing businesses' cloud carbon footprint. 

Alexis Bateman used to joke that she would “live and die in academia.” Then Amazon called, and she considered what she could do at “a company with that kind of global reach.” 

“Where else are you going to make an impact at this scale?” she said.

She had long considered the relationship between economic growth and the environment. Growing up in Southeast Asia, she witnessed the rapid industrialization of cities and rainforests clearcut for palm oil production. As she charted her career, she earned higher degrees in urban planning, and environmental planning, policy, and design, focusing on environmental governance and climate change adaptation. After working on municipal sustainability initiatives in Santa Ana, California, she pivoted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she eventually led its Sustainable Supply Chain Lab. That research gave her a systems-level view of how global companies can drive environmental progress through their operations and supply chains.

In December, five years after joining Amazon, Bateman became head of AWS Sustainability. She talked to us about navigating AI-driven growth alongside our environmental goals, what it means to be a good energy neighbor, and how AWS is putting carbon data directly into customers’ hands. 
 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Amazon Sustainability: You moved to a new country every few years as a child. How did that influence how you maneuver the world today?   
 

Alexis Bateman: At Amazon, we talk about how you thrive in ambiguity to figure out and solve tough challenges. Living in Malaysia in the 1980s, later trying to learn Tagalog at school in the Philippines, and adapting to any environment I was in was a formative time of life. I had to make new friends, learn new languages, eat new foods, and get comfortable in new spaces. It’s helped me adapt and scale to the needs of the moment, and I bring that into my work as I’m faced with new environments and challenges.  
 

Amazon Sustainability: How do you balance the diverse and sometimes conflicting interests that intersect with your work, from representing both customers and Amazon to considering business and the environment? 

Alexis Bateman: When I joined AWS Sustainability, I wanted to stay grounded in what customers need and not what we assume they need. I’m constantly engaging to make sure we're working off a shared North Star as we make progress toward our goals to have net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, return more water than we use in AWS direct operations globally by 2030, and transition to carbon-free energy sources. We're in this high AI growth period, and there are environmental objectives we're trying to meet. Progress doesn’t always move in a straight line, but we are making progress. I don't like to pretend that those tensions don't exist, but they’re problems to solve—not contradictions to manage. And we're bringing together amazing scientists, engineers, public policy specialists, and customer feedback to solve them at scale.  

Amazon Sustainability: What does the shift in focus from renewable energy to carbon-free energy mean for Amazon’s sustainability goals? 
 

Alexis Bateman: Data centers operate around the clock, so we need energy sources that do, too. Solar and wind are critical parts of our portfolio, and we're complementing them with additional carbon-free sources—storage, nuclear, grid upgrades—to ensure reliable, clean power at all hours. There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, and we believe all viable and scalable options should be on the table. 
 

Amazon Sustainability: What’s important for communities and policymakers to understand about Amazon's role in the energy landscape? 

Alexis Bateman: Our presence is an investment in the grid. According to a study from E3, data centers may generate surplus revenues for grid infrastructure that could flow back to utilities and benefit customers. We also signed the White House's voluntary Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which reflects a commitment to fully cover the cost of electricity production required for AI data centers.  We're looking at it from all sides of the coin: How we operate as a good neighbor, how we're investing in grid infrastructure, and how we're supporting policy for infrastructure modernization. 

Amazon Sustainability: What else does “good energy neighbor” mean in practice? 

Alexis Bateman: It means procuring carbon-free energy that genuinely improves grids. In Mississippi, for instance, as part of our data center investment, we struck a first-of-its-kind deal with Entergy to enable 650 megawatts of new renewable energy projects—including new solar and wind farms. That agreement is also helping to fund upgrades to local grid and energy infrastructure over the next two decades, so it's serving local businesses and the community, not just Amazon data centers.

Amazon Sustainability: Could you tell us about the AWS Sustainability Console? 
 

Alexis Bateman: It started as our carbon footprint tool for customers to see their allocated emissions, and now we can release more information. Different environmental dimensions can be tackled over time. And it helps customers understand the carbon footprint of their cloud usage across Scopes 1, 2, and 3 services, regions, and time periods.  
 

The goal is to go beyond reporting: We want customers to be able to use that data to make decisions and reduce their impact. I was demoing the AWS Sustainability Console in Paris about eight hours after it launched and was getting real-time feedback from our customers on what they want to see there. They've struggled to get the right level of access, configurability, and insights that they need for their work. It has given them a lot more power. 
 

Amazon Sustainability: What was that like to field that feedback on the spot? 

Alexis Bateman: I loved it. The thing about sustainability is we're all in this together. Whether you're a consumer packaged goods (CPG), cloud, or athletic company, we all share this challenge. The more we can develop products and services that serve sustainability objectives for our customers is a win for everyone.  

Amazon Sustainability: What have you learned that surprises you?   
 

Alexis Bateman: I am consistently surprised at how much trust is unlocked by being more transparent—sharing where we are, where we're headed, and how we're getting there. Right now, we're scaling to the moment in enabling carbon-free energy projects, and we're looking at some of the greatest growth opportunities ever. We’re sharing the journey with customers and finding ways to collaborate. In all likelihood, they're experiencing similar challenges, and so we look for opportunities to co-innovate or push the needle or jointly procure carbon-free energy. 

Amazon Sustainability: What is your North Star? 
 

Alexis Bateman: I’ve got two kids. I want to leave a better planet for them. We're just living one life on this planet, and there's many lives that will follow. How do we do that in a better way? I consider that all the time in terms of why I do what I do. It's really motivating to think: If you have the power to change things, why wouldn't you? 

Learn more about Amazon's carbon-free energy progress. 

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