Jeff Bezos pledged four years ago that Amazon would lead the way on carbon reduction. Since then, the firm’s emissions have risen by 40% — and its use of deceptive accounting suggests that the real figure is far higher.
EMISSIONS: Amazon uses a creative form of accounting to massively understate its carbon footprint. In its methodology, Amazon acknowledges that it only includes “Amazon-branded product manufacturing, Whole Foods Market brands, and other Amazon Private Brands products.” But this is just the tip of the iceberg: a mere 1% of total sales. With Amazon not counting the sale of 99% of products sold and distributed directly by Amazon or by third-party sellers, most of the emissions the corporation is responsible for will remain unreported.
FOSSIL FUELS: Amazon Web Services is deeply involved in different phases of oil production, focusing on pipelines, shipping, and storage for oil and gas companies. In 2021, Amazon signed a strategic collaboration with TotalEnergies to help them “accelerate their digital transformation” — in other words, ensuring the profitability of fossil fuels by helping them make extraction more efficient. TotalEnergies used its record profits in 2022 to approve more new oil and gas expansions than any other international oil major.
WASTE: Amazon destroys many millions of new and unsold products every week. For instance, in the UK, an Amazon worker leaked a spreadsheet showing more than 124,000 new and unused items including laptops, smart TVs, hairdryers, headphones, drones, and books all marked for destruction — just at one warehouse. Some estimates suggest Amazon may be responsible for dumping about one billion items per year.