Investors Press Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to Disclose Data Center Water and Power Use
Shareholders are asking Amazon, Microsoft, and Google to publish site-specific data-center water and energy data as scrutiny of AI infrastructure grows.
Overview
More than a dozen investors are pressing Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet’s Google to publish site-specific data-center water and energy data before spring annual meetings, according to Tom’s Hardware, which summarized Reuters reporting. TechRadar said the resolutions are aimed at replacing broad ESG reporting with location-level transparency so shareholders can judge the local impact of data-center expansion.
What We Know
Amazon says AWS is committed to returning more water than it uses in data center operations by 2030, according to Amazon Sustainability. Google says it reports annual water use for each data center location and every replenishment project it supports, according to Google Data Centers. Microsoft says direct-to-chip cooling can save over 125 million liters of water per facility each year and that it is pursuing a water-positive target for 2030, according to Microsoft’s 2025 Environmental Sustainability Report.
What We Don’t Know
The Reuters-based summaries do not say how many votes each resolution will need to pass or whether any of the companies will change their disclosure practices before the meetings. It is also unclear whether site-level water reporting will remain an investor request or become a broader industry baseline.
Analysis
The pressure matters because all three companies already publish sustainability material, but not in the same format or with the same granularity. Amazon emphasizes reuse and replenishment, Google emphasizes location-by-location reporting, and Microsoft emphasizes efficiency gains in new datacenter designs. That leaves shareholders without an easy apples-to-apples way to compare local water and power impacts, which is exactly the gap these resolutions are trying to close.