AWS: From Net Zero to New Value

Sustainability is at an inflection point. After years focused on compliance and reporting, the function is evolving into a strategic driver of business value, and the leaders navigating this shift are redefining what’s possible.

Hilary Tam, Sustainability Leader for Amazon Web Services across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has spent more than 15 years working across the sustainability landscape. Today she helps organisations use cloud and AI to accelerate progress while unlocking new sources of value.

As companies build the data infrastructure required to meet increasingly complex frameworks such as Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, a key realisation is emerging: using sustainability data purely for reporting risks leaving significant value untapped. With the right tools, that same data can help organisations optimise operations, improve efficiency and develop better products and services.

Hilary describes this shift as the emergence of “commercial sustainability”, where sustainability teams play a more strategic role in shaping growth, resilience and competitiveness. That means integrating sustainability into core business strategy and speaking the language of investment, value creation and return.

Cloud and AI are increasingly central to this transformation. By enabling organisations to analyse complex datasets and generate actionable insights, technology allows sustainability teams to move beyond simply understanding challenges and towards delivering measurable outcomes.

As sustainability moves from vision to implementation, leaders have an opportunity to reposition the function at the heart of business strategy – not just reducing impact, but helping organisations innovate, grow and create long-term value for people, planet and business.