Amazon's water-positive pledge and a leaked 2022 memo
- The record does not name which of my species, waters, soils or forests were harmed.
- Company or project Amazon Web Services: Asked to raise the water permits of three data centres by 48% per facility, from 36.4 to 53.9 million litres a year. Ecoticias
- Communities and civil society Campaign "No es sequía, es saqueo": Campaigned against data centres in Aragón under the name "It is not drought, it is plunder"; the campaign put data centres at 51.6% of the region's energy plan and AWS investment at 15.7 million euros per job. elDiario.es
- Government and regulators President of the Ebro basin authority: Said water for the Zaragoza campus was not guaranteed all year; the campus was given a cap of 204,697 m³ a year. Merca2
Amazon Web Services has pledged to be water positive by 2030. A leaked 2022 internal memo, reported in October 2025, discussed whether to leave the water used in generating electricity out of the pledge.
As reported by SourceMaterial from the leaked 2022 memo; the memo's own dollar figure was $109 million.
Status As of October 2026: no court case or regulatory finding is reported; the Zaragoza campus has a water cap and a non-binding Cuarte vote went against a further AWS project.
- Amazon Web Services — According to the memo, a narrower pledge scope avoided doubling the campaign's size and budget. SourceMaterial
What happened
Amazon Web Services (AWS) set a goal to be "water positive" by 2030, meaning it would return more water than it uses. SourceMaterial reported that a 2022 internal AWS memo discussed the water used to generate the electricity the data centres consume.
SourceMaterial published its report on the leaked memo on 25 October 2025. According to the report, the memo said that adding electricity-related water to the campaign would double its size and budget, and that the figure should be disclosed only if a regulator asked. The memo also said that half of the $109 million of water-replenishment projects would have been spent anyway.
Separately, SourceMaterial reported in April 2025 that 62 of the 632 data centres of Amazon, Microsoft and Google combined were in water-scarce regions, 38 of them operating and 24 planned.
In Aragón, Spain, a report of 25 March 2025 said AWS had asked to raise the water permits of three data centres by 48% per facility, from 36.4 to 53.9 million litres a year. A campaign against data centres in the region, called "No es sequía, es saqueo" ("It is not drought, it is plunder"), began in September 2025. In July 2026 an environmental approval for Amazon's largest data centre in Aragón, at Zaragoza, was reported to carry a water cap of 204,697 cubic metres a year, and the president of the Ebro basin authority said the water was not guaranteed all year.
In October 2026, a non-binding neighbourhood vote in Cuarte (Huesca) on a further AWS project, Walqa 2, was reported to have 99.1% of participants voting against. The sources reviewed do not give Amazon's public response to the memo report.
- 2022Internal AWS memo on the scope of the water-positive campaign, later leaked
- 2025AWS asks to raise water permits at three Aragón data centres by 48% per facility (reported March); SourceMaterial reports 62 of 632 big-tech data centres in water-scarce regions (April); campaign "No es sequía, es saqueo" begins (September); SourceMaterial reports on the leaked memo (25 October)
- 2026Environmental approval with a water cap for the Zaragoza campus reported (July); non-binding Cuarte vote against AWS Walqa 2 (October)
What was said
Where accounts differ
Each party's account, side by side, with its source. The record does not settle these points; it shows them.
Asked to raise the water permits of three data centres by 48% per facility, from 36.4 to 53.9 million litres a year.
EcoticiasCampaigned against data centres in Aragón under the name "It is not drought, it is plunder"; the campaign put data centres at 51.6% of the region's energy plan and AWS investment at 15.7 million euros per job.
elDiario.esSaid water for the Zaragoza campus was not guaranteed all year; the campus was given a cap of 204,697 m³ a year.
Merca2How it looked
Shown
- A pledge to be water positive by 2030: to return more water than the company usesAWS · SourceMaterial
Recorded
- A 2022 internal memo said that including the water used to generate electricity would double the campaign's size and budget, and that disclosure should happen only if a regulator asked, according to SourceMaterial's report.
- The same memo said that half of the $109 million of offset projects would have been spent anyway, according to SourceMaterial.
- AWS asked to raise the water permits of three Aragón data centres by 48% per facility, from 36.4 to 53.9 million litres a year.
- An environmental approval for the Zaragoza AWS campus set a cap of 204,697 cubic metres of water a year; the president of the Ebro basin authority said water was not guaranteed all year.
- Two Amazon facilities in Querétaro, Mexico, were reported to employ 17 people (secondary reports; the source URL is not in the material reviewed).
In court and with insurers
Lawsuits and rulings
Insurers
What nature saw
Nature's report opens this page. Below: further outcomes measured on the ground.
What we don't know
Nature
- Not measured Harm to nature: The record holds no measurement of harm to nature.
- Disputed Is there enough water in Aragón for the planned AWS data centres?
Court
- None on record No court case on record.
Record
- Insufficient Reported but not independently verified: that AWS's pledge leaves power-plant water outside its scope, and that AWS replenished 4 of every 10 gallons used in 2023 through projects in Chile's Maipo basin and Cape Town (Gizmodo, citing Grist, September 2024; the item is marked unverified in the material reviewed).
- None on record The reported claim that water used indirectly is about twelve times direct use is not tied to a named source in the material reviewed.
- None on record The World Bank was reported to say that indirect water is at least 80% of the total used by data centres; the source link is not in the material reviewed.
Did the harm stop?
The sources reviewed do not report that any water use stopped; the pledge target year is 2030, and the Zaragoza campus was reported with a water cap in July 2026.
Who paid?
Not established in the sources reviewed. Groups in Aragón say the water competes with local use; no source quantifies the effect on local water users.
Sources
Press and investigations
- Amazon leak reveals true data centres water usage secret planSourceMaterial · 2025-10-25
- Big Tech's data centre push will take water from the world's driest areasSourceMaterial · 2025-04-09
- Cuarte rechaza con un 99,1% el centro de datos de AWS en Walqa (aggregator site)Ecosistema Startup · 2026-10-05