Amazon has announced a $20 million investment in water conservation projects along the Colorado River, a critical water source for 40 million people across seven U.S. states and two Mexican states. This move is part of a larger $100 million initiative over two years, aiming to create one of the largest corporate water conservation efforts for a single U.S. watershed. The river has faced an "unprecedented" drought over the past 26 years, worsened by overuse and human-caused climate change. Recently, the U.S. Department of the Interior mandated steep water cuts for Arizona, Nevada, and California to address the growing crisis. As part of its commitment, Amazon is launching the Colorado River Basin Collaborative, which allows other companies to independently contract with vetted conservation projects through the United Nations-backed Water Resilience Coalition. Amazon has joined this coalition, which includes tech giants like Microsoft and Meta. The company aims to become "water positive" by the end of the decade, meaning it would replenish more water than it consumes. According to Amazon’s sustainability report, its data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water globally in 2025, including those it owns, leases, or shares. Data centers directly operated by Amazon reduced their water use by 2 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year, due to a 52 percent improvement in water efficiency since 2021. Amazon claims it uses 0.12 liters of water per kilowatt-hour of electricity, about seven times more efficient than the industry average for data centers. However, the report does not include the company’s total water use over the years, only water use per unit of power. Sustainability experts have raised concerns that efficiency improvements alone may not fully capture a company’s environmental impact, citing the Jevons paradox, which suggests that increased efficiency can sometimes lead to greater overall resource use. In Orange County, California, Amazon pledged $2.2 million over three years to detect and fix leaks, aiming to conserve 189 million gallons of water annually. Unlike other tech companies, Amazon’s warehouses have a large physical footprint not reflected in its data center disclosures. A Guardian investigation in 2025 alleged that Amazon may have obscured its total water use by excluding water consumption related to electricity generation, which is considered "secondary" water use. Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan dismissed the Guardian report, calling it based on "cherry-picked data from an outdated document" and stating that the conclusions were "fundamentally wrong and misleading." Callahan noted that the company is 75 percent toward its goal of becoming water positive, returning 3 gallons of water for every 4 it used last year. She did not provide further data on total water use over the years. Kara Hurst, Amazon’s chief sustainability officer, compared the new initiative to the company’s previous climate targets, emphasizing the importance of collective action. "Through the Climate Pledge, we’ve seen what happens when companies tackle a problem together: progress accelerates. We’re bringing that same model to the Colorado River because water and climate are deeply connected," Hurst said.