Category: Sustainability

This year’s re:Invent includes many sustainability topics. To guide you across breakout sessions and activities, check out the re:Invent sustainability attendee guide. We’re looking forward to sharing this content to inspire teams, to learn from each other, to get hands-on, and to see what’s possible when we combine technology with sustainability.

Companies and asset managers looking to protect their financial investments from climate change-related risks, and invest in more sustainable solutions, can now access a new dataset on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud to help inform their decision making. Amazon announced that the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) dataset is now available and free for anyone to access in the cloud. The dataset includes key reference information that supports clear and unique identification of legal entities participating in financial transactions, and each LEI contains information about an entity’s ownership structure, including ‘who is who’ and ‘who owns whom’.

A recent report by 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, commissioned by the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Institute, reveals that moving enterprise and public sector IT workloads from on-premises data centers to the cloud can reduce energy consumption and associated carbon emissions by nearly 80%, and is five times more energy efficient than the typical on-premises Asia Pacific (APAC) data center.

At AWS, we see cloud computing as enabling accelerated innovation on the path to net zero carbon. That is why we recently hosted our first public webinar on Meeting Sustainability and Climate Goals with the Cloud in APAC, bringing together industry, government, and other key stakeholders, and featuring experts from 451 Research, Environment Resource Management, Intel, Singapore’s Economic Development Board, and AWS customers DBS Bank and Canva. Here are four overarching lessons for APAC policymakers.

This week at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Summit Washington, DC, we announced the findings of a 10-year economic study about AWS’s presence in Virginia. The report shows the impact that can happen when government and industry work together to create growth opportunities for communities. One component of this that is worth re-highlighting is the positive impact that Amazon solar investments are having and will have on the local economy in Virginia.

To solve some of the most pressing water and energy challenges, scientists and engineers need access to robust, reliable data that is often sensitive and protected. Data providers, researchers, and host institutions need to adhere to strict requirements for protecting and securing this data. The Center for Water-Energy Efficiency (CWEE) at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) used AWS to create a centralized, secure data repository that streamlines data sharing.

Weather radars see more than just the weather: they see smoke from fires, meteors, birds, mayflies, and almost anything else in the atmosphere. This makes weather radars an invaluable tool for scientists seeking to further the understanding of atmospheric processes and anything else that happens to be flying through the radar’s field of view. The Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI) seeks to accelerate sustainability-related innovation and research by helping to minimizing the cost and time required to store, acquire, and analyze large weather and climate datasets.

The AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program makes high-value, cloud-optimized datasets publicly available on AWS. This quarter, we released 44 new or updated datasets including satellite imagery over Africa, a large-scale climate ensemble, and product listings with 3D renderings. Learn how you can put these open datasets to work.

We are happy to announce the selection of the 10 finalists and participants in the inaugural AWS Clean Energy Accelerator program. These ten companies were selected by a panel from AWS and Freshwater Advisors, from 218 applications received from 38 countries around the world. The applicants ranged from pre-revenue to $50M in annual revenue and from 1 to more than 500 employees.

The world’s waters are largely unknown, with vast areas still unmapped. To protect and preserve the oceans, we need to extensively understand its systems, and data is at the core of that process. The Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI) is committed to enabling better access to the foundational data that can help researchers, businesses, and policy-makers better monitor and manage the ocean’s valuable resources.