Amazon Critics Question Sustainability Commitment, Carbon Reduction Progress

Within Amazon's 2023 sustainability report, the company says its carbon emissions fell for a second straight year, and the company says it has achieved 100% renewable energy consumption ahead of schedule.

Still, critics such as Stand.earth and Amazon Employees for Climate Justice take issue with the e-commerce company's progress report and overall clmate commitment.

Stand.earth is an international organization that "challenges corporations and governments to treat people and the environment with respect." Separately, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice want the company to "use its scale and resources differently."

Among the points of contention: Stand.earth claims Amazon Scope 1 emissions have risen sharply since the e-commerce and cloud company announced its Climate Pledge in 2019.

According to Stand.earth's critique: "This latest report provides further evidence that Amazon is going the wrong way on Climate. The company’s promise to reach net zero by 2040 is too little, too late. Its commitment to 100,000 electric vehicles by 2030 is insufficient to transition Amazon’s massive fleet of fossil-fuel ships, planes, trucks and vans at the speed and scale required to meet the urgency of the climate crisis."

Additional areas of concern, Stand.earth asserts, include:

• Amazon in 2023 canceled its Shipment Zero pledge.
• Amazon was removed from the SBTi’s list of participants last summer because it failed to file its emission-reduction targets within two years of pledging to do so. 

Meanwhile, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice — an independent group of workers — has released its own contradictory sustainability report, alleging that Amazon isn't doing the hard stuff, The Seattle Times reported.

Amazon Response, Chief Sustainability Officer Focus

Amazon disputed the activist employees’ findings. It said in a statement that the report “has incorrect findings and assumptions … based on data and opinion from outside the company,” The Seattle Times noted.

Separately, Amazon Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst is calling on partners to join the Amazon-backed Climate Pledge -- which involves reporting carbon emissions and eliminating them by 2040, Bloomberg reported.

Hurst spoke at the Bloomberg Green Festival in Seattle, Washington, on July 11, 2024. “We don’t have a lot of time,” Hurst told Bloomberg's audience. “We’re in this decisive decade where we have to act now.”

Related: See detailed timeline tracking Amazon sustainability strategy.