Fortune India Exclusive: Inside Amazon’s EV and water goals

Amazon plans to become water-positive in India 3 years before its global deadline for its AWS data centre business, a commitment no other multinational has made in the country. The company has already met its target of 10,000 electric vehicles in its India fleet, a year ahead of the 2025 deadline. From its beginnings to its future, here’s a complete look at Amazon’s EV and water sustainability initiatives in India.

It all started in 2019 with Jeff Bezos announcing that Amazon will have 1 lakh EVs in its fleet by 2030. A year later, India got its target of 10,000 EVs by 2025. The EV fleet deployment started in the US and Europe before India.

Building an EV fleet of 10,000 was not easy. In an exclusive interaction with Fortune India, Kara Hurst, Amazon’s chief sustainability officer, said that a key challenge is identifying vehicles that meet Amazon’s demanding logistics requirements. The company, hence, partnered with leading auto manufacturers including Gentari, Ashok Leyland among others to create custom-designed solutions for its Delivery Service Providers. It signed an MoU with the Tatas for 5,000 EVs. “We’ve built custom design vehicles. We have to think about the right type of vehicle and start building with a safety-first focus,” Hurst says.

It’s not just that. “We focused on the size of the container required based on route density and crowds in the city,” explains Abhinav Singh. “In Delhi, you'll need a higher cube design. In cities where deliveries are less dense, you need a lower cube design,” he adds. Hurst points out that these EVs operate differently in different cities, depending on whether the weather is hot or cold.

Delivery partners bear the upfront cost of EVs, with financing options provided through Amazon's partner institutions. Amazon supports them with steady business opportunities, helping partners recover their investments within a set timeframe. Operating costs for EVs, particularly four-wheelers, are lower than diesel vehicles, but achieving cost savings and break-even depends on consistent usage.

Today, these EVs have been deployed across 500 cities. Singh emphasises the goal of achieving a 100% EV fleet. At the summit, Amazon showcased a 32-foot long-haul electric truck that logged over 10,000 kilometres in its pilot phase. Additional trucks are set to begin trials in the next 2–3 months along the Golden Quadrilateral.

Amazon is also strengthening its partnership with Indian Railways to shift more freight to rail, a lower-carbon alternative. It is also collaborating with HPCL on renewable diesel through a recently signed MoU and experimenting with low-carbon fuels. Other initiatives include testing hydrogen battery storage, and advanced battery solutions.

Are EVs the only focus?

Using EVs requires the necessary infrastructure. Hence, of the company’s 19 joint action projects, two India-specific projects focus on building EV infrastructure - Project JOULE (Joint Operation Unifying Last-mile Electrification) and Laneshift. JOULE focuses on renewable-powered electrification and has already set up its first EV charging station in Doddakallasandra, Bengaluru, with plans for five more in the city. By 2030, these stations aim to support 5,500 EVs (with a full capacity of 9,500 EVs,) while serving fleet vehicles from other companies. The project is expected to create 185 full-time jobs in Bengaluru by 2030.

Laneshift focuses on electrifying the 350-kilometer Bengaluru-Chennai highway corridor, and expanding EV infrastructure across Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Pune. This initiative is undertaken with C-40, a global mayors' climate group.

The water-positive target

Amazon has committed to becoming water-positive by 2030 in its AWS data centre business globally. “We're on our way to that. In 2023, we had already achieved 41% of the way towards that goal,” Hurst says.

The India operations too, have a water target now. The scale of its operations in India is significant, with zonal data centres in Mumbai and Hyderabad aside from over 43 million cubic feet of storage space, sort centres in 19 states, nearly 2,000 delivery stations, and 25 corporate offices.

While total water consumption figures remain undisclosed, estimating this can help in underscoring the magnitude of this challenge. AWS data centres globally have reported a water use efficiency of 0.18 litres per kilowatt-hour. Based on the assumption of an energy consumption of 1.2 million kilowatt-hours per day, daily water usage could reach approximately 2.16 lakh litres. This figure, though more efficient than many other data centres, only accounts for AWS operations, highlighting the substantial water usage involved despite its ongoing sustainability efforts.

Though still small, these efforts are substantial and essential. The next step is for others to pitch in. Of the 535 global signatories to Amazon's Climate Pledge, 12 are from India. It’s time for Indian companies to work together to build a larger private-sector sustainability movement.