From Guest Blogger Jenna Tsui: Amazon Fails to Appeal to Environmentalists

Amazon and sustainability. These two words have always felt odd beside each other — and they still do. There is only one reason why Amazon.com encourages people to ship bottled water and single servings of Cup-O-Noodle halfway across the country: Because the needs of capital win out over the needs of the environment every time.

In September 2019, Jeff Bezos and Amazon unveiled the details of their Climate Pledge. On the face of it, this pledge is encouraging at a time when companies of all kinds must take decarbonization seriously. Unfortunately, Amazon’s behavior behind closed doors undermines their green ambitions so completely that they may as well not exist at all.

What Is Amazon’s ‘Climate Pledge’?

There are several pieces to Amazon’s climate pledge. The company has promised to:

• Run on 80 percent renewable energy sources by 2024 and 100 percent renewables by 2030
• Achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040
• Place the largest-ever order (100,000 units) for electric delivery vehicles and deploy them by 2030 for a carbon savings of 4 million tons of CO2 each year
• Spend $100 million on reforestation efforts in various places across the world

Amazon has staked out an impressive-sounding mission: To meet the conditions of the Paris Climate Pledge a full decade ahead of its anticipated 2050 timetable. “We’re done being in the middle of the herd on this issue,” said Bezos in the company’s official press release.

Why Amazon Frustrates Environmentalists

Amazon’s sustainability plans sound impressive. Unfortunately, these proposed changes are completely at odds with a huge chunk of Amazon’s business model.

Just 14 days after Amazon announced its Climate Pledge, the company took part in “Accelerate Production 4.0” — an oil industry event organized by Weatherford Global and centered on the “role of digitalization in the near and long-term future of oil and gas production.”

Amazon makes most of its money deploying cloud computing infrastructure for governments and corporations. The company’s decision to help the CIA and police departments deploy facial recognition technology has been a particularly worrisome development for the ACLU and other public advocacy groups.

With its ill-timed and tone-deaf participation in Accelerate Production 4.0, the company is showing its true colors yet again. As a “platinum sponsor,” of Weatherford’s event, Amazon has signaled that it wants to entwine its future with the oil and gas industry.

There’s a reason why more than 1,000 individuals and institutions have divested some $8 trillion in fossil fuel investments to date: Because the time to ditch fossil fuels isn’t today or tomorrow, but decades ago.

A Tale of Two Amazons

There are two Amazons: One that promises environmental leadership and another that helps oil companies pillage the planet.

Jeff Bezos is the richest mammal that we know of anywhere, and his company is one of the most valuable that has ever existed. There’s no question this is a self-serving company, no matter their lip service. For instance, Amazon had an opportunity to change the game when it leapt into the hardware business. It certainly has the resources.

But instead of staking a claim on using eco-friendly materials for phones and electronics, Amazon squandered its potential and chose to play the game the way everybody else is playing it: by manufacturing millions of products that are even less sustainable and more disposable than many of their peers.

Amazon wants the public to believe it is doing everything it can to reduce its impact on the environment. But it cannot do this so long as it’s an active partner to the oil and gas industry. The planet literally cannot afford to dig more carbon out of the ground.

Amazon Is Actively Worsening the Climate Crisis

There are at least 14 so-called “carbon bombs” scattered throughout the world that, if they were exploited, could blow up the world’s carbon budget and bring immeasurable and lasting harm to the planet.

To exploit these resources now, when climate scientists say we should be keeping 80 percent of fossil fuel reserves in the ground, is to invite catastrophe. Major companies aren’t just actively worsening the climate crisis — they’re automating the systems wreaking the most havoc. That includes Amazon’s AWS cloud platforms and IBM’s IoT solutions, among others.

Carbon bombs take many forms, most of which are directly susceptible to human activities. According to Deakin University’s Peter Macreadie, if these carbon deposits are disrupted and released, “This would be a disastrous outcome for the environment.”

But Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to help us keep this carbon in the ground. According to Weatherford Global, the mission of Accelerate Production 4.0 is, explicitly, to “activate field-wide intelligence to maximize production.”

Amazon’s goal is not to use its riches to help the world divest from fossil fuels or find practical ways to deploy renewables. It is to “maximize production” of oil and gas products at a moment when the long-term habitability of earth is already hanging by a thread. Amazon made a promise in 2014 to pivot to 100 percent clean energy.

Those plans never materialized, and the new Climate Pledge is equally light on details. They didn’t earn our trust in 2014 and they certainly don’t deserve it now. And their climate plans aren’t transformative, as they should be at this late hour, but rather incremental. It is “green-washing” at its worst.

Amazon claims their involvement in oil and gas extraction will help make the pivot to renewables easier. But that cannot be true. By recommitting themselves to this catastrophically harmful industry, they are making that transition a longer and more difficult one.