Last year, Amazon’s carbon footprint increased by 18%, which is the third consecutive year since the company began to share information.
The Seattle area company created the international climate commitment, vowed to be carbon neutral by 2040, and urged other companies to do the same.
Amazon’s total emissions rose to 71.54 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, roughly equivalent to Cambodia’s emissions. In percentage terms, the largest increase in emissions is in the category Amazon calls capital goods, including construction, database servers and other hardware, equipment and vehicles.
At the same time, the company pointed out that its carbon intensity (carbon emissions relative to the total revenue it generates) has declined for the third consecutive year.
Amazon 2021 sustainability report said: “with the company’s investment in new products and services and the substantial growth of its business, the focus should not only be on the company’s carbon footprint in terms of absolute carbon emissions, but also on whether the company is reducing its carbon intensity.”.
In order to reduce emissions, Amazon has been buying renewable energy and became the world’s largest buyer of clean energy companies in 2020. The company uses renewable energy for 85% of its business. It also set up a $2billion climate commitment fund to invest in promising clean technologies.
The company received orders from rivian, California, international automaker stellantis, Mercedes Benz and Indian company Mahindra electric. Last month, the Riviere van began shipping to Amazon. According to the new report, the company aims to achieve net zero carbon for half of freight transportation by 2030. Amazon also supports zeroavia’s hydrogen aviation project.
“For any organization, the process of achieving more sustainable development is not simple or direct
Karahurst, Amazon’s vice president for global sustainability, wrote in the report, “Amazon’s scale and scope is a huge challenge.”. “But at Amazon, we won’t avoid major challenges. We innovate and create. We don’t have all the answers today, but we believe we need to act immediately.”
The increase in Amazon’s emissions is taking place against the backdrop of the continued growth of this large-scale online retail and cloud computing company. Amazon announced its second quarter earnings last week, with reported revenue of $121.2 billion, exceeding the expected $119 billion, an increase of 7% year-on-year.
As one of Amazon’s biggest competitors in cloud computing, Microsoft’s emissions also rose in 2021. After three years of slight decline, Microsoft’s emissions increased by 21%.