“Amazon prides itself on being an ambitious and innovative company, but the growth of air freight is creating big problems for them,” Archer said. “If Amazon is serious about making progress on climate change, they could start with something very simple: flying less.”
Amazon is no stranger to criticism over climate change. Its total emissions are It soared Despite the gradual decline to 2023 since announcing its climate pledge in 2019, Amazon last year Lost support The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI), a leading global climate organization backed by the United Nations, has removed Amazon from its list of climate-conscious companies for failing to meet a deadline to set emissions reduction targets. The company is one of about 20 companies to be removed from SBTI’s list of climate-conscious companies. In July, employee group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice announced The report was released Amazon quietly announced in 2023 that it had met its sustainable energy targets. Eliminated The goal is to make half of shipments carbon neutral by 2030. The company sayshas been replaced by the much larger “Climate Pledge.”
The problem with calculating Amazon emissions is how widespread the challenges it faces are. Vertical Integration: of The Wall Street Journal Reported The company said in May that it had already announced plans this year to lease, buy or expand 16 million square feet of warehouse space in the United States to give it greater control over the logistics process. In an emailed response to WIRED’s request for comment, Kelly said the vast logistics network the company has built allows it to deliver packages closer to their destinations, avoiding long driving distances.
Reading the company’s sustainability report is an exercise in understanding the range of ambitious technical and sociological climate targets across the various industries involved in its supply chain. In response to WIRED’s request for comment, Kelly listed two of Amazon’s member states: work Organization Promote sustainable shipping, Buyers Alliance It is encouraging the adoption of sustainable aviation fuels and investing in electric trucks. 50 electric trucks on the road In Southern California.
“If every company did what Amazon did and did their own air freight, I think it would create a lot of challenges for the entire industry,” Archer said. “You’d end up with a lot of people flying a lot of planes.”
As the industry as a whole continues to grow, it’s questionable whether any major changes by companies will merely shift emissions from one company’s balance sheet to another. Atlas Air, a subcontractor for Amazon Air, stopped flying domestic packages for Amazon in May and Focus on other customersThese include Chinese e-commerce giants Shein and Temu.
Still, because Amazon dominates much of the U.S. market and has the ability to lead trends that other suppliers follow, such as express delivery, it has an opportunity to set a positive example by putting a lot of effort into reducing air travel and helping the U.S. build a more sustainable long-haul trucking infrastructure. (The company has not provided figures for how much it has spent on partnering, research, lobbying and other activities aimed at decarbonizing the U.S. trucking sector.)
What about that fancy electric van promise? A report from Stand.earth predicts that at Amazon’s current growth rate, even if it had all of its promised electric vans on the road by the end of the decade, they would still only account for one-third of the company’s deliveries. If Amazon’s sales continue to grow at the current rate, it will need 400,000 electric vehicles to deliver all of its packages.
“The target of producing 100,000 vans by 2030 is too little, too late,” Archer said.
