The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Amazon.com Inc. said its carbon footprint grew 18 percent in 2021, as the company’s rapid growth during the pandemic overwhelmed nascent efforts to cut its contribution to the emissions warming the planet.
The world’s largest online retailer emitted 71.54 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent last year, Amazon disclosed on Monday in an updated edition of its sustainability report. That’s up about 40 percent since the company first disclosed the figure, with data from 2019.
Amazon’s carbon intensity — a measure that divides its emissions by gross merchandise sales — fell 1.9 percent, an indication of the company’s success in delivering products and running its warehouses, data centres and offices more efficiently.
Amazon aims to become a “net zero” emitter of greenhouse gases by 2040. Besides cutting emissions with electric vehicles and other operational initiatives, Amazon plans to buy credits linked to projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere. The net-zero pledge presents a huge challenge for a company that seeks to grow like a startup and operates a cargo airline, a sprawling retail and logistics business, grocery stores and data centres.
ADVERTISEMENT
Amazon’s accounting of its carbon footprint includes emissions generated by its own offices and data centres, purchased electricity, tailpipe emissions from delivery partners and the manufacturing of Amazon-branded products, among other things. In contrast to some retailers, the Seattle company doesn’t attempt to account for the emissions that go into the manufacture of products it sells, with the exception of private-label merchandise.
“The challenges we collectively face on the path to net-zero carbon are considerable,” Amazon said in its report. “Many new technologies are showing promise in their ability to reduce carbon emissions, but may still require significant development.”
Learn more:
How Fashion Can Deliver on COP26 Ambitions
Amid mounting evidence of fashion’s dramatically negative climate impact, countries, communities and companies are mobilising around protecting the planet. However, a new era of climate action will be required if fashion is to meet ambitious targets to reverse the damage being done.
Fashion’s biggest sustainable cotton certifier said it found no evidence of non-compliance at farms covered by its standard, but acknowledged weaknesses in its monitoring approach.
As they move to protect their intellectual property, big brands are coming into conflict with a growing class of up-and-coming designers working with refashioned designer gear.
The industry needs to ditch its reliance on fossil-fuel-based materials like polyester in order to meet climate targets, according to a new report from Textile Exchange.
Cotton linked to environmental and human rights abuses in Brazil is leaking into the supply chains of major fashion brands, a new investigation has found, prompting Zara-owner Inditex to send a scathing rebuke to the industry’s biggest sustainable cotton certifier.