Waterloop podcast host Travis Loop recently sat down with Amazon’s Will Hewes — Water Sustainability Lead at Amazon — for a detailed conversation on how one of the world’s largest data center operators is managing its water footprint.
The episode covers Amazon’s newly released water report, which shows a 52% improvement in water efficiency over four years and puts the company 75% of the way toward its goal of becoming water positive by 2030. Hewes walks through Amazon’s investments in recycled water infrastructure, watershed-specific strategies, and a range of replenishment projects — including the affordable housing water-efficiency program in Northern Virginia where ION is a partner.
Through that program, ION’s End-to-End Water Management system is fully installed and operational across five affordable housing properties totaling 1,594 units, and is on track to reduce annual water use from 71 million gallons to 26 million gallons — saving more than 45 million gallons every year. It’s a wide-ranging and substantive look at what serious corporate water stewardship looks like in practice.
