Amazon AWS versus Google GCP 2023 - which cloud service is the most sustainable?

Which cloud giant will lift the sustainability trophy?

Throughout the course of last year and into 2023, the sustainability of cloud and datacentres more broadly has become a subject increasingly of interest - to enterprises trying to improve their ESG credentials, to investors keen to do likewise, and consumers who are increasingly willing to spend more money on sustainable and ethically sourced goods and services.

The problem for cloud customers is that they are reliant on the assurances of vendors about the sustainability of their services. Those with queries and questions will be directed towards ESG reports, which have become longer (Amazon's runs to 101 pages this year) and more accessible.

These reports are great at providing background and communicating targets and assurances but typically the data - which is what really matters - is buried away at the back of the report, and the it cherry picked to varying degrees to present the relevant company in the greenest possible light.

The claims contained within ESG reports require close scrutiny, which is why last year Computing examined the sustainability credentials of the three hyperscale cloud giants, and some smaller cloud service and datacentre providers. The details and methodology of this research can be found here. The results of last year's research were published as a series of head-to-head vendor comparisons. Links to these articles are set out below.

• Microsoft Azure versus Amazon AWS
• Microsoft Azure versus Google Cloud Platform
• Amazon AWS versus Google Cloud Platform
• SAP versus Salesforce

This year, we have updated research with data for 2021, which was published in ESG reports in the latter part of last year. Research is also focused on the three hyperscalers, because this is where the majority of cloud spend is going - directly or indirectly.

Further details of how we have amended the research this year can be found here.

In the first of the series of this years' articles we'll examine cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), which holds third place in the cloud services market. Last year, AWS came out of the research badly, trailing well behind GCP (and even further behind Microsoft Azure).

Has anything changed in the meantime?

Amazon Web Services v Google Cloud Platform: At a glance

• Standards & Policies: A clear win for GCP, scoring 13 out of 16 points as opposed to AWS with 7. Google is setting more ambitious environmental targets for itself, its suppliers and customers. It is also actively tracking and monitoring progress towards these standards rather than relying on voluntary action.
• Energy/Emissions/Water: Another win for GCP although only just. Out of a possible 22 points GCP scored 10 and AWS 9. Both companies are increasing emissions. AWS is using its power responsibly by funding billions of dollars' worth of renewable projects globally. It is also innovating for efficiency to an extent that could be a real game changer, but seems oddly reluctant to publicise this work. In both cases, the gap between standards and policies and actual hard data on environmental impact speaks volumes.
• Waste/Circular Economy/Recycling: GCP does better here, although the difference in points is primarily due to Google simply providing data. Both companies are trying to reduce the waste created by their business activity and by their customers, but Google reports the results where Amazon does not.
• Transparency: Amazon is not transparent. The company picks up a single point out of the 13 available. In more than 100 pages of ESG report, there is little in the way of tangible sustainability data. By comparison Google scores 8 due to providing much better quality, accessible data.

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Amazon AWS versus Google GCP 2023 - which cloud service is the most sustainable?

Which cloud giant will lift the sustainability trophy?

Amazon Web Services versus Google Cloud Platform: Standards & Policies

Standards and Policies criteria exist to provide clarity for customers, and potential customers about the standards cloud providers have signed up to and the policies in place to ensure targets are met.

Overall, AWS comes out of this badly, scoring a total of 7 out of a possible 16 as opposed to 10 points last year. Part of the reason for this is that several criteria where AWS scored well last year - such as board level representation - have been reduced in value. For example, last year AWS received two points for having Kara Hurst as Worldwide VP Sustainability, but we have reduced the weighting of that criterion to a single point this year.

AWS does reasonably well in the customer ecosystem engagement criterion. The company founded The Climate Pledge in 2019, which is designed specifically to reach into the wider business ecosystem to reduce emissions and climate impact.

Amazon can demonstrate tangible success for The Climate Pledge. It has now grown to 300+ companies, 253 of which joined in 2021. All of them pledge to cut carbon to net zero by 2040 and use credible offsets (on which more later).

Amazon has also put up $2 billion in The Climate Pledge Fund, which supports the development of sustainable tech and services. Amazon has invested in 13 companies since launching the fund in 2020.

AWS also launched a customer carbon footprint tool in March 2022, which aims to provide customers with data visualisations of historical carbon emissions and an ability to evaluate emission trends as their use of the service evolves. It also estimates emissions avoided by using AWS instead of an on-premise data centre. However, the method by which AWS arrives at these calculations is opaque, and it doesn't include its own scope 3 emissions in the data, so a customer carbon footprint will look lower than it really is.

Amazon has also failed to progress its commitment to the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). Amazon joined in 2020 and is still sitting at the initial ‘Commit' stage - there are four further phases. What this means is that it hasn't submitted a concrete plan to meet its pledge.

SBTi announced in 2022 that companies that commit and then don't deliver a plan will be removed after 24 months. By rights Amazon should already have been removed from the list of companies who have committed, but SBTi may choose not to apply this rule retrospectively.

Amazon also remains uncertified to ISO14001. Page 96 of the 2021 ESG Report displays a graphic of the UN Sustainable Development Goals alongside a claim that this, "shows how our programs correspond to the UN SDGs." There is no accompanying detail to explain exactly how these programmes do align or any sort of progress report.

Ambition for sustainability

AWS also falls down on the ambition of targets. The Climate Pledge is focused on a target date of 2040, 10 years ahead of The Paris Agreement target of 2050. But GCP (and Microsoft) have set themselves much tougher targets. It's also now abundantly clear from recent IPCC reports that Team Humanity needs to be shooting for much faster emissions reductions if we are to stave off some of the more catastrophic effects of climate change.

There are no top line published targets on water or waste, although Amazon has a whole separate water stewardship website setting out a water positivity by 2030 target. A separate blog indicates a plan for achieving this. It isn't clear why Amazon chooses to separate water from its other targets.

Ambitions for suppliers are also too small. Amazon's supply chain standards document has a clause saying, "We encourage suppliers to continuously improve energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption and GHG [(greenhouse gas)] emissions. Suppliers should track, document and upon request, report GHG emissions to Amazon." Suppliers are encouraged to establish a GHG reduction goal and publicly report their progress. What is disappointing is that Amazon doesn't appear to track or enforce any of this. It it does there is no evidence of it.

Amazon is one of the most powerful companies on earth. It can - and should - be aiming higher. And it should be using its power to force its suppliers to raise their game as well.

Google actually increased its points in the Standards & Policies category from 12 last year to 13 this year. This means that the company has picked up the majority of the available points.

Google can demonstrate board levels representation. Its policies and progress documentation is relatively easy to find, and it demonstrates greater ambition for itself, its suppliers and its customers than its vastly larger competitor.

Google's top line sustainability commitment is same as last year: to be net zero by 2030 across all operations and value chain. It aims to be the first major company to operate on carbon free energy 24 x 7x 365.

Google is unique among the hyperscalers in listing 'helping other organisations' as one of its own targets. Among other top line targets is enabling 5GW of carbon free energy in key manufacturing regions, and helping more than 500 cities and local govts reduce an aggregate of 1GT of emissions annually.

Targets on waste and water carry a lower profile in Google's Environmental report.

Google aimed for zero waste to landfill by end of 2022 and to replenish 120% of water used by 2030.

Google picked up maximum points on ambitions for customer ecosystem engagement. The carbon footprint tool allows customers to report, visualise and reduce the carbon footprint of their Google cloud. There is also an unattended project recommender tool, which enables customers to spot old and under-used resources, shut them down and then see how much carbon has been saved. Calculation methodology is published and verified by a third party.

Whilst some scope 3 emissions are excluded, most are included and the review states that this is unlikely to have a material impact on overall emissions. All of these tools are included as standard, not extra chargeable items.

Google also scores highly on ambitions and policies for suppliers. The reason this category is so important and weighted relatively highly is that the supply chain accounts for a significant chunk of scope 3 emissions.

Google publishes a Supplier Responsibility Report, which sets out its plans in some detail. Google assesses emissions reporting, management and emissions reduction as part of supplier sourcing. Google also invites direct & indirect suppliers to report through the CDP survey, and the vast majority do so.

Google collects its Tier one suppliers' scope 1 and scope 2 data, so they can be incorporated into Google's scope 3 emissions.

Google lost points in three areas. The first is the failure to certify to ISO14001 standard. Google commented as follows:

"About ISO14001, some of our data centres achieved this in the past. We are currently evaluating this certification to ensure we have the right resources to implement, and recognise the value of ISO 14001 in demonstrating evidence to support our compliance with, for example, the EU Code of Conduct. We should also mention that all of our Europe data centres have achieved ISO5001."

A point was also lost when it came to UN SDGs. Google as a whole does not align itself with the SDGs. However, one point was given because Google.org - essentially Google's charity arm - is running a programme for AI startups, not for profit bodies and academic institutions, which does show alignment with the goals, and is providing $25m of funding.

On SBTi Google can show far more progress than Amazon. Formal commitment to SBTi to validate absolute emission reductions target has been submitted but at the end of 2022 so this had not yet been validated or published, hence full marks could not be awarded.

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Amazon AWS versus Google GCP 2023 - which cloud service is the most sustainable?

Which cloud giant will lift the sustainability trophy?

Amazon Web Services versus Google Cloud Platform: Energy/Emissions/Water

Emissions/Energy/Water is about the impact of datacentres and office buildings. It's where hard data on emissions, carbon accounting and water use are examined, along with building standards, commuting impact and innovation in areas such as cooling and energy efficiency. This is where we can begin to determine the extent to which cloud hyperscalers are closing in on their stated targets.

The shortcoming in our comparison here is that none of the vendors we have analysed this year break out their cloud operations from the rest of the business. We are not comparing "apples with apples." However, we have to start somewhere, and until vendors choose to provide this data, we have no choice but to work with what we have.

This shortcoming results in Amazon coming out of this analysis badly, because of the nature of the rest of its business. Amazon emits an extraordinary quantity of carbon. Its total carbon footprint grew 18% year on year. That footprint measured 71.54 million metric tons (mmt) of CO2e. This growth was largely in indirect emissions but even Scope 1 emissions grew 26%, from 9.62 to 12.11 mmt CO2e.

Amazon does, however, score the maximum points in the renewable energy generation criteria. The company remains the world's largest buyer of renewable energy - which is just as well because the company consumed 30.88 million megawatt hours of electricity overall. Amazon provides a third-party assurance that 85% of this electricity is from renewables, but what the company still doesn't do is break down how much energy its own renewables projects generate, how much is accounted for by direct contractual agreements with other renewable projects, and how much is simply REC buying.

That being said, as of January 2023, Amazon had 401 renewable energy projects globally and 237 onsite solar projects. According to Amazon, when these projects are fully operational, they are expected to provide enough clean energy to power 5.3 million U.S. homes a year or 15.3 million European homes a year. The renewable energy generated by these projects is also expected to help avoid over 21.8 million metric tons of carbon emissions each year - the equivalent of taking nearly more than 4.7 million cars off the road each year.

Despite the lack of detail in energy data about how it gets to the 85% renewable figure, Amazon still scores full points here - partly because of the sheer volume of renewable projects, as well as the fact that it is aiming to generate renewables to compensate for electricity used by all Echodots, Fire TV & Ring doorbells globally by 2025.

Carbon offsetting & intensity

Google's emissions are also on an upward trend. The company claims to be on course for net zero emissions by 2030 but total emissions increased by more than 10% last year (although remains below the peak in 2018). Google makes a great deal of being "carbon neutral for operations since 2007," but this is based on purchases of renewable energy and "high quality carbon credits."

Computing asked Google for further details on what constitutes a high-quality carbon credit. By way of response Google stated that all mentions of "carbon offsets" in their reporting were updated to "carbon credits" in 2021. However, the link provided didn't work, and the only publicly available information that Computing could find still referred to carbon offsets.

Google also commented: "When we committed to carbon neutrality, we envisioned carbon offsets as an interim solution. In 2017, Google became the first major corporation to reach a 100% renewable energy target — and have reached it every year since.

"Recognising there are still regions and times of day where clean energy is unavailable, in 2020, we set our goal of operating on 24/7 carbon-free energy (CFE) by 2030.

"In 2021, we set a goal to achieve net-zero emissions across our operations and value chain, including our consumer hardware products, by 2030. We aim to reduce the majority of our emissions (versus our 2019 baseline) before 2030, and plan to invest in nature-based and technology-based carbon removal solutions to neutralise our remaining emissions."

Another metric used in this years research is carbon intensity per MwHour Electricity consumed. This metric is a useful indicator of just how much renewable electricity really is being consumed - more so than carbon intensity by revenue (Amazon's preferred metric). Amazon simply does not provide this data, and Google's carbon intensity has increased significantly: from 0.0615 to 0.1006 after being on a downward trend for several years. This does rather call into question that carbon neutrality claim.

Neither Google nor AWS does well when it comes to metrics such as PUE, cooling or water withdrawal. More detail on the shortcomings of PUE as a comparative metric between different datacentres and vendors can be seen here, but this year we have retained it as a metric, albeit less heavily weighted.

Google's average PUE across its datacentres was 1.1, meaning it is using very little incremental power for cooling and networking. Google is transparent about PUE calculations and makes it clear that older facilities are factored into the calculations as well as the newest and most efficient datacentres.

Amazon is secretive about its datacentres. No PUE is provided, just a claim that AWS infrastructure is 3.6 times more energy efficient than the median of U.S. enterprise data centres & 5 times more efficient that European datacentres. The data supporting this claim seems to have been taken from a research paper from 451 Research, which Amazon commissioned. The paper is based on a survey of 300 US companies conducted in 2019, which was combined with AWS data - but from the US only - and also industry data from Uptime. A carbon efficiency model was derived but this is based on a set of assumptions that are unlikely to hold four years on and in different parts of the world.`

Cooling and Innovation

In terms of cooling, Google simply states that its datacentres, "employ advanced cooling techniques, using highly efficient evaporative cooling or outside air whenever possible instead of mechanical chillers." When asked for further comment Google posted a link to a cooling focused blog post, which again provided minimal information.

AWS also provides scant detail when it comes to cooling and water use. A target is given of being water positive by 2030, but incredibly the company does not report on how many litres or gallons of water it presently withdraws. Amazon was asked for some further details about cooling and water. The company declined to provide this data.

Amazon does provide some background, specifically on Irish datacentres that use direct evaporative cooling systems. This means that for more than 95% of the year no water is used to cool them. For the few hot days Ireland does see, a minimal amount of water is used. Amazon then refers to its "newest data centre designs," which "use as little as 1,000m3 of water for cooling annually, per datacentre - the equivalent to the yearly water usage of just eight average Irish households." There is no mention of older datacentres, or ones in considerably warmer climes.

One bright spot for AWS is innovation. Whilst Google is working with its AI engine to reduce the energy required for cooling, the AWS third generation Arm-based processor AWS Graviton3 uses up to 60% less energy for the same performance as previous generations. That's potentially a game changer.

AWS is also using the heat generated by one of its Irish datacentres to heat 47,000 m2 of public sector buildings, 6,000m2 of commercial space, and affordable apartments.

The company also uses modelling practices such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to optimise the design of cooling systems during the datacentre design phase. This provides an opportunity to optimise energy efficiency at the build stage. A recent example reduced mechanical system energy usage by 20%. Once datacentres are in operation, real-time physics-based models taking in data from multiple sources enable AWS to optimise efficiency and reduce energy use as much as possible.

Office sustainability

Turning to offices, Google picked up some points that Amazon did not, based on the fact that out of its 7.5 million square foot of occupied office space, 4 million square foot is LEED certified. Google also scored points for not overlooking the impact of remote working, and specifically breaking these work categories out to include operational emissions, and then buying PPAs and carbon credits to offset total operational emissions to zero. The company also has some good initiatives to encourage car sharing and provides EV charging facilities and shuttle buses.

Computing could only find evidence of one LEED certification from AWS - that of PenPlace (HQ2) in Virginia, which will be Platinum certified. The company provides EV chargers at some campuses and fulfilment centres and uses plenty of EVs itself for deliveries. For this, we awarded one point.

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Amazon AWS versus Google GCP 2023 - which cloud service is the most sustainable?

Which cloud giant will lift the sustainability trophy?

Amazon Web Services versus Google Cloud Platform: Waste/Circular Economy/Recycling

Waste/Circular Economy/Recycling is all about the extent to which cloud vendors are squeezing various categories of waste out of their value chains and utilising circular economies.

This is another category where Google outperforms Amazon because, although Amazon is undertaking plenty of initiatives to reduce waste and create circular economies, it doesn't provide any data to show how successful these initiatives are. Consequently we have awarded Amazon some points for paper/cardboard recycling due to its ongoing initiatives to make its padded envelopes recyclable, and also the company's reuse of difficult to recycle plastic in its bags. Amazon also incorporates recycled plastic and metal into its devices.

Google does not provide data on paper and carboard waste. However, its total waste generation continued its downward trajectory, falling from 28,864 to 28,153 metric tonnes in 2021. Electronic waste is not broken out as separate category so no points can be awarded there. However, Google does publish its landfill diversion rate, which is 77% overall. It's higher for datacentres (78%) than offices (64%). Google has also increased the proportion of refurbished components used in datacentres from 23% to 27% and increased its activity in terms of plastic reuse and recycling.

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Amazon AWS versus Google GCP 2023 - which cloud service is the most sustainable?

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Amazon Web Services versus Google Cloud Platform: Transparency

Transparency is where Computing assesses the degree to which key environmental data is made available.

Unfortunately for AWS, this is the category where it performs worst, taking a solitary one point out the 13 available. Amazon's emissions reporting - particularly scope 3 reporting - is poor. The categories of scope 3 emissions (there are 15 in total) are not broken out even in the appendix of the ESG report. Any potential customer requiring further data has to dig out the third-party verification letter.

A point is given here for including the large upstream emission categories, but there are still plenty of downstream emissions not included. Only market-based emissions (MBM) are reported, so the reader can't see what emissions the company actually puts into the air. The carbon accounting process is not visible.

By contrast, Google reports this data reasonably clearly, and both location and market-based totals are included. Google doesn't score perfectly, partly because the reader has to navigate footnotes and multiple reports to pull together a full scope 3 list, and because Google has continued to separate graphics to illustrate emissions reductions progress from the actual data tables - a skim read would give a misleading impression of progress towards the goal of net zero.

Where both companies could improve is in the transparency of their carbon offsets. This is very important, particularly for Google because the company uses carbon offsets to stand up its claim of being carbon neutrality in operations. Google provides a separate document on the subject and assesses the quality of offsets based on additionality, leakage prevention, permanence and verifiability. However, Google declines to say which body verifies the credits. This is critical information given the serious doubt cast on Verra & the VCS with regard to rainforest projects.

Amazon also fails to explain how credits are verified and what mechanism it uses.

Neither company acknowledges use of third-party datacentres. According to datacentre industry veterans, the use of third-party datacentres by the cloud giants is an open secret. Why does it matter? It matters because it materially impacts environmental data. Furthermore, the sustainability tools that are provided for customers would be affected by their use. Both Amazon and Google were asked about third-party datacentre use and neither even acknowledged the question.

Conclusions

GCP scores far more highly than AWS, across all four categories of sustainability, although both companies score badly in the category of emissions/energy/water where such a large proportion of real tech impact is measured.

The problem for AWS begins with standards and policies, because there is little evidence that Amazon's sustainability ambitions match the size and power of the organisation. Net zero by 2040 as a target looks small compared with Google's ambition to meet the same target a decade earlier. Amazon's reporting is also littered with phrases such as "on a path to powering operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025," when there is no accompanying data to show how far along that path the company is.

Of course, Amazon is going to be a disadvantage in this analysis. Whilst neither company breaks out cloud operations from the rest of the business, the nature of Amazon's operations means that it is by far the biggest carbon emitter.

What is puzzling about Amazon's reporting is that it is doing some genuinely innovative work - but not really telling anyone about it. For example, in 2021 six AWS datacentres were constructed with steel from electric-arc furnaces. These furnaces use scrap steel and recycle it using renewable energy. Amazon is also reducing the carbon embodied in the concrete used in their datacentres by up to 20%. These initiatives could form the basis of a green revolution in construction due to the significant emissions reduction - but they are only fleetingly reported and no metrics are provided. Yet out of the two vendors in this analysis, Amazon is by far the greatest innovator.

Google, by commercial measures the smallest vendor in this comparison, shows big ambition for its sustainability. Having said that, whilst the company claims to be working to a higher standard, its metrics on carbon and water are heading in the wrong direction. The gap between standards and policies and actual tech impact is considerable, and the carbon neutrality claim is questionable given the doubts that have surfaced this year about the veracity of certain carbon credits and the lack of transparency on third party datacentre use.

Google does much better, comparatively, in the recycling and refurbishment parts of our analysis. Using refurbished components in servers closes recycling loops and materially reduces impact. The fact that the company reports its waste - and that this waste is reduced year on year - is decidedly positive.

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