Driving Carbon Out of Our Business
Our carbon footprint includes emissions from Amazon-operated and third-party freight, electricity use, Amazon branded products, capital goods, business travel, packaging, customer trips to Amazon’s stores, and other purchased goods and services. The system boundary of our carbon footprint meets widely adopted international standards, including the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and ISO 14064. Our carbon footprint is externally assured by Apex.
Through our commitment to The Climate Pledge, Amazon is investing in a range of large-scale solutions to decarbonize our business, some with immediate carbon savings and others with longer-term payoffs. We have already seen an improvement in the carbon intensity of our business in 2019 as a result of operational efficiencies such as energy efficiency technologies in fulfillment centers and alternative vehicle pilots.
Carbon intensity is the metric we use to benchmark our performance year over year, as it provides a relative comparison between annual performance metrics regardless of other changes to our business. While Amazon’s net sales increased 22% in 2019 (excluding changes in foreign exchange rates), our total carbon footprint increased 15% during the same period. While still early days, our 2019 carbon intensity metric is 122.8 grams of CO2e per GMS, down 5% year over year from 128.9 grams of CO2e per dollar in 2018. Read our 2018 carbon footprint.
Like many companies in high growth mode, we look at the absolute tons of carbon in our footprint, but also at how we are improving our carbon intensity. Our first year-over-year comparison shows progress as we continue to make investments in innovation, technologies, and products that will decarbonize our operations over future years.
These investments include renewable energy projects like our new solar farm in Virginia, and our order of 100,000 electric delivery vehicles, which will be on the road delivering packages to customers starting in 2021. It will take several years for the carbon reduction benefits of these investments to be fully reflected in our carbon footprint. Over time, both our carbon intensity and our absolute carbon footprint will drop as we continue to make progress toward net zero carbon. With the launch of the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, we look forward to making additional major investments in the coming years that will result in long-term payoffs.
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FinancialA nimble, top down financial model that helps us see the big picture and prioritize where we should dive deep. -
TransportationWe track the emissions resulting from shipping products to and from warehouses, and to our customers’ homes and other pickup points. -
ElectricityWe account for the impacts of the energy consumed by our offices, data centers, and warehouses, as well as the benefits of the renewable energy we generate around the globe. -
PackagingWe look carefully at the materials and processes behind all the boxes, mailers, and other packing items Amazon adds to the products we sell. -
DevicesWe have a detailed view of our devices' manufacturing, use, and end-of-life phases.
Amazon's Enterprise-Wide Carbon Footprint for the 2019 Fiscal Year
| Category | MMT CO2e |
| Emissions from Direct Operations (Scope 1) | 5.76 |
| Fossil fuels | 5.57 |
| Refrigerants | 0.19 |
| Emissions from Purchased Electricity (Scope 2) | 5.50 |
| Emissions from Indirect Sources (Scope 3) | 39.91 |
| Corporate purchases and Amazon-branded product emissions (e.g., operating expenses, business travel, and Amazon-branded product manufacturing, use phase, and end-of-life) | 15.41 |
| Capital goods (e.g. building construction, servers and other hardware, equipment, vehicles) | 8.01 |
| Other indirect emissions (e.g., third-party transportation, packaging, upstream energy related) | 12.44 |
| Lifecycle emissions from customer trips to Amazon's physical stores | 4.05 |
| Amazon's Total Footprint | 51.17 |
Our carbon intensity metric, measured as grams of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per dollar of Gross Merchandise Sales (GMS), is equal to 122.8 CO2e per dollar (USD).
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Carbon MethodologyLearn more about the science and technology behind our carbon footprint.
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Greenhouse Gas Emissions Verification StatementRead the greenhouse gas emissions verification statement from Apex.
