{"id":83597,"date":"2026-05-20T10:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T08:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=83597"},"modified":"2026-05-20T10:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T08:41:13","slug":"greenpeace-exposes-amazon-clouds-toxic-partnerships-and-demands-an-end-to-big-techs-impunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/press-release\/83597\/greenpeace-exposes-amazon-clouds-toxic-partnerships-and-demands-an-end-to-big-techs-impunity\/","title":{"rendered":"Greenpeace exposes Amazon Cloud\u2019s toxic partnerships and demands an end to Big Tech\u2019s impunity\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hamburg, Germany \u2013 As Amazon holds its virtual Annual Meeting of Shareholders, Greenpeace Germany is exposing the systematic role of its cloud subsidiary Amazon Web Services (AWS), in supporting some of the world\u2019s most controversial companies such as Shell and Palantir. A new Greenpeace Germany study, Amazon\u2019s Toxic Web Services<\/a>, <\/em>reveals that the world\u2019s largest cloud provider acts as a critical technological backbone for climate chaos, human rights violations, or attacks on democratic institutions.

On May 20, 2026, Greenpeace Germany activists protested the reckless business practices of Amazon\u2019s cloud division at the Hamburg AWS Summit. The activists disrupted the event during a morning keynote by displaying a giant banner on stage bearing the message “Leave the Toxic Cloud”.

Mauricio Vargas, economic policy expert in Greenpeace Germany, said:<\/strong> \u201cWhether it is rainforest destruction, fossil fuel expansion or human rights violations, wherever there is money to be made, Amazon\u2019s cloud division looks the other way. AWS profits from companies that even mainstream financial investors refuse to touch on ethical grounds. A cloud built on this kind of business is not neutral infrastructure, it is complicity at industrial scale.\u201d

Greenpeace research reveals that the Amazon Cloud maintains business relationships with at least 38 percent of the companies flagged on global ethical and environmental exclusion lists. This includes Big Oil giant Shell, the Brazilian meat corporation JBS, the surveillance firm Palantir and the autonomous weapons systems specialist Anduril. Using exclusion criteria used by the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund and organisations like Urgewald and PAX, researchers identified that AWS provides infrastructure to at least 100 high-risk entities.[2][3][4][5]

The authors point to a glaring contradiction: while other sectors like finance and pharmaceuticals are bound by strict regulations and voluntary commitments, the Amazon Cloud and the wider Big Tech industry operate largely in an ethical vacuum, despite their immense systemic influence on society.

Sanna Ghotbi, Global Tech Campaigner for Greenpeace International, said:<\/strong> \u201cAmazon is a clear\u2011cut example of big tech\u2019s overreach, concentrating unprecedented power, wealth and influence at the expense of people\u2019s rights, climate, biodiversity and peace. As we have seen in Europe and now in China, Donald Trump is acting as a personal lobbyist for this sector, using tariffs and open threats to bully states\u2019 digital sovereignty. It is time to put an end to Big Tech\u2019s impunity and to make sure that tech is serving the public good.\u201d

In response, Greenpeace Germany has proposed a new framework of environmental and ethical minimum standards for cloud providers<\/a> demanding that they:

1. Restrict services<\/strong> for fossil fuel expansion, lethal autonomous weapons, and unacceptable surveillance practices like social scoring or biometric scraping.
2. Ensure political integrity<\/strong> by ending the obstruction of tech and climate regulations.
3. Implement independent oversight<\/strong> via external ethics councils to review high-risk client relationships.

ENDS

<\/strong>Photos and videos<\/strong><\/a>available <\/strong>from the Greenpeace Media Library<\/a>.

Notes:

<\/strong>[1] Amazon\u2019s virtual AGM is scheduled at 9:00 a.m. (Pacific Time)
<\/a>[2] Norges Bank recommends the removal of oil stocks from the benchmark index of the Government Pension Fund Global <\/a>(2017)
[3] Urgewald\u2019s Global Coal Exit list: https:\/\/www.coalexit.org\/<\/a> and https:\/\/gogel.org\/<\/a>
[4] Slippery slope: The arms industry and increasingly autonomous weapons) and <\/a>Don\u2019t be evil? A survey of the tech sector\u2019s stance on lethal autonomous weapons <\/a>– PAX (2019<\/a>)
<\/a>[5] Since this analysis relies exclusively on public data, these figures represent only the \u201ctip of the iceberg\u201d according to Greenpeace Germany\u2019s research.
[6] Greenpeace Germany\u2019s full report Amazon\u2019s Toxic Web Services<\/a> and Ethics Policy for Providers of Critical Digital Infrastructure \u2014 a landmark framework setting minimum environmental and ethical standards<\/a> (May 2026)

Contacts:<\/strong>

Guillaumine Lickel, Deputy Communications Lead with Greenpeace International,
+33 (0) 6 73 89 48 90 (Central Europe timezone), glickel@greenpeace.org<\/a>

Andi Nolten, Press Officer Consumption Revolution with Greenpeace Germany, +49 175-2083755, (Central Europe timezone), andi.nolte@greenpeace.org

<\/a>Madison Carter, Greenpeace USA National Press Secretary, +1 703-554-4842
mcarter@greenpeace.org<\/a>

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new Greenpeace Germany study, Amazon\u2019s Toxic Web Services, reveals that the world\u2019s largest cloud provider acts as a critical technological backbone for climate chaos, human rights violations, or attacks on democratic institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":83598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"Time to Resist","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69,73],"tags":[],"p4-page-type":[98],"class_list":["post-83597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-social-and-economic-systems","p4-page-type-press-release"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83599,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83597\/revisions\/83599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83597"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=83597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}