Each year, we showcase our progress in becoming a more sustainable company through the release of our annual Sustainability Report. In this year’s report, we announced that we reached a significant milestone last year—we matched 100% of the electricity used across our global operations with renewable energy sources, achieving this goal seven years ahead of schedule. We’ve also made significant strides to decarbonise our transportation and delivery fleet, putting more than 24,000 electric vehicles on the road all around the world. We continue to invent and invest in new solutions to reduce our packaging and prioritise recyclable materials while ensuring orders reach our customers undamaged. In North America, we recently announced that we’ve replaced 95% of the plastic air pillows in delivery packaging with paper filler, working toward full removal by end of year. And, through the Climate Pledge Fund, we’ve invested in 26 emerging climate start-ups, and have helped recruit more than 500 companies in 45 countries to join The Climate Pledge.
Highlights from this year’s Sustainability Report
1. Scaling carbon-free energy through investments in wind and solar: In 2019, we set a goal to match 100% of the electricity used across our global operations – including our data centres, corporate buildings, grocery stores and fulfilment centres – with 100% renewable energy by 2030. In 2023, we met this goal, seven years ahead of schedule, thanks to more than 500 solar and wind projects globally. In addition, we’ve been the largest corporate purchaser of Renewable Energy for four years running, according to Bloomberg NEF. Learn more details of how we reached this goal here.
2. Lowering our total footprint and carbon intensity amid a year of business growth: In 2023, we lowered our carbon footprint by 3% alongside our carbon intensity which decreased 13%. A declining carbon intensity indicates that we’re successfully decoupling our emissions growth from the growth of our business. The carbon intensity metric allows us to measure how our carbon footprint is changing relative to the growth of our business.
3. Launching the Amazon Sustainability Exchange, providing free resources to suppliers: We’re always looking for ways to move faster, innovate, and deliver the best possible experience for our customers, and this requires working closely with those across our value chain. We’ve learned a lot over the years as we’ve worked to build sustainability into our operations, and we want to share this knowledge with others so they can benefit from our experience. The newly launched Amazon Sustainability Exchange offers previously proprietary information that will help companies of all sizes take meaningful steps toward net zero.
4. Eliminating waste and single-use plastic in customer deliveries: When it comes to packaging, we start with protecting the product to ensure customers’ orders arrive without damage. From there, we find ways to use less packaging and prioritise recyclable materials. Since 2015, we have reduced the average per-shipment packaging weight by 43% and avoided more than 3 million metric tons of packaging, including nearly half a million metric tons in 2023 alone. In Europe, we replaced our single-use plastic delivery packaging with 100% recyclable paper and cardboard packaging in our fulfilment network. And in the U.S., we announced our first fulfilment centre to eliminate plastic outbound packaging in Euclid, Ohio, using 100% curbside recyclable paper packaging. Most recently, we shared that Amazon has replaced 95% of the plastic air pillows from delivery packaging in North America with paper filler, and are working toward full removal by end of year.
5. Delivering packages to customers faster, and with greater operational efficiency: Customers around the world receive packages every day, and in many cities, have them delivered by electric vehicles (EVs)—we have more than 24,000 electric vehicles on the road all around the world, and in 2023, 680 million packages were delivered by EVs. We also restructured our U.S. operations, reorganising our network of fulfilment centres, intermediate sort centres, last mile delivery hubs, and transportation fleet into eight regions. This new model allowed us to get products closer to customers, optimise delivery speed, and reduce vehicle emissions by avoiding nearly 16 million miles traveled.
6. Designing data centre infrastructure to increase efficiency: Amazon Web Services (AWS) designs its data centres—including servers and hardware—for efficiency, resiliency, and a lower carbon footprint. From the infrastructure that powers its servers to the techniques that keep them cool, efficiency is a primary goal for every part of the AWS Global Cloud Infrastructure. Because of AWS's relentless focus on innovation and increasing efficiency, organisations can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of their artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning workloads by moving to AWS from on-premises. New research estimates AWS’s infrastructure is up to 4.1 times more efficient than on-premises, and when workloads are optimised on AWS, the associated carbon footprint can be reduced by up to 99%.
7. Offering more sustainable product selection for customers: The Climate Pledge Friendly (CPF) programme helps customers identify products that are vetted by one or more trusted third-party sustainability certifiers as well as our own. In 2023, more than 1.4 million products were available for purchase from our Climate Pledge Friendly program, a 157% increase from 2022.
8. Making each generation of Amazon devices more carbon and energy efficient than the last. We consider the entire lifecycle of our devices—from how we build them to how our customers use and retire them. By the end of 2023, over 67% of our Echo and Fire TV devices had Low Power mode—a feature that reduces energy consumption on your Echo smart speaker or smart display and select Fire TV devices when they’re idle. We're continuing to work to deliver updates to bring this feature to older devices that are already in use.
9. Promoting safe and fair working conditions throughout Amazon’s value chain: We collaborate with organisations that share our ambition to improve working conditions for people throughout our value chain. In 2023, we launched a partnership with the International Organisation for Migration to promote the rights and socioeconomic inclusion of migrant workers in our supply chain and improve safe labour migration across industries. This year, we enhanced our work on safe and healthy workplaces in our manufacturing supply chain by joining Nirapon and the Life and Building Safety (LABS) Initiative. Nirapon is an industry-led initiative focused on promoting workplace safety in factories in Bangladesh. As a member, we’re supporting our suppliers through education and capacity building, promoting an approach to safety that is self-sustained and continuously improving. LABS is an industry initiative focused on mitigating preventable fire, electrical, and structural building safety risk. As a member, we’re partnering with other brands to increase safety in our apparel supply chain in Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
10. Embracing water stewardship across global operations: Access to clean water is fundamental yet increasingly scarce, and we’re taking steps to improve water use efficiency and replenish water sources. In 2023, we set new standards for construction design in the U.S. to reduce indoor water use by 40%, and in our data centres, AWS was 41% of the way toward meeting its goal of being water positive by 2030. This includes investing in 15 water replenishment projects that returned 3.5 billion litres to local communities in 2023.
Looking ahead
We know that progress will look different every year on this sustainability journey, and as our business evolves and grows, we know that our efforts will produce different results. However, we remain steadfast as we invent, adapt, and will our way to meeting our commitment to The Climate Pledge.
Learn more about our commitment to sustainability, and read our full 2023 Sustainability Report here.
