Amazon shareholders to vote on revealing retailer’s plastic footprint
Amazon is under pressure to reduce its plastic footprint, as shareholders prepare to vote on Wednesday on a resolution calling for it to disclose how much of its plastic packaging ends up in the environment.
The resolution, co-proposed by the activist shareholder group As You Sow, calls on the world’s largest online retailer to provide a report by December 2021 showing how much plastic packaging is attributable to its activities, and what actions it has taken to tackle the issue. Amazon’s board of directors have recommended that shareholders vote against the proposal.
Last year a report by Oceana, a conservation group, estimated that Amazon had generated 210,000 tonnes (465m lbs) of plastic packaging waste in 2019, including enough air pillows to circle the Earth 500 times, and that up to 10,000 tonnes of plastic entered freshwater and marine ecosystems that year.
Amazon has disputed Oceana’s figures, accusing the group of “dramatically miscalculating” its use of plastic, saying it had used “about a quarter” of the figure quoted. The company claimed to have reduced the weight of outbound packaging by more a third and eliminated more than 1m tonnes of packaging material since 2015.
