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Amazon Plans To Make 50% of Shipments Net Zero Carbon by 2030 (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the marching-forward dept.

Amazon says it hopes to make 50 percent of all shipments to customers with net zero carbon in the next 11 years as part of an initiative it's calling Shipment Zero. From a report: It also announced that it'll share a report detailing its companywide carbon footprint -- along with "related goals and programs" -- later this year, and that it'll continue to use customer feedback to "enable" and "encourage" its supply chain partners to reduce their environmental impact. The initiative builds on the Seattle retailer's ongoing work to minimize its contributions to greenhouse gases, Dave Clark, senior vice president of worldwide operations at Amazon, explained in a blog post.

Amazon currently has over 200 scientists, engineers, and product designers dedicated to "inventing new ways" to "leverage [its] scale" for the "good of customers and the planet," he said, and has engaged in an "extensive" project over the past two years to develop a model that provides internal teams with data to help them identify ways to reduce carbon use.

26 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. So where is the reactor going to be? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    Or will it be a huge vat of sun-ripening algae for producing biodiesel? Either way, Scary Teeth Woman's home would be a great location.

    1. Re:So where is the reactor going to be? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Cover the distribution centre in solar panels, and offset some more by adding a surcharge to the delivery that gets invested in carbon reduction tech like trees and capture. There is also the packing material to consider, which has a lifetime carbon footprint.

      They may also try some more dubious methods such as claiming that a delivered item resulted in one fewer trip to the shops by their customer, or one fewer delivery to a rival retailer that only uses dirty, dirty diesel.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:So where is the reactor going to be? by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      It's going to be a marketing thing, where the customer is asked to pay more money and told they're "helping the environment" and Amazon will use that money to buy forest land to tell everyone they've "offset the carbon". Net result is the customer will subsidize land acquisition by Amazon - tax free.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  2. Is Amazon well-managed? by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    Amazon appears to me to be a poorly-managed company. One example: Every Amazon web page has the distractions of Amazon trying to sell something else besides the product that interests you. Is trying to manipulate customers good business management?

    1. Re:Is Amazon well-managed? by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Yes, yes it is. The word "manipulate" has a negative connotation though. I am sure Amazon see this as offering customers additional options. You are looking at that newest iPhone, perhaps you should also see what the newest Samsung has to offer. Being that Amazon offers nearly everything, people go there to shop (and may not buy anything) like those Boomers use to do in these places called Department Stores, or Gen-Xer in a places called Malls. Today Amazon is nearly the monopoly in store front.

      While they are some people like it seems yourself. Who knows what they want, and then will go in and get it, and back out. Where these suggestions are in the way, much like how a beer end-cap in the grocery store needs you to take an extra turn to get to the Baby Diapers. (This by the way is from a business statistic showing a correlation of purchases of Diapers and Beer after 7:00PM on Weekdays. As it seems it is traditional for wives will send their husbands to get diapers after their husband return from work, and while at the store, they will more likely pick up beer. ). However even if 99% of the time you don't want that recommendation that 1% of the time, that is where you will get a better deal, and amazon still gets its profits.

      I am sure many of the recommendations are for products that gives Amazon a higher profit margin as well.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Is Amazon well-managed? by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      Grocery stores, at least in North America, put the milk and bread at the back of the store so that customers have to walk through the store to get to them. Items that you are likely to buy at the drop of a hat are placed near the checkout so you see them while waiting. They move all of products around the store in order to get customers to look around for them causing them to see everything else. Higher margin products are placed at eye level. Companies are even charged for this. Stores even manage the music and are looking at aromas to maximize how much you spend.

      Restaurants and fast food places use music to control how fast you eat. Faster music tends to make you eat faster. Fast food places tend to use faster music to get a higher turnover.

      Lots of online sites offer suggestions for items that go with or alternatives. Amazon isn't unique in that matter.

    3. Re:Is Amazon well-managed? by kingbilly · · Score: 1

      Kudos, I think, to Wegmans. They have milk and bread located in the front of the store. From the entrance, in ascending order you have milk and bread, self checkout, employee checkout.

  3. Re:China by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 1

    If you pay them for a sustainable product, yes. If you pay them for the cheapest product imaginable, no. The Chinese can make great stuff, but like everyone else you have to pay them for it.

    --
    Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
  4. Re:Apple will... by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If Apple is 50% of their customer base, Apple will need to go all the way to their warehouses to pickup the products to meet zero carbon admissions by Amazon.

    This of course highlights one the biggest problems of our time, hacking metrics to meet the number, but not solve the problem the number is trying to show.
    I have seen across many industries. A department installs their own ticket tracking system, so all tickets that go on the Enterprise tracking system, are quickly closed, and transferred to their own. So the execs see that department keeps their tickets in good timing, while the actual problems in the tickets are not being resolved.
    Lowering budget costs, by transferring the cost into an other payment unit. For example laying off employees, and hiring a contractor at twice the amount, because a contractor fee is paid in a different budgeting area, which the company may have extra money.

    The problem is too many people just look at the numbers, and do not bother digging past them to see what is causing them.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  5. Yes Amazon is VERY well managed by sjbe · · Score: 1

    Amazon appears to me to be a poorly-managed company.

    Are you being ironic and making a joke or is this a serious (and stupid) question? I can't tell. Amazon sells close to half of all online retail sales in the US. If that is poorly managed then give me some of that. I'm sure it's just an accident that Jeff Bezos is now the richest man on the planet.

    Every Amazon web page has the distractions of Amazon trying to sell something else besides the product that interests you.

    They have mountains of data that says a lot of their customers buy those other products at or around the same time as the one you are looking at. Why would they not try to sell both items at the same time?

    Is trying to manipulate customers good business management?

    Have you ever actually been in a store? You think a retail business trying to sell you more stuff is somehow unusual or bad? Of course they are trying to sell you as much stuff as they can. Only an idiot doesn't understand this and it's not some evil plot. Why do you think retail stores have all their merchandise sitting out on the floor for you to look at? Same thing. Exactly the same thing.

  6. 50% net zero carbon by olsmeister · · Score: 1

    But the other 50%? Whoo boy, it's gonna be like shipping charcoal in a box made out of carbon paper.

  7. Re:Apple will... by rmdingler · · Score: 1

    Precisely. Clever number-crunchers can shape the numbers to reinforce a wide spectrum of outcomes.

    Employee diversity numbers can be made to look a great deal better at tech companies who employ onsite kitchen and janitorial personnel.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  8. Obligatory Dilbert by bruno.fatia · · Score: 1

    Scott Adams's forecast for $COMPANY_NAME.

    https://dilbert.com/strip/2019...
    https://dilbert.com/strip/2019...
    https://dilbert.com/strip/2017...

  9. Turn exhaust into boxes by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    All carbon emissions from trucks and aircraft will be captured and converted into boxes.

  10. In another meeting by houghi · · Score: 1

    In another meeting they decided they needed to have cheaper packaging. That would mean that 50% would increase carbon usage by 150%

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  11. Re:China is WAY ahead by jfdavis668 · · Score: 1

    China buys 50% of the world's EV production. That doesn't mean that 50% of Chinese cars are EV. https://www.bbc.com/news/busin...

  12. Boxes by Larry+Lightbulb · · Score: 1

    Just reusing the boxes would meet their target.

    1. Re:Boxes by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      It's the tape that messes that up. There are green recycle-friendly label alternatives, which if purchased in bulk by a very large corporation, would be just as cheap as the non-recyclable labels they currently use, but that would involve someone at Amazon understanding economic supply constraints.

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      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  13. I for one welcome our green Amazonians by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    If you combine solar, wind, and a third source like batteries or hydroelectricity, it's very easy to achieve 99 percent green power.

    The major problem is the envelopes they use now jam up the recycling machines, due to using plastics.

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    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  14. Other sloppiness on Amazon web pages by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    It seems to me that there is a lot of other sloppiness in the design of Amazon web pages.

    It's okay to recommend other products. Recommendations could be at the bottom of the page.

    Why have a lot of blank space under the image?

    Now Amazon web addresses have a lot of coding we are not allowed to understand. An example, this is the working Amazon web page address given above:

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0722DMYTN/ref=br_msw_pdt-5/130-5936011-9843524

    This is what Amazon wants sent: (For the address above, I removed the coding.)

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0722DMYTN/ref=br_msw_pdt-5/130-5936011-9843524?_encoding=UTF8&smid=A3C4ATI46R3AXM&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=&pf_rd_r=XGG9QKGBQ5TP7MG7A7T4&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=182628c5-bc31-4d16-a82d-3758ab4ea7a9&pf_rd_i=desktop

    (Google is now doing that with Google News.)

    1. Re:Other sloppiness on Amazon web pages by kingbilly · · Score: 1

      Yeah, Amazon loves analytics so rather than rely on javascript which may be blocked by a browser or browser extension, it appears they just put everything they need in the URL.

      Note, the minimum needed for the catalog address above was https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072....
      It appears you posted your order number in your link. I recognize the 130-XXXXXX-XXXXX format.

  15. Will that include firewood deliveries? by eminencja · · Score: 1

    https://www.amazon.com/firewoo...

  16. Not this again by Solandri · · Score: 1

    Buying carbon credits, or buying electricity from a renewable power source doesn't reduce greenhouse gases. All it does is force someone else who was buying carbon credits or buying renewable power to switch to fossil fuel power. If the power grid is 15% renewable and your business operations expand to add 1 TWh of demand to it in a year, that extra TWh has to be generated by fossil fuels because that's the only energy source which can ramp up to match excess demand. You cannot make the sun shine longer onto PV panels, you cannot make the wind blow harder, you cannot make more rain fall into a hydroelectric reservoir. Your shell game where you buy "your" electricity from renewable sources means someone else's electricity gets pushed out of the renewable shell into the fossil fuel shell, resulting in no net change for the country overall.

    The only way to increase renewable power consumption is to build new renewable energy generation facilities. If you're not adding renewable capacity, then all this brouhaha over 50% zero carbon is just marketing glitz with zero real improvement. Every company can claim 100% of their energy comes from renewables even though renewables only supply 15% of the country's energy, as long as no single company exceeds 15% of the nation's energy consumption.

  17. Because... by VeryFluffyBunny · · Score: 1

    ...Amazon isn't a major contributor to consumerism, whereby we measure our success by how quickly we can dig stuff up out of the ground & turn it into pollution, is it? Never has it been so easy to buy & sell so much crappy stuff that people don't need & makes no difference to their sad little isolated, hyper-individualistic lives. Consumerism is a sickness that needs a cure, not ways to sustain it & make it more efficient.

    --
    Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
  18. Already on the road... by Pyramid · · Score: 1

    Given the frequency their delivery contractors fail to perform the core of their job function correctly, i.e. actually deliver the package to the correct address undamaged and on time, they hardly qualify as carbon based life-forms.

    Bravo for getting a head start on carbon reductions, Amazon!

    --
    ~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
  19. What information is Amazon encrypting? by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the information. I didn't have an order. When I start my computer, all cookies are deleted. So, what information is Amazon encrypting?