THE SUSTAINABILITY INTERVIEW
clean and efficient cloud operations through Amazon ' s investments in renewable energy and AWS ' s innovations in energy-efficient infrastructure, alongside guidance on best practice, often working with IT and technology leaders.
“ Customers often ask us for help understanding their carbon footprint on AWS or architecting and optimising their workloads,” explains AWS Principal Solutions Architect Andrew Morrow.“ One of the ways we do that is through the AWS Well Architected Framework, where we have the Sustainability Pillar that contains design principles, operational guidance, best-practices, potential trade-offs, and improvement plans for optimal efficiency. There is a community of technical experts across AWS who help us scale across industries, and also bring expertise to customers regardless of where they are or what they ' re trying to build.”
Level two addresses operational sustainability across the wider business – where most companies have their largest impacts. Here, AWS helps customers use cloud and AI for proven optimisation opportunities: reducing fleet mileage through route and logistics optimisation, identifying manufacturing defects earlier with computer vision, or cutting waste through intelligent water and energy management. Many of these solutions already exist; the task is to deploy and scale them effectively rather than reinventing the wheel.
The third level is where innovation comes to the forefront. Many of the solutions needed, especially in nature and biodiversity, do not yet exist. AWS uses its Innovation Programmes to help customers work backwards from their needs – defining the problem, identifying the end user, and designing new products and services – with both sustainability impact and commercial viability in mind. At this level, lines of business and product owners become key stakeholders as sustainability evolves from operational optimisation to digital innovation.
Level four is about twin transformation: embedding sustainability into large‐scale digital transformation and core business strategy from the outset.
“Within the Well-Architected framework, we have the sustainability pillar that contains best practices and guidance on how to build and run your workloads for optimal sustainability”
Andrew Morrow, Principal Solutions Architect AWS aws. amazon. com