Kelly added: “We have continued to publish detailed, transparent reports on our annual progress. We encourage everyone to track our progress through our annual sustainability report, which contains accurate data, transparent methodologies and third-party assurance.”
“We’re doing the best we can with the data we have,” says Joshua Archer, an activist at Stand.earth and lead author of the report. “On Amazon [data] doesn’t even scratch the surface of this massive operational network.”
As a result, the Stand.earth report draws on a mountain of third-party data – all based in the US – and mathematical equations to arrive at some rough estimates. UPS and FedEx emissions data revealed in these companies’ sustainability reports allowed researchers to gain insight into the emissions created by shipping packages by truck in the US. Third-party data from two aviation analytics providers helped calculate the estimated domestic emissions associated with Amazon Air, a fleet of planes that deliver packages for the company. Sea freight estimates are based on manifest data from US ports where Amazon is a signatory. The report highlights that many of these numbers are almost certainly understated because the authors excluded calculations such as emissions related to package returns and packages sent or delivered by third-party carriers due to a lack of data.
The main culprit behind Amazon’s increased shipping emissions, according to the report, is from airplanes: U.S. emissions related to Amazon Air have skyrocketed 67 percent since 2019. According to Kelly, Amazon’s total emissions have increased since 2019. here due to the company’s expansion during the pandemic.
“When you think about the things that people order through Amazon, a lot of them are things that you don’t need the next day,” says Archer. “However, they are airlifted.”
This trend is tracking with the rest of the industry. During the pandemic, disruptions at ports around the world forced suppliers to switch to planes to transport cargo; much of this air infrastructure remains in place today. At the same time, the US e-commerce market shot up 43 percent in 2020 as everyone else inside ordered more and more stuff. In 2023 The US has shipped 21.7 billion packages – that’s 687 packages every second.
There is one area where things are looking up for Amazon: According to the Stand.earth report, per-package emissions have been falling for Amazon since 2020, which Archer says is largely due to more packages being loaded onto larger planes. (Kelly says the company’s overall carbon intensity — a measure of the efficiency of its operations — has improved 34 percent since 2019, even as its overall emissions have risen.) By comparison, UPS’s package emissions intensity has been steadily increasing since 2020. ever since, thanks in part to the growing dependence on aviation.
