The world’s largest online retailer faces enormous challenges to reduce its ecological footprint. A surge in purchases during the pandemic has shown that Amazon’s carbon emissions increased by 18 percent in 2021. As the e-commerce giant looks to grow its business, its carbon footprint is also growing.
Despite the company using electric vehicles for some of its deliveries, switching to renewable energy, and automating processes, Amazon has significantly increased its environmental impact since official numbers were released in 2019. In those two years, Amazon’s carbon footprint has increased by 40 percent.
Amazon gives 18 years to be carbon neutral by 2040. In comparison, Denmark is a country that has achieved its long-term goal of becoming a carbon-neutral society. The interim target of using 30 percent renewable energy sources by 2020 was also achieved in 2016.
According to Amazon, the scale at which the company moves products, manufactures goods, and creates computing capacity means some of its businesses are more carbon-intensive than others. Between 2020 and 2021, Amazon doubled the size of its fulfillment network and expanded its transportation network.
Comparing Amazon to an e-commerce giant like Farfetch reveals itself as a monopolistic retail giant that buys from brands, stocks goods, and ships to customers, often crowding out small shops or boutiques in the process.
Amazon’s CO2 emissions are equivalent to those of Bangladesh
Amazon’s carbon footprint was 71.54 million tons, the same as countries like Bangladesh. It is 30 percent higher than the US government’s emissions of 47.50 million tons of CO2 in the same year.
Amazon’s actual footprint may be much higher because the emissions generated by the manufacturing of third-party products are not included in the reporting.
However, it wasn’t all bad news. Amazon said its carbon intensity dropped 1.9 percent. This measurement quantifies total carbon-CO2 emissions per dollar of gross merchandise sales (GMS).
“This year-on-year comparison of carbon intensity reflects our early progress in decarbonizing our operations while continuing to grow as a company. Almost half of our carbon intensity improvement is the result of our investments in renewable energy and operational efficiencies,” Amazon said in a statement.
This translated article originally appeared on FashionUnited.uk.