AWS Public Sector Blog

Tag: environment

AWS branded background design with text overlay that says "Technology’s role in sustainability: Takeaways from the AWS Sustainability Breakfast Briefing"

Technology’s role in sustainability: Takeaways from the AWS Sustainability Breakfast Briefing

Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosted the AWS Sustainability Breakfast Briefing on February 20, 2024, in Dublin, Ireland, featuring a panel of sustainability experts from AWS customers and partners, as well as educational talks on important sustainability themes. The main takeaway is that sustainability transformation takes time – but every step along the journey can be meaningful. Read this blog post for a recap of key highlights from the briefing.

Zero Waste Zero Hunger: Using data and AI to reduce food waste in South Korea

The Busan Cloud Innovation Center (CIC) teamed up with the World Food Programme (WFP), the Busan IT Promotion Agency, and technology startup Nuvilab to use cloud technology to address food waste in South Korea. Using Amazon’s “Working Backwards” approach with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and data lake solutions on AWS, the team developed Zero Waste Zero Hunger (ZWZH), a program that uses artificial intelligence AI to provide data about food consumption.

Predicting global biodiversity patterns in Costa Rica with ecosystem modeling on AWS

As part of the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI), AWS invited Rafael Monge Vargas, director of the National Center of GeoEnvironmental Information (CENIGA) at the Costa Rica’s Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE), to share how his team is helping advance conservation and economic development in Costa Rica and how they utilize ASDI and AWS to support these efforts.

American Forests uses the cloud to advance Tree Equity across the United States

The nonprofit American Forests is focused on advancing social equity with a national reforestation movement. Trees provide significant benefits against heat related illnesses and climate change, and trees can help advance social equity when they are planted in the neighborhoods that need them the most. But the challenge of achieving Tree Equity across the country is immense. To address this, American Forests is leading a new national campaign through the Tree Equity Score, powered by the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud.

frozen river with waterfall in woods

Addressing environmental challenges with the AWS Cloud

Azavea believes in the power of geospatial technology to improve communities and the planet. Azavea has been exploring the power of this technology to help their clients to answer complex questions in a wide range of domains from urban ecosystems, infrastructure planning, and economic development to water, energy, and climate change. As part of the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI), we invited Jessica Cahail, product manager at Azavea, to share how her organization is using AWS and open data to develop tools that help users address environmental challenges and deliver knowledge to support decision making.

Ocean skyline

Improving our knowledge about the oceans by providing cloud-based access to large datasets

As a physical oceanographer focused on remote sensing, Dr. Chelle Gentemann, senior scientist at Farallon Institute, has worked for over 20 years on retrievals of ocean temperature from space. She uses measurements of sea surface temperature from satellites to understand how the ocean impacts our lives. Chelle’s work requires analysis of large volumes of data, which requires access to large data storage and computational resources. Although most large research institutions can secure those IT resources, that is not the case for smaller organizations or underserved communities around the world. As part of the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative, we invited Dr. Gentemann to share her perspective on the value of hosting high-resolution climate data on AWS.

Colombia Zoo Hackathon 2020 winners who identified solutions to tackle deforestation and illegal logging using technology

Tackling deforestation in Colombia with IoT at the 2019 Zoo Hackathon

Despite its abundance of natural resources, Colombia has the fourth highest rate of deforestation worldwide. To help battle deforestation and illegal logging, Amazon Web Services (AWS), in collaboration with the United States Embassy in Colombia and Jorge Tadeo University (UTadeo), sponsored the Zoo Hackathon event in Bogota in November 2019.

Speaker at the AWS Public Sector Summit in Canberra, Australia

Enabling impact in Australia and New Zealand at the AWS Public Sector Summit Canberra: Recap

At the AWS Public Sector Summit in Canberra, Australia, more than 1,300 technologists convened to learn about digital transformation through cloud technologies, and were able to get inspired, dive deep, and begin to build. Keynote speakers highlighted the impact AWS can have on the individual, society, security, government, and the economy in the Australia and New Zealand region.

3 Nonprofits to Know on World Environment Day

On World Environment Day, we are reminded it is up to all of us to better steward the finite resources of our planet. From limiting your utilization of single-use plastics to considering how a move to the cloud could help your organization reduce its overall energy consumption, each action matters. AWS provides infrastructure technology to nonprofits around the world who preserve and protect our environment, enabling not only mission-critical work, but also efficiencies in energy usage.

Happy Earth Day! Spotlight on Nonprofits Dedicated to Helping the Environment

Happy Earth Day! In addition to the environmental benefits associated with running applications in the cloud, AWS has a long-term commitment to achieve 100% renewable energy usage for our global infrastructure footprint. As of the end of 2016, we had achieved our goal of 40% renewable energy, and recently awarded ACORE’s Corporate Innovation and Industry […]