Is Your Amazon Habit Wrecking the Planet?

a baby at home and can rarely leave the house. Specifically, I was curious if people have thought about the carbon emissions from all their deliveries. Have you ever worried about like the environmental impact we do? Actually? Yeah, there was. There was an interesting discussion in our neighborhoods next door and if they felt guilty about it? Yeah? What do you? What do you think? What do you do about that concern? Um? Um, I planted tree every time. I'm just joking. How how

many deliveries would you estimate you get a week? Or mom three to five a week? Oh, that's quite a bit. We get a lot. Yeah, my wife probably does more. Actually, my wife definitely does more shopping than I do. But but I do a little bit and have you guys worried about the carbon emissions of all this? Yeah, totally, totally. We worry about it a lot, but not enough to

like stop just like we're total hypocrites. Total hypocrites. That you just heard is our executive editor, Tom Giles, and I think the sentiment he expressed is familiar to a lot of us. Amazon makes billions of shipments a year involving planes and ships, trucks and cars that emit a lot of carbon dioxide. Today in the show, we're taking you inside a group of Amazon employees who, unlike me

and Tom, actually did something about their concern. Abandoned together and they try to publicly pressure their employer to do more to fight climate change. And with the help of a professor who studied this very issue, we'll less to see if getting everything delivered to us could eventually, with the right decisions, become a good thing for the environment. I'm Akio. You're listening to Decrypted stay with us, So, Spencer, can you introduce yourself. I'm Spencer Soaper and I'm a

technology reporter with Bloomberg. You know, Spencer, you've been covering Amazon for many years now. When did this issue of the environment start popping up in your reporting. Amazon's environmental impact has been an issue since I started here covering Amazon. It's environmental effects have always been top of mind because everyone gets packages from Amazon and sometimes they come in very big boxes, and there have always been concerns about waste.

This issue, whether it's waste or the carbon emissions, has it been a long standing concern for the people who

work at Amazon. Yes, so people who work at Amazon have been worried about this for for a number of years, and it seems like it's been an issue that's kind of come up here and there, and so people have done things like right six page papers on Amazon's environmental impacts, hoping to get the company to do a little more, or they've presented ideas at these think Big events where Amazon tries to get employees to share their big ideas things that can guide their business into the future, and

nothing really accomplished anything. So in two thousand eighteen, a group of employees started looking at it more seriously, and a galvanizing moment at that time was when they started looking at what other companies were doing, companies like DHL or Google, and they learned that Amazon was falling pretty far shy of its competitors in terms of being proactive about its environmental impacts. So that coalesced in the employees getting together to file a shareholder resolution. For our listeners

who don't know, what is the shareholder resolution? So Amazon employees also are shareholders, and shareholder resolution is a process by which anyone who owns shares of a company can present an idea to officially be voted on by other shareholders to basically send a message to the company what's important to the people who own the company. We should note that a shareholder resolution is non binding. Right, It's basically kind of a way to shame a company's executives.

I guess it's a way to apply public pressure. Yes, definitely a way to apply public pressure and call attention to an issue. Seeing it on other things like gender diversity, the and and racial diversity, those sorts of things. What did this particular resolution call for? It was pretty broad, but it basically called on Amazon to create a comprehensive plan to take more steps to address climate change and

to reduce its effects on climate change. Okay, so a group of Amazon employees decided to very publicly call for Amazon to do more to fight climate change. What happens next? So a shareholder resolution coming from Amazon employees is extremely rare. They tend to keep problems within the family and don't

discuss them publicly. And then afterward, Emily Cunningham, who is promoting this effort employee effort within Amazon, sent an email to her colleagues trying to explain herself like, this is why climate change is important to me, and this is why I felt it was important to present this resolution, and she asked any colleagues who felt similarly to to join her and signing the resolution. And one of her

colleagues who got that email was Marin Costa. My name is Marin Costa and my title is Principal User Experience Designer. So Marin is a UX designer who has been working at Amazon for several years. She's a mother, and she's concerned about the environment, especially Amazon's impact on the environment, and it's something that she's felt personally conflicted about herself. So when the email arrived in her inbox, this was

an issue she immediately wanted to get involved with. And I wrote back immediately and just said, oh my god, this is amazing. I've been sitting here by myself feeling frustrated and futile, so I immediately signed. So they filed the shareholder resolution in December, and it immediately got the attention of Amazon senior management. And in January, the employees meet with Amazon senior leadership. We asked them to release

data about our carbon footprint. We asked them for a date on when we would be carbon renewable energy, and they refused to give both. But they did agree in that initial meeting not to challenge are resolution and allow it to go on the ballot for a vote. Online retail giant Amazon plans to make half of its shipments carbon neutral by and then in February, Amazon announced Amazon Shipment Zero, which is this pledge to reduce carbon emissions

with a goal of reducing them by by. Amazon employees thought this was obviously an effort to try to appease appease them and recognize concerns about Amazon's carbon footprint. What's kind of the group's reaction to Project zero? More sweeping the floors while the house is burning, down a bucket of water on a forest fire, you know, rearranging Digerison Titanic, whatever you want to say, It's not enough, we need

a date. We're still behind. We're still away behind. So shortly after that announcement, the Amazon employees are once again called into a meeting with Amazon leadership and they were asked if they'd be willing to withdraw their proposal since Amazon was now moving in their direction of addressing climate change. So we said we wouldn't withdraw unless we could get a date. We still didn't have a date by when

we would be renewable. That's something that was important to employees was just like, okay, let's just pose this question and force a vote on it. So that said, everyone has to go on record on on where they stand. So Amazon has its annual shareholder meeting in May. It does it in Seattle, and there's always a smorgas board of protesters. They're airing grievances about Amazon. The big edition this year were the employee Climate Change A protesters, And

so you had this large contingent of Amazon employees. Um they were dressed in white T shirts to show solidarity. They had signs and things calling for Amazon to dress climate change. And a big difference was because many of these Amazon employees are actual shareholders, is that these protesters got into the room. This meeting, Emily Cunningham will now introduce a shareholder proposal over costing a report from Climate

Change Times. One of the employees stood up Emily Cunningham and she actually, like it was kind of dramatic moment, actually called uh for Jeff Bezos to come out and hear her speak before I started my time. I liked for Jeff Bezos to come out on stage so that I can kids directly. He did not. He was still in the in the back. He comes out and gives like a presentation, but he's not there for the entire

shareholder meeting. Well, he began hearing this speech. I assume so and memory I've worked at Amazon the last and she basically laid out the employee's concerns and why they were proposing this this petition. Emily asked the Amazon employees that were there to stand up, but also many other people, just non employees, just shareholders stood up in support. Some people were even crying, you know, it was it was really it was a really powerful moment. So the shareholder

proposal went down. It gained about support from Amazon shareholders, which wasn't sufficient, but it was still a pretty big number. And it really encouraged the employees that they were able to reach such a high water mark in terms of support. Does want to three? So after the vote, the meeting room clears out and the employ he's basically you know, grouped together standing beneath one of their banners, and they

spoke to the to the media. Without bold, rapid action, we will lose our only chance to avoid catastrophic warming. There's no issue more important to our customers or our world than the climate crisis, and we are falling far short. Jeff Bezels. Can you see children who might have drowned, towns thriving that might have burned, species swimming that might have been lost forever? How will we tell our children? Do you feel like Marin and her group were able

to accomplish something that people before weren't able to accomplish? Yes, I mean they were able to demonstrate that there's a significant movement within the company that a lot of people are are uncomfortable. We have a tight labor market. A lot of these jobs are extremely hard for companies like Amazon to find people for and higher than for. And so if people feel like there are other companies where they can work and feel more comfortable about their place

in society. If that company is doing more to protect the environment, they can very easily jump ship and go to those jobs. So this is something that Amazon has consider from a an employee retention standpoint, which is which is extremely important for for the tech industry. We'll be right back, Okay, So before the break, we heard about a group of Amazon employees who are pressuring their company into doing better for the planet. And I guess that

begs the question how bad is Amazon? Because the alternative to Amazon and to e commerce more broadly, is all of us driving individually to the store, and that's also bad for the planet. And to answer that question, Spencer, you talked to an expert. Yes, I met with Anne good Child. She's a professor at the University of Washington UH in Amazon's hometown of Seattle. So that's the last thing what I'm on. Mm hm, So I think cat callers cat call Yeah, so we have these two cats. Yeah.

The callers call from Ontario. And it's interesting because this project for her began as a question that probably a lot of other people have asked themselves. I think we started in it was actually a couple of studies, A grad student and I were both using grocery delivery services and just had a personal interest in trying to understand what that meant for transport to an emissions. It started from her guilty conscience, like the rest of us. Yeah, exactly,

the guilty conscious and a question. And the question was a good one because theoretically shopping on Amazon could be a good thing. If you live on a cul de sac with twenty homes, and all of those people go to the supermarket once a week, maybe they go to Costco twice a month, and you you add up all of those vehicle trips. If you could replace all of those vehicle trips with one weekly truck trip through the neighborhood to all of those homes delivering all of those things,

then you're actually burning less fossil fuel. Then that's a that's a more efficient way to get the products to those people. Our existing model is not very efficient an energy or traffic standpoint. If if that basic model is you get in the car, you drive to the store, and you drive home again, that's not hard to beat. Sometimes, get in your car, drive the person you store, drive home,

realize you forgot something to drive back, drive home. Yes, especially Yeah, I was going to make fun of my husband, but I shouldn't do that. Go ahead ahead. So there is a possibility that by utilizing e commerce more, you're actually helping the planet. That's the theory. In practice, the exact opposite happens. So there's many things that erode the benefits of that sort of idealized delivery service concept. One

of those is that you have multiple players. So if we have three or four companies doing a similar thing, so you have four different trucks in your neighborhood instead of potentially one. Another one is this idea of really fast delivery times. So if you're delivering and you do it once a week versus if you do it every day, you can squish more stuff into a bigger truck and have a lower cost and lower carbon oxide footprint. So that pressure to deliver more quickly is also eroding the

potential benefits. And and we're talking about just carbon emissions from the transportation right. It doesn't include things like packaging. Yeah, we're not even talking about packaging now. We're simply talking about the consumption of fossil fuels. So the way we're moving suggests that we're actually not you know, capturing those consolidation benefits of a delivery service. And I'm sure that right now we have increased travel demand through online chopping

and delivery services. Alright, So what's the bottom line if you were to think of right now? Is it all of these companies that are bringing stuff to you versus you go into the store. Is it better for the environment, worse for the environment, or a wash? It's worse for the environment. For Yeah, sus to remember how I went around our office and made everyone feel bad about their

online shopping. Yeah, they all loved you for that, you know, given what and told us it sounds like we should indeed feel bad about it, that the nagging guilt we feel is actually warranted. Yeah, it's warranted, and especially if you shop very frequently, you should feel even worse if we're unwilling to forego the convenience. Despite all of this, is there anything we can do to minimize our impact

on the environment. Yes, so you couldn't be a mindful online shopper, and the main step would be to consolidate your orders. Maybe rather than having several individual packages come to your door through the week, if you can load up your cart and make one order each week. That's the kind of thing individual consumers can do to decrease the environmental impact. Let's say Jeff Bezos wakes up tomorrow, he says, yes, employees, I I heard you loud and clearer,

and we're going to take this issue head on. What are what are some changes Amazon could make right now to soften it's it's uh impact. So I think one thing they have to do is think about, you know, the incentives that they're currently using, which are are pretty bread and butter for their business strategy, are also encouraging

people to to use these delivery services without much consciousness? Um, it's very easy to You're almost encouraged right to use the services that way and not really feel like you're paying for them by now get it now, get it tomorrow, get it today, and it's like the default. I think the fastest free one. There needs to be some intentional thought in, you know, are we encouraging people to to use fast and frequent deliveries? So is Amazon moving in

that direction? So? Um? Amazon announced at the end of the first quarter that they'd be spending money on one day shipping. They definitely are feeling the pressure from from stores and a lot of these other options people have where you can order something online from say Walmart or Target and then go and pick it up at the store that day. And so in an earnings call in July, analysts are very interested to know, Hey, what's going on with next day delivery? Can you give us any updates?

And the CFO, Brianosovski, actually said that it's going very well. It did cost a little bit more, but what they're finding is by narrowing the delivery promise to one day, they're picking up a lot more sales. That that people are are more engaged and they're willing to buy more things on Amazon. But given everything that Anne told us, one day shipping is exactly the opposite of what Amazon

should be doing if it really cared about the environment. Yeah, a one day delivery pledge for the last minute need is going to make the shopping habits probably only get only get worse for the environment. The spencer. What does Amazon say about all this? Well, Amazon says that reducing the human impacts of climate change is important to the

company and they have teams dedicated to it. They actually mentioned one project they're working on where they're trying to develop scientific models to map the carbon footprint and look for opportunities to reduce it. They also said that they're going to release more information about their company wide carbon

footprint and their goals and programs later this year. Spencer, by the way, is Amazon doing anything to reduce the packaging waste from all their deliveries, things like the cardboard boxes, because it seems like that's the thing that everyone's concerned about. Yeah, and it can be inconvenient too, and that stuff piles up.

They do have technology and their warehouses that tries to optimize the size of the box for the package, but you still hear from people who, you know, order a set of headphones and end up with, you know, a box the size of the trunk of a car. M hm. And what's next for Marin and her group Well, even though their shareholder resolution went down in the spring, the Amazon employees continue to meet and are still active on this issue. They actually have a planned walkout coming up

on September twenty. More than employees are planning to leave their jobs at Amazon for the day. This would be both in Seattle and around the world, and this is for them to participate in what's known as a global climate strike where people at various companies and various countries are urging one another to show solidarity on the issue of climate change by by walking out of work on

that day. Spencer Soper, thanks for the story today. Thanks m Decrypted is produced by me Aki Ito and Ethan Brooks. Emily Buso and Anne vander May are story editors. Francesca Levie is the head of Bloomberg podcast We'll see you next week.