Governments in Asia can help digitalisation and decarbonisation flourish together

WITH global leaders convening at COP26 (the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference) to discuss climate action this month, we are seeing increased action from governments across Asia-Pacific and Japan, which have already started setting net-zero carbon goals ahead of the 2050 target set by the Paris Agreement.

Australia, Japan and South Korea have made net-zero declarations in recent months, and Singapore has implemented the ambitious Green Plan 2030 whole-of-nation movement which includes sustainable IT goals. The World Health Organization also recently urged leaders ahead of COP26 to acknowledge the undeniable link between climate and health, and to make human health and equity central to all climate change mitigation and adaptation actions.

As corporate decarbonisation efforts gather pace, governments and public sector organisations in Asia are realising that they can, and must, help pave the way forward with green business incentives, funding for zero-emissions research and development, and investments in green skills for the future workforce to build momentum. The reward for this increased focus on sustainability is realised through new green business opportunities and jobs.

SUSTAINABLE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Governments, public sector organisations, corporates and startups must be creative in unlocking value from sustainable business methods. One way to do this is by migrating IT workloads to more energy-efficient cloud infrastructure. According to a recent study by 451 Research, the cloud can help organisations in Asia-Pacific and Japan reduce their carbon footprint by 78 per cent with sustainable IT. Cloud data centres use highly efficient hyper-scale computing, using the latest and most energy-efficient servers running at optimum processing levels, to process data in bulk.

On top of decarbonising our cloud infrastructure, we work closely with our customers to help them meet their own sustainability goals through cloud technology - be it reducing the carbon and energy footprint of their IT workloads or innovating for sustainability. To reduce the carbon footprint of public and private sector IT workloads quickly and effectively, we encourage policymakers to prioritise clear and effective cloud-first, cloud-native, and cloud migration policies today.

Customers across Asia-Pacific and Japan are also moving to the cloud to use IT for sustainability innovation. Qlue is an Indonesian artificial intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT)-based smart city ecosystem company using Amazon Web Services (AWS) for more sustainable, safer cities. They work closely with city institutions, local communities, and police departments to solve urban issues related to mobility, security, safety and sanitation.

Another example is Australia's University of Wollongong's disaster relief PetaBencana platform, which is built on AWS and provides communities with real-time crowdsourced flood information using IoT sensors. Since its debut in 2013, PetaBencana's sustainable IT platform has been used by millions of residents to make time-critical decisions about safety and navigation during emergency flood events across Jakarta and other Indonesian cities.

DOUBLING UP ON R&D

We will need to collaborate across sectors and bring cloud-enabled innovation for climate adaptation and mitigation. The human, physical and economic risks that climate change could bring are already affecting our lives.

According to a 2020 McKinsey report, Climate risk and response: Physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts, the probability of being exposed to a lethal heatwave in Asia could increase to 80 per cent by 2050. This could lead to a loss of outdoor working hours because of increased heat and humidity, impacting anchor industries like agriculture and construction, and resulting in an annual loss of US$2.8 to 4.7 trillion of gross domestic product in Asia. The impact of these heatwaves on water, crop yields, and climate patterns will have severe repercussions on people and economies worldwide.

Doubling up on investments in research and development in climate science and sustainability today will help accelerate innovation. Finding ways to support public sector organisations, research institutes, and non-profit organisations with easier access to and quicker data analysis can add tremendous value.

For example, the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI) seeks to accelerate sustainability research and innovation by minimising the cost and time required to acquire and analyse large sustainability data sets. The ASDI supports innovators and researchers with the data, tools, and technical expertise they need to advance sustainability initiatives. Alongside the Group on Earth Observations (Geo), AWS has also committed US$1.5 million worth of cloud services, grants via ASDI, and technical support to 21 projects from 17 developing countries.

Singapore-based SpaceAge Labs is a great example of the AWS cloud helping to monitor and manage our environment. The startup provides IoT products for the water/wastewater, landscape services, and facilities management industries, helping public sector customers like the utilities board and national parks reduce manpower costs, improve safety and meet regulations by monitoring fixed, moving and geospatial assets via IoT connected sensors and wireless networks.

SUPPORTIVE POLICIES

A transition away from a traditionally heavy reliance on fossil fuels requires supportive policies for renewable energy, and policies that discourage the use of power generation from fossil fuels. Asia-Pacific and Japan remains a challenging region for corporates to buy renewable energy, and governments need to remove regulatory blockers and ensure the availability and affordability of renewable energy in the region. Companies can play their part by investing in more corporate power purchase agreements for renewable energy to run their own operations and add clean energy to local grids.

Amazon is actively exploring opportunities to unlock more renewable energy options in the region, despite the challenges. In March 2021, Amazon announced its first 62 megawatt (MW) solar project with Sunseap Group in Singapore. And, most recently, in September 2021, Amazon and Mitsubishi Corporation jointly announced a power purchase agreement for a 22 MW aggregated solar project. Both projects are helping Amazon reach its goal to power global operations with 100 per cent renewable energy, a commitment the company is on a path to reach by 2025. Amazon continues to collaborate on renewable energy options in Asia with industry partners such as the Japan Climate Leaders Partnership, Renewable Energy Demand Enhancement initiative in India, and the Clean Energy Investment Accelerator in Indonesia, among others.

At COP26, global leaders will discuss the need to raise the bar on climate action. This is why Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge in 2019, a commitment to be net-zero carbon across our business by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. The Climate Pledge now has over 200 signatories from 26 industries and 21 countries, including Canva, Greenko, Macquarie Asset Management and Xero from Asia-Pacific and Japan. Pledge signatories in total generate over US$1.8 trillion in global annual revenues and are expected to collectively mitigate 1.98 billion metric tons of carbon emissions annually by 2040 from a 2020 baseline.

NEXT BIG DECARBONISATION IDEA

Governments across Asia-Pacific and Japan are investing in decarbonisation technologies to achieve their net-zero carbon goals. These include transitioning to renewable energy sources, electrifying transport, and carbon capture innovations.

Innovative startups can also help to solve climate change. Amazon is investing in low-carbon solutions through The Climate Pledge Fund, which includes companies like Ion Energy, a startup headquartered in India that is developing software to improve the life and performance of lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles and energy storage systems. The company works with more than 75 customers in the mobility and energy industry across 15 countries, including India, France, Spain and the US.

Lasting systemic change in sustainability requires collaboration between governments and the private sector. At Amazon, we remain relentlessly optimistic about the future. Addressing the global crisis of climate change will take a combination of big, bold commitments by organisations, and everyday actions by consumers to innovate towards a more sustainable future.

• The writer is regional managing director for Amazon Web Services, worldwide public sector in Asia-Pacific and Japan.