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Amazon’s chief sustainability officer said Tuesday the company needed to “do better” on communicating the environmental impact of its vast data center buildout, amid growing opposition to the projects in the US and Europe.
“There is a lot of debate, backlash against data centers in this country right now, and one of the things that we’re doing is taking a look at what have we done well and where have we fallen down and what do we need to do better,” Kara Hurst told Semafor’s The Next Three Billion event in New York.
“And so, we’re revising a number of our practices. We’re calling for a lot more transparency and accountability because that’s what people in these communities deserve. We’re saying, ‘hold us accountable for our practices,’” Hurst said.
Amazon’s carbon footprint grew for the second year in a row in 2025, as the tech giant accelerated its data center buildout, investing $220 billion in capital expenditure in 2026 alone.
But local opposition threatens to hinder tech giants’ race to build, with data center projects worth some $68 billion delayed or blocked because of local opposition between April and June this year, according to Data Center Watch.
Amazon is looking to publish more metrics tracking its environmental footprint such as the effectiveness of energy and water usage at sites, Hurst said, part of a wider effort to address concerns from environmentalists and communities.
Communities where data centers are built should also get a “return on that investment,” Hurst said. “They should get workforce development, they should get upskilling, they should get economic development.”
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There is currently no national framework in the US requiring hyperscalers to report data centers’ environmental impact.
But Hurst said that voluntary reporting has an advantage over mandated disclosure: It lets companies put data out, have scientists test whether the metrics hold up, and revise the methodology if they don’t, rather than locking in a potentially flawed standard.
“What we need is to publish data, information that’s science-led, and to publish it quickly and to put it out there and say, ‘Is this the right methodology?’” she said.
The data center race has posed a dilemma for sustainability goals globally. An S&P Global assessment of data center companies globally found that just 15 of the 50 firms surveyed received a passing grade signaling that they would be low-carbon and climate-resilient by 2030.
Amazon has set a goal to be net-zero carbon by 2040, but Hurst said the firm will likely see emissions rise in the near term as the data center buildout heats up.
“We’ve said all along this is not going to be linear,” Hurst said.