“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 climate criticism. Since announcing its climate pledge in 2019, the company’s total emissions have skyrocketed, even as they slowly decline through 2023. Last year, Amazon lost the support of the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTI), a major international climate organization backed by the United Nations, for missing a deadline to set emissions reduction targets. The company was one of about 20 companies removed from SBTI’s list of climate-conscious companies. In July, employee group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice released a report criticizing the calculations surrounding the company’s claim that it had met its sustainable energy goals. In 2023, Amazon quietly removed its goal to make half of its shipping carbon neutral by 2030, a goal the company said was replaced by a larger climate pledge.
The problem with calculating Amazon emissions is how pervasive the challenges it faces are, given its ruthless vertical integration. The Wall Street Journal The company reported in May that it had already announced plans to lease, buy or expand 16 million square feet of warehouse space in the United States this year to gain greater control over its logistics process. In response to WIRED’s request for comment, Kelly said in an email that the vast logistics network the company has built allows it to deliver packages closer to their destination, avoiding long driving distances.
Reading the company’s sustainability report is an exercise in understanding the wide variety of ambitious technical and sociological climate goals across the various industries involved in its supply chain. In response to WIRED’s request for comment, Kelly listed Amazon’s membership in two business organizations that promote sustainable transportation, its membership in a buyers alliance that encourages the adoption of sustainable aviation fuels, and its investments in electric trucks. The company put 50 electric trucks on the roads in Southern California in May.
“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, questions remain about whether any significant changes by companies would simply shift emissions from one company’s balance sheet to another.Atlas Air, a subcontractor for Amazon Air, said in May it would stop flying domestic flights carrying Amazon packages to focus on other clients, including 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 a 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.
