Amazon's climate pollution is getting way worse

Image: Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Despite the company's efforts to sell itself as a leader in climate action, Amazon's greenhouse gas emissions increased last year. Its carbon dioxide emissions increased by 18 percent in the year 2021.

Amazon generated 71.54 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent last year. This is the second year in a row that Amazon's climate pollution has grown by double digits since it made a splashy climate pledge. The company's CO2 pollution has increased by 40 percent compared to the previous year.

Jeff Bezos, the company's CEO at the time, said that the company would reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2040. That kind of pledge can allow companies to fudge their carbon accounting. They can claim to be carbon neutral if they purchase carbon offsets that are supposed to cancel out the impact of their emissions. It usually involves planting trees or protecting forests. Real-world reductions in the planet-warming CO2 building up in our atmosphere are not usually achieved by those offsets.

The Climate Pledge was created by Amazon to encourage other businesses to make similar commitments to reduce CO2 and emissions. If a company doesn't eliminate all of its emissions, a meaningful impact on the climate will be meaningless.

Despite its best PR efforts, Amazon isn't setting a good example of that. Amazon points to a flattering number in its report in order to take the heat off its carbon emissions. The focus should not be solely on a company's carbon footprint in terms of absolute carbon emissions, but also on whether it's lowering its carbon intensity

Amazon reduced its carbon intensity by 1.9 percent, meaning the emissions they produce for every dollar of merchandise sold decreased slightly. When the company's business grows, the reductions in carbon intensity can be meaningless.

It happened at Amazon. Amazon is growing fast as we decarbonize our company. The company says it has scaled its business at an "unprecedented pace" to meet the needs of its customers. Amazon's pollution grew along with its profits as e- commerce surged during the COVID-19 epidemic.

It is important to look at a company's entire carbon footprint to see if it is actually decreasing emissions. In order to make things worse, the figures Amazon reports are likely an undercount of how much pollution the e-commerce giant is truly responsible for.

Keeping track of carbon dioxide emissions is important for tackling the climate crisis, but it doesn't capture the full spectrum of problems associated with Amazon's mushrooming warehouses Many communities where Amazon builds warehouses have accused the company of bringing more pollution to their neighborhoods. Amazon has a long way to go to prevent all of the pollution it creates, according to a new report.

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