THE CLIMATE PLEDGE 2/4

AMAZON’S GREEN MISSION

Continuing our look at Amazon’s sustainability efforts, remember that we are in a judgment-free zone.

I’m about to present numbers, released by Amazon. Can I prove them? Of course not. None of us can. That’s the crux of the problem when it comes to carbon targets. As an investigative journalist, I need to be an open-minded skeptic. You get it because that’s what you do when surfing the net. You know it’s all about sources and cross-checking, and still not feeling certain.

Numbers tell only part of the tale.

We have power as consumers, and marketing has a lot of power over us. What if misunderstood or malicious information prompted the masses to boycott a company that was actually on an impactful sustainability trajectory?

All I’m saying is to back out and look for unbiased analysis of a company’s progress. Nonprofits like Oceana Inc. provide that, and they hold organizations’ feet to the fire. It notes that accountability and action, in Amazon’s case, have come largely from its employees and shareholders.

Let’s consider the impacts of packaging on the Earth, and since it all overlaps, we can expand on the prior water post to get the big picture.

Oceana estimated Amazon had an 18% increase in plastic packaging from 2020 to 2021, against a 22% increase in sales. If all of those 709 million pounds were air pillows, it could safely wrap the equator 800 times. Another study estimated that 26 million pounds would end up in waterways around the globe.

There is a lot to unwrap, literally, and watchdogs dig deeper to promote transparency, such as third-party seller impact, which passed 8% this year. They make their own decisions about how to ship.

Amazon’s numbers:

• More than 2 million tons of packaging materials avoided since 2015

• Per-shipment weights reduced by an average 41% since 2015

• Since 2020, 37,150 metrics of plastic avoided, globally

Putting the numbers in perspective is hard, and keep in mind that at the same time, sales are growing 11% year-over-year in the U.S. and 16% internationally. It is clearly an uphill battle, and Amazon appears to be throwing a lot of ammunition at it.

Amazon claims a science-based approach to simplifying packaging options, using lab testing, machine learning, materials science, and manufacturing partnerships.

Among the simpler solutions are right-sized packages with materials that are curbside recyclable and partnerships across the supply chain.

That “throwback” brown paper mailer is also fairly simple. The padding is a water-based material designed to easily separate from the paper in the same way that ink and coatings are removed during the paper recycling process.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s BOTTLE Consortium and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory are working on bio-based and biodegradable plastic recycling. Amazon jumped on board last year to lend its materials scientists to the cause developing “technologies and materials that will enable the full life cycle of plastics to be net-zero carbon.”

A sort of no-brainer approach (although an algorithm is thinking) is the SIOC – Ship in Own Container – program, where a manufacturer’s perfectly adequate box is no longer dropped inside another box. For a large-screen TV, that’s nine fewer packaging components, 69% less volume, and an 87% reduction in ... air.