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Criticism of Amazon's environmental impact

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Amazon has been criticized for its negative impact on the environment. Critics have accused it of skirting environmental laws and of greenwashing.[1][2][3][4] Amazon is the founding member of The Climate Pledge,[5] a commitment to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 for Amazon and other signatories to the pledge. However critics have claimed that the Climate Pledge amounts to little more than corporate PR due to the disconnect between the stated goals and the actions taken by the company.[6][7] A number of Amazon's environmental actions and commitments, including the Climate Pledge, has come after sustained activism by employees and outsiders.[8][9]

Amazon has been accused of illegal retaliation against employees engaging in climate activism.[10] On one occasion, the National Labor Relations Board found merit in an unfair labor practices suit.[11] Amazon settled with the plaintiffs out of court.[12]

Overview

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Amazon's negative impact on the environment can be attributed to their business presence in logistics, supply chain, data centers, and consumer products. The company's large scale along with a heavy reliance on fossil fuels and plastic, as well as their anti-environmental lobbying practices[13][14] contribute to the criticism. The company has repeatedly failed to disclose their emissions data in the past and currently discloses a subset of emissions data in a format that isn't aligned with reporting standards.[15][16][17][18][19]

Amazon's negative impact on the environment has been attributed to:

Lobbying against environmental protection laws

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Amazon has been criticized for their lobbying practices. Amazon has supported lobbying groups like the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable who have pushed back on environmental protection clauses in the democrat-led Build Back Better bill.[22]

Amazon has lobbied for increased subsidies for Green Hydrogen, by silently backing the trade group Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Energy Association (FCHEA).[20] Critics have raised numerous problems with Green Hydrogen the primary one being that it requires a large amount of energy to produce and would merely move emissions from the tailpipe into the grid.[30][31] Amazon's lobbying has taken place despite its own surveys finding 95% of the world's green Hydrogen is generated primarily in grids based on fossil fuels.[20]

Amazon has a large number of data centers in Oregon[32] and has been criticized for overwhelming the supply of renewable energy in the state, requiring it to import dirty energy from outside the state.[29] In 2023, Amazon lobbied against environmental protection legislation (bill HB2816) in Oregon, which sought to ensure new data centers would run completely on renewable energy by 2040.[21] Critics say that the bill was unsuccessful primarily due to Amazon's sustained lobbying efforts.[33] Representative Pam Marsh, a co-sponsor of the bill, said:

From the very first moment we started talking about this bill, Amazon started organizing against it[21]

Amazon co-founded the Emissions First Partnership that aims to lobby against strong Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) regulations. They advocate for being able to use RECs independent of geographical origin, which will allow the buyer to buy RECs from India or Norway, for instance, and claim a facility in the US is powered by that green energy, when in reality the US grid is completely disconnected from both countries.[34]

Refusal to disclose emissions

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Amazon has consistently attained a rating of F by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).[25] Amazon has been pressured in the past by some of its employees, via shareholder resolutions, to disclose emissions but has rejected all proposals.[35][25][36]

Amazon has been criticized for selective reporting of emissions, not aligned with reporting standards.[16][17] The CDP uses the Greenhouse Gas Protocol as its reporting standard[37] which requires a company to disclose emissions from all products purchased and sold. Amazon only reports on the emissions from private brand products which makes up an estimated 1% of its total sales.[17]

Destruction of unsold and returned products

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Amazon has engaged in destruction of unsold and returned products. An investigation by ITV in 2021 found that Amazon was destroying 130,000 items of unsold stock a week at one of the company's fulfillment centers in Scotland.[26] The investigation uncovered a leaked document which had 124,000 items marked "destroy" and 28,000 items marked "donate". Amazon denied these claims.[38] Amazon has faced similar accusations in Germany and France, with the countries enacting new laws to make it more difficult for Amazon to continue such practices.[39]

Role in exporting plastic waste to be burnt in India

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An investigation by Bloomberg in December 2022 revealed that plastic waste intended for recycling in the US was ending up in India where it was being burnt.[27] The investigation did not single out Amazon but noted that the most ubiquitous packaging in the garbage heaps was by Amazon. The report also noted that Amazon's packaging was difficult to recycle:

Amazon’s bubble-lined plastic bags carry the recycling logo that’s often criticized for confusing consumers into thinking its packaging is easily recycled. Soft plastics used in bags and wrappers are some of the hardest and least economically viable materials to recycle. Most American recyclers can’t process them.

Amazon declined to comment on the report.[27]

Backtracking from previous climate change commitments

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In May 2023 Amazon abandoned its Shipment Zero initiative, which it had earlier committed to in February 2019.[40] Amazon also deleted the blog post with the original commitment while releasing a separate statement saying that saying that Shipment Zero would be rolled into the overall Climate Change goal.[41][42] Shipment Zero was a commitment to make half of all shipments by Amazon carbon neutral by 2030.[25]

Sale of climate change denial books

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Amazon has sold climate change denial books that have been criticized as disinformation.[43] In an interview with the South China Morning Post and USA Today, the activist group Advance Democracy said that "no information panels popped up on video searches for 10 key phrases associated with climate change denial but did turn up an ad from Amazon linking to books that deny the existence of climate change."[44] Alastair McIntosh, a professor at the University of Glasgow speaking for RealClimate, said that it was odd for Amazon to sell books with non-peer-reviewed science:

Chill [a climate-change skepticism book] ranked as number one in Amazon UK’s bestselling league for 'global warming'. Invariably I have found myself asking of such figures, who have no credibly peer-reviewed publications in climate science: what makes them think that they know better than experts with a reputation worth not losing?[45]

Sale of illegal pesticides

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Amazon has been persecuted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for their role, between 2013 and 2016, in importing, warehousing, packaging, shipping, and profiting from pesticides and insecticides that are illegal in the US.[46] In 2018, Amazon entered a settlement with the EPA and agreed to pay $1.2 million in penalties.[47]

"Forever chemicals" (PFAS) in packaging

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Amazon faced a class-action lawsuit in 2020 over their use of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), colloquially known as "forever chemicals", in its Amazon Kitchen brand product, including disposable plates and bowls. The lawsuit claimed that Amazon marked the products as compostable when PFAS are not considered compostable.[48][49] The lawsuit was dropped and Amazon made a policy update to not use PFAS in their Amazon Kitchen branded products.

References

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  29. ^ a b Rogoway, Mike (2024-02-17). "How one of Oregon's smallest utilities became one of the state's biggest polluters". oregonlive. Archived from the original on 2024-06-01. Retrieved 2024-07-27.
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  33. ^ Rogoway, Mike (2022-05-05). "Amazon, despite climate pledge, fought to kill emissions bill in Oregon". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2024-07-27. Retrieved 2024-07-27.
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