Leaked memo reveals Amazon hid 93% of data center water usage

A leaked Amazon document reveals the company deliberately concealed the true scale of its data center water usage from the public, using only 7.3% of its actual consumption in official disclosures. The 2022 internal memo shows Amazon used 105 billion gallons of water in 2021—equivalent to nearly a million U.S. households—while publicly reporting just 7.7 billion gallons during its “Water Positive” PR campaign.

The big picture: Amazon executives strategically excluded “secondary water sources” used for electricity generation from public reporting to avoid “reputational risk” and negative headlines about their environmental impact.

Key details: The leaked memo, obtained by The Guardian and investigative non-profit SourceMaterial, exposed Amazon’s water accounting practices ahead of their November 2022 sustainability campaign.

• Amazon’s actual 2021 water usage matched consumption of “a city bigger than San Francisco,” according to the internal document.
• Executives worried about potential headlines like “Amazon hides its water consumption” if the full numbers became public.
• The company has no legal obligation under U.S. law to disclose complete water usage data to the public.

Why this matters: Amazon operates the world’s largest data center network and has invested tens of billions in new facilities since 2021, suggesting water consumption has likely increased dramatically as AI workloads drive demand.

• The $2.4 trillion company has never voluntarily disclosed its complete water footprint and was previously criticized in 2024 for misrepresenting secondary water use.
• As data centers become increasingly water-intensive for cooling AI processors, transparency around environmental impact becomes more critical for public accountability.

What they’re saying: Amazon dismissed the leaked memo’s relevance while declining to provide specifics about current practices.

• An Amazon spokesperson told The Guardian the memo “completely misrepresents Amazon’s current water usage strategy” and called the 2022 document “obsolete,” but wouldn’t explain what had changed.
• Antitrust journalist Barry C. Lynn told Vox that Amazon and similar tech companies wield power like “absolute monarchs,” creating barriers to democratic governance.

The broader context: The revelation highlights how major corporations can exploit legal loopholes to hide environmental costs while publicly promoting sustainability initiatives, with leaked documents serving as rare windows into actual corporate practices versus public messaging.