LONDON, July 10 (Reuters) - E-commerce giant Amazon's ( AMZN )

overall emissions fell 3% last year as the company met

a goal for all of the electricity it consumes globally to be

matched with renewable power, it said on Wednesday.

The power used and emissions created by technology giants

are under scrutiny as the growth of AI increases electricity

consumption.

Amazon ( AMZN ) has a goal to reach net zero carbon by 2040 and in

2019 set a target to match 100% of its electricity consumption

with renewable power by 2030 which it has now met.

Amazon's ( AMZN ) total emissions were 68.82 million metric tons of

carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023, down from 70.74 million tons

the previous year, it said in its annual sustainability report.

Amazon's ( AMZN ) total emissions include those generated from its

supply chain, third party logistics and purchased electricity.

Emissions from the company's direct operations, rose 7% to

14.27 million tons which Amazon ( AMZN ) said was due to an increase in

the number of packages delivered by its in-house logistics team

and overall business growth. This figure also includes its data

centres.

"We know generative AI requires a lot of computing power. To

power this demand while still progressing toward our climate

goals, we'll need different sources of energy than we'd

originally projected," Chris Roe, Amazon's ( AMZN ) Director, Worldwide

Carbon said via email.

Amazon ( AMZN ) invested in 112 new renewable projects last year and

is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable electricity in

the world according to Bloomberg NEF.

It said it also sometimes purchases renewable energy credits

to bridge the gap between the time a renewable energy project

is being built and when operations begin but did not say how

many were used to meet the target.

To date Amazon ( AMZN ) has invested in more than 500 wind and solar

projects globally representing 28 gigawatts of capacity, it

said.