AWS Exhibits Sustainability Initiatives At re:Invent 2023, Along With A Focus On Generative AI And ML

AWS Exhibits Sustainability Initiatives At re:Invent 2023, Along With A Focus On Generative AI And ML

AWS just wrapped up its annual re:Invent conference, with over 50,000 customers gathering in Las Vegas to hear about the firm’s latest announcements. The event was jam-packed, with the themes of generative AI (GenAI) and machine learning (ML) running throughout. For instance, AWS introduced Amazon Q – an AI-powered chatbot that “assists you everywhere you work with AWS” – and Guardrails for Amazon Bedrock – a capability to help firms implement customized safeguards for AI models. AWS also announced the launch of two new AWS-designed chips – Graviton 4 and Trainium2 – that can be used to produce and train AI models faster and with less energy than previous generations.

The event included a Sustainability Showcase that highlighted how AWS is helping Amazon and its customers achieve their sustainability goals, as well as focused discussions with AWS and Amazon sustainability experts. These discussions provided insights into:

• Sustainability-focused AWS partners. AWS has an extensive partner network, including sustainability-focused technology vendors and services firms. During the conference, AWS announced that Clarity AI is “all in on AWS”. Clarity AI leverages AWS’s GenAI, machine learning and analytics to provide some of its ESG analysis tools, allowing Clarity AI to train up to 7 billion parameter large language models and natural language processing models. As a result, Clarity AI can help clients avoid investing in firms or funds that are engaged in greenwashing.
  
  
• AWS’s Sustainability Insights Framework (SIF). AWS highlighted how customers can accelerate design and automation when building or improving their carbon footprint tracking with the SIF on AWS. AWS’s solution guidance is meant to be the foundation for customers to develop their own, customized carbon accounting solution, which differentiates AWS's approach from the off-the-shelf solutions featured in the Verdantix Green Quadrant: Enterprise Carbon Management Software 2023. For example, carbon accounting firm FlexZero – which was featured in the Sustainability Showcase – built a solution running on AWS, based on the SIF, that includes functionality to calculate carbon emissions with a generative AI chat feature and insights on how to reduce emissions.
  
  
• Plans to help customers improve supply chain sustainability. AWS announced four new capabilities for its AWS supply chain solution that will be available in 2024, including its Supply Chain Sustainability offering to provide a central repository for firms to securely collect documentation such as lifecycle assessments or reports on hazardous substances. Customers will be able to visualize supplier’s carbon emissions, which could help ease some of the challenges of Scope 3 reporting (see Verdantix Global Corporate Survey 2022: Supply Chain Sustainability Analysis). Tying back into the main themes of the conference, AWS also plans to include Amazon Q in its supply chain offering to allow users to see tradeoffs between different supply chain decisions.
  
  
• Progress on Amazon’s sustainability goals. AWS highlighted how it was helping Amazon achieve its Climate Pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2040, such as by working with its supply chain to build data centres with lower embodied carbon, encouraging suppliers to incorporate lower-carbon steel into their supply chains, and by investing in 78 new solar and wind projects in 2023 alone. AWS also announced six new water replenishment projects that, when complete, are expected to return an estimated 3.9 billion litres of water each year to local communities. It reaffirmed its path to power its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years before its initial 2030 target.

Given AWS’s scale and global reach, its sustainability investments and targets are likely to have ripple effects on other sustainability solutions as well as AWS’s extensive supply chain. We look forward to learning how AWS customers leverage GenAI for new use cases relating to sustainability and how they incorporate responsible AI into their ESG programmes.