A company has the goal of continuously reducing the energy consumption and environmental impact associated with its cloud workloads. Which pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework addresses this goal?

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Select an answer
CorrectC

Explanation

A question asking which pillar addresses the goal of reducing environmental impact.

  • 1energy consumption and environmental impactIndicators of environmental burden — the domain of the Sustainability pillar.
  • 2continuously reducingOngoing minimization of environmental impact through improved resource efficiency — a defining trait of the Sustainability pillar.
AIncorrect

Performance Efficiency

The Performance Efficiency pillar focuses on using resources efficiently to meet performance requirements.

It has a different perspective from Sustainability, which specifically targets reducing environmental impact, so this is incorrect.

BIncorrect

Reliability

The Reliability pillar focuses on recovering from failures and maintaining service continuity.

It is unrelated to reducing energy consumption or environmental impact, so this is incorrect.

CCorrect

Sustainability

Correct. The Sustainability pillar focuses on continuously minimizing the energy consumption of cloud workloads and their environmental impact. It improves resource utilization efficiency and reduces unnecessary load to lower the environmental footprint. It was added in 2021 as the sixth pillar.

DIncorrect

Cost Optimization

Cost Optimization is the pillar that focuses on eliminating unnecessary spending and maximizing cost-effectiveness. Reducing resource usage can overlap in direction with reducing energy consumption.

However, the goal in this question is specifically reducing energy consumption and environmental impact, which targets environmental burden rather than cost, and therefore falls under the Sustainability pillar, so this is incorrect.

Key Takeaway

'Energy', 'environmental impact', and 'carbon' map to Sustainability. It was added in 2021 as the sixth pillar and appears in CLF exam questions. Although it overlaps in direction with Cost Optimization, distinguish between them by asking what is being reduced — spending or environmental burden.