Our Research Report
Burns Trust: The Amazon Unsustainability Report
By Amazon Employees for Climate Justice
In 2018, Amazon had no comprehensive plan to address the climate crisis; it didn’t even release carbon footprint data. So a group of us tech workers came together and decided to change that.
We first tried to use our power as shareholders to file a resolution as a group, asking for Amazon to release a climate plan. We wrote and circulated an open letter, gathering over 8,700 worker signatures. Amazon responded with its first public climate commitment with a date, called Shipment Zero, and asked us to withdraw our resolution. Instead, we packed the annual shareholder meeting with concerned employees. Amazon’s Board led the charge in voting down our resolution, so we decided to organize our own walkout as part of the 2019 Global Climate Strike, gathering over 1,700 pledges from employees around the world to join us in walking out.
The night before our walkout, Amazon finally did what its workers had been demanding: Jeff Bezos held a surprise press conference and announced the Climate Pledge. The Climate Pledge commits Amazon, and any company who signs it, to net-zero emissions across all its operations by 2040. Amazon also reaffirmed its Shipment Zero goal (a commitment it would later cancel), and announced electric vehicle and reforestation initiatives. And it released its carbon footprint data for the first time, committing to report carbon emissions regularly.
The Climate Pledge was a massive victory for workers and for the planet. This was also the origin of our group: Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ).
But despite releasing a glowing sustainability report every year since then, Amazon is failing to meet its goals. So now it’s time for us, Amazon workers who care about the future of the planet, to step in and make sure the company gets back on the right track.
Here are some of our key findings that we’re concerned about:
Amazon is moving in the wrong direction on its most important goal. The company promised to reach net-zero emissions by 2040. But it doesn’t have any interim reduction targets to get there, and its annual carbon emissions have grown by a whopping 34.5% since 2019. What Amazon emits in one year is equivalent to you or I deciding to take a long-haul plane flight every day for 94,000 years. In fact, Amazon emits more carbon pollution than the 71 lowest emitting countries combined. How can Amazon be taking its responsibility seriously as a major carbon polluter, when its emissions have ballooned since The Climate Pledge?
Amazon dramatically undercounts its carbon pollution. For example, the company does not count the lifecycle emissions of all the products that it sells; it only counts the emissions of Amazon-branded products, which make up a paltry 1% of sales. How can Amazon be a sustainability leader when it’s behind other major retailers like Target and Walmart, who do count the emissions of third-party products?
Instead of practicing transparency, Amazon quietly deleted a goal it wasn’t on track to hit. An investigative reporter discovered the company removed its Shipment Zero goal to make half of shipments net-zero by 2030 and deleted the original blog post announcing it. Amazon has also been removed from the Science Based Targets Initiative, which validates companies’ evidence-based goals, after Amazon didn’t follow through on its commitment to participate. How can we trust the company to lead on sustainability if it won’t be accountable to its own, much publicized commitments?
Despite claims that the company has reached 100% renewable energy, the reality on the ground is that its data centers are driving up demand for fossil fuels. Our research shows that Amazon is using creative accounting and an overreliance on low quality renewable energy credits (RECs). When we look at the locations in the US where Amazon actually operates its data centers, we estimate that Amazon only gets 22% renewable energy from the local utilities in those regions. And it is investing in data center expansion in locations heavily dependent on oil, gas, and coal — like Northern Virginia and Saudi Arabia. How can Amazon claim that its operations are powered by 100% renewable energy when the renewable energy projects it is responsible for… don’t actually power its operations?
Amazon makes billions from selling tailored AI services to fossil fuel companies, helping them extract more oil and gas. We project that by next year, Amazon Web Services (AWS) could be making $9.6 billion annually from the oil and gas industry alone — about 10% of AWS revenue. How can Amazon become sustainable if its profits are tied to helping fossil fuel industries expand?
Amazon’s current electric vehicle commitments likely won’t even cover a third of the packages it’s projected to deliver in 2030. Amazon’s existing deployments of electric delivery vehicles only handle portions of the trips for, at best, 9.7% of packages it delivered last year. Is Amazon properly accounting for its planned growth when committing to sustainability, or will growth always trump the planet?
Amazon’s warehouses drive massive air pollution that largely affects surrounding communities of color. In the US, 69% of Amazon warehouses have more people of color living in a mile radius than the rest of the region. The county of San Bernardino, an area full of Amazon warehouses because 40% of Amazon’s global goods make their way through the Inland Empire, has been ranked as having the worst ozone pollution in the US, recently suffering an average of 175 days of unhealthy air each year. How can Amazon claim to be responsible towards the environment and communities when its business activities spike the rates of asthma, heart disease, lung cancer, and premature death in surrounding communities?
Amazon warehouse and delivery workers have suffered under extreme heat. In response to worker concerns at a San Bernardino warehouse, the company asserted that temperatures at the facility had never exceeded 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Workers snuck thermometers in and recorded temperatures soaring to 89°F in the warehouse, 96°F inside cargo trucks, and 121°F on the tarmac, where workers spent much of their days unloading planes. Amazon Management handed out popsicles in Chicago instead of installing AC, refused to fix broken fans in the Seattle region, or even refused to turn on fans in Bessemer, Alabama. Extreme heat is a matter of life and death — workers in New Jersey have collapsed and died during heat waves. How can Amazon claim that it strives to be “the Earth’s safest place to work” while making workers beg for adequate conditions in extreme weather?
Injury rates for low-wage logistics workers at Amazon are among the worst in the industry. Amazon’s injury rate was nearly triple the injury rate at Walmart. Over 40% of Amazon warehouse workers report being injured on the job. Meanwhile, Amazon expends considerable resources to suppress workers’ attempts to come together and demand safer working conditions. It’s even legally questioning the existence of the National Labor Relations Board, the US federal agency that enforces workers’ rights to have a voice at work. How can Amazon claim that it strives “to be Earth’s Best Employer” while attempting to gut any recourse workers have when their rights are violated?
So there you have it. This is the reason we’re writing this report.
We are Amazon employees who imagine a different Amazon:
One that values all of its workers across the supply chain.
One that values the natural world and respects its limits.
One that values the communities where it operates its business.
Over the course of this report, we’ll dive deep (maybe deeper than you wanted!) into where we think the company has gone in the wrong direction. But we won’t leave you with solely a negative picture. We’ll include improvements, suggestions, and visions for a more honest and sustainable plan going forward.
If you work at Amazon and share our concerns and our values, join us. Together we’ll push the company to do better.
