[DISCUSSION] Update AWS importer to refer to new regions and sustainability claims

[mrchrisadams]

Topic

We've had a member of AWS staff, @sissonsb, open an issue on the older green check repo, asking about updating the info we have. I've created this issue for now, so we don't miss it.

Reference

This is a response to issue #75 on the older greencheck API repo:

thegreenwebfoundation/greencheck-api#75

From the previous issue:

Following the release of the Amazon annual sustainability report the Amazon public website was updated and now details an expanded list of AWS Regions that were powered by over 95% renewable energy in 2021.

"
To achieve our goal of powering our operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of our original 2030 target—Amazon contracts for renewable power from utility scale wind and solar projects that add clean energy to the grid. These new renewable projects support hundreds of jobs while providing hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in local communities. We also may choose to support these grids through the purchase of environmental attributes, like Renewable Energy Certificates and Guarantees of Origin, in line with our Renewable Energy Methodology.

As a result, in 2021, the following AWS Regions were powered by over 95% renewable energy:

US East (Northern Virginia)
GovCloud (US-East)
US East (Ohio)
US West (Oregon)
GovCloud (US-West)
US West (Northern California)
Canada (Central)
Europe (Ireland)
Europe (Frankfurt)
Europe (London)

[mrchrisadams]

I found out this morning that the new Sustainability Report from Amazon makes much clearer claims about the 100% renewable regions. You can see the thread below for some context and commentary:

https://mastodon.social/@mrchrisadams/110739594230476049

Here's the specific claim we can refer to now on Amazon's website:

In 2022, the electricity consumed in the following 19 AWS Regions was attributable to 100% renewable energy:

• U.S. East (Northern Virginia)
• GovCloud (U.S. East)
• U.S. East (Ohio)
• U.S. West (Oregon)
• GovCloud (U.S. West)
• U.S. West (Northern California)
• Canada (Central)
• Europe (Ireland)
• Europe (Frankfurt)
• Europe (London)
• Europe (Milan)
• Europe (Paris)
• Europe (Stockholm)
• Europe (Spain)
• Europe (Zurich)
• Asia-Pacific (Mumbai)
• Asia-Pacific (Hyderabad)
• China (Beijing)
• China (Ningxia)

Source: The Cloud - Amazon sustainability

Their methodology is clear about what they mean by 100% renewable too:

To calculate the percentage of renewable energy powering Amazon’s operations, we evaluate both the amount of renewable energy from Amazon’s projects and the renewable energy in the grid. This total renewable energy is then compared to Amazon’s total energy use per the equation below

Amazon Amazon’s Renewable Energy % = (Amazon Renewable Energy Projects + Renewable Energy in the Grid) / Amazon Energy Use

Amazon’s renewable energy percentage is calculated on an annual basis, from January 1 through December 31 each year, and assured by an independent third-party auditor along with Amazon’s carbon footprint. We publicly disclose the results of these audits on our sustainability website.

Source: Amazon Renewable Energy Methodology

What I read there seems to suggest that Amazon is either carrying out power purchase agreements, or purchasing annual environmental attribute certificates. The only thing where it's not explicit is whether certificates used on one grid are sometimes used on another grid. I don't think Google or Microsoft make these guarantees either for their 100% renewable claims either.

There is also limited independent third part assurance from Ernst and Young. This isn't currently linked on their reporting page, but it is in their report on page 80.

Implementing the changes so the new regions show up as green

I think to implement this change the main thing we need now is a decent mapping between the names and the regions in use. I'm not sure of the region codes are for some of the new regions, and I'd appreciate a pointer.

@sissonsb - we pull the Amazon IP range data from this url here, but I am not sure about how all the region codes like eu-west-3 map to the named regions.

https://ip-ranges.amazonaws.com/ip-ranges.json

Is there a canonical place you would suggest I look?

[mrchrisadams]

Sweet, I've heard back:

The EC2 documentation has this mapping

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-regions-availability-zones.html#concepts-available-regions

You can also produce this programmatically using the CLI

aws ec2 describe-regions --all-regions

or SDKs eg boto3
https://boto3.amazonaws.com/v1/documentation/api/latest/reference/services/ec2/client/describe_regions.html

I think the only ones not listed on the docs.aws.amazon.com page are for China.

Theyre's mention of them below, but I don't see the region names to import the IPs.
https://www.amazonaws.cn/en/about-aws/china/

We might need to address that one separately.

[allanhenderson]

Hello, just wondered if any movement on this issue? Thank you

[mrchrisadams]

hi @allanhenderson!

The new regions should have started showing up as green in our IP checks along with the information we have access to from Nov 11, 2023 - I should have updated this ticket here, sorry.

If you're seeing something different, the fastest way to receive a response about checks you see would be to send a message via support page listed below:

https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/support/

We have dedicated support team for looking into specific cases, but it's also worth knowing that we're in the process of deploying new versions of automated importers this week, for a select number of large cloud providers. As the page below says this includes AWS, Azure and Equinix.

More below:
https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/support/how-we-manage-ip-ranges-for-large-hosting-providers/

[mrchrisadams]

Once I've seen the updated cronjob that was set up via ansible working, I think we can close this ticket

[allanhenderson]

Hi @mrchrisadams , thank you very much indeed!

[mrchrisadams]

Closing this as the weekly job that we set up in source control is working as intended