It would seem that Amazon isn’t exactly making good on its 100% renewables pledge, as the company openly courts fossil-fuel profits, according to Green America.
A bombshell exposé by the tech news site Gizmodo revealed that Amazon is actively courting business from the largest oil and gas companies to put the power of Amazon’s giant servers to work to make it easier to drill for fossil fuels.
In response, the nonprofit Green America is urging that US consumers and companies committed to renewable energy should consider dumping Amazon and its AWS cloud services if the company doesn’t improve its climate practices soon, and look to greener alternatives.
In 2014, Green America launched its “Build a better cloud” campaign urging Amazon to shift to renewable energy to power its widely used cloud computing services.
Todd Larsen, executive co-director of Consumer and Corporate Engagement at Green America said, “Consumers and companies need to turn up the heat on Amazon and let it know that they don’t want to do business with a company that is so eager to profit from dirty energy companies.”
“Amazon needs to listen to its customers who are telling it that whatever profit they can make from fossil fuels is not as big as the money they stand to lose by alienating customers focused on a clean-energy future.”
Historically, Amazon has not been a leader on climate change, only reluctantly adopting a 100% clean energy target for powering its massive servers after pressure from Greenpeace and Green America.
Over the past four years, with continued consumer pressure, Amazon has slowly moved to using 50% clean energy, but then that progress stalled.
Greenpeace recently issued a scathing report that called out Amazon for continuing to build servers in Virginia that are powered by fossil fuels.
Amazon then agreed to build three new wind farms, but only one is in the US. Now, Amazon’s commitment to a cleaner cloud is being called further into question.
Green America is encouraging US consumers who are concerned about Amazon’s climate impacts to consider the following steps to hold Amazon accountable:
Take business elsewhere
Before Amazon, we all somehow managed to get the things we needed in life. And, if we break free of shopping on Amazon, we would likely buy less stuff, and direct our purchases to more small and green retailers. For companies, this will mean either getting off the AWS cloud or not going on it.
Cancel Amazon Prime if you have it
Amazon Prime, with its free shipping, is the hook that keeps us going back to Amazon. If you cancel Prime, you’ll be less inclined to shop with Amazon.
Share the news
The more people who hear that Amazon is not a responsible company, the more people who will take their shopping elsewhere or use their voice as customers to urge the company to do better.
Make your voice heard
Take Green America’s new action on Amazon to send a message directly to Jeff Bezos and the company. Green America’s “Amazon: Build a Cleaner Cloud” campaign asks the company to get to 100% clean energy and drop its support for the oil and gas industry.
The call for increased pressure from consumers joins a call from Amazon’s own employees, 4,500 of which signed an open letter on April 10 to Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s Board.
This letter called for the company to address climate change by adding more clean energy and getting to its 100% clean energy goal, greening the company’s delivery fleet, providing meaningful climate targets, and being more transparent in its climate and environmental reporting.
