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Amazon’s progress with its sustainability efforts and disclosures is overshadowed by its significant contributions to overconsumption and climate-obstructive financing, in addition to its subpar progress on its emissions targets.
Amazon is holding back government climate action through its money and influence. It has donated $3,323,842 to climate-obstructive candidates or PACs since 2018, and it's a member of five obstructive trade associations. However, it has also donated nearly the same amount of money to pro-climate candidates and PACs.
Amazon uses 100% renewable energy in its fulfillment centers, data centers, and offices, and it reports using a majority of renewable energy in its stores, including Whole Foods Market. It has worked to reduce its packaging intensity, in part by expanding its "ships in product packaging” initiative. It has reduced plastic in its packaging overall, but it’s unclear how much it still relies on plastic since it doesn’t clearly report its current proportion of packaging materials.
A large portion of the environmental impact of purchases made at retailers comes from upstream decisions on sourcing materials and ingredients. Retailers are responsible for these decisions for their whitelabel brands, but can also push change by highlighting sustainable options from other brands. Amazon has product collections that are environmentally-mindful, but it doesn’t promote them to consumers well. It has targets to improve its sourcing for its whitelabel products, but is only on track for some.
Amazon’s promotion of overconsumption outweighs its waste diversion efforts. It has initiatives to reduce food waste and waste from corporate operations; it provides thorough reporting on the latter, but its food waste reporting could be improved. It offers resale goods, but doesn’t report on the efficacy of this program.
Amazon has a limited, science-aligned — not SBTi-approved — reduction target to reach net zero by 2040, but it’s not on track to hit this target. We expect much more action from one of the world’s largest companies.
