4,500+ Amazon Employees Call on the Company to Take Climate Action

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Byย Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Reposted with permission from EcoWatch.

More than 4,500 Amazon employees have signed a letter calling on the company to take concrete action onย climate change, with demands including a complete transition away fromย fossil fuels.

The letter wasย posted on Medium Wednesdayย by a group calling itself Amazon Employees for Climate Justice and was addressed to CEO Jeff Bezos and the Amazon Board of Directors. The group called on the company to release an action plan on climate change based on the principles outlined in theirย letter.

โ€œAmazon has the resources and scale to spark the world’s imagination and redefine what is possible and necessary to address the climate crisis,โ€ the group wrote. โ€œWe believe this is a historic opportunity for Amazon to stand with employees and signal to the world that we’re ready to be a climateย leader.โ€

As of 6 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, more than 4,500 employees had signed on.

Amazon Employees for Climate Justice tweet about Amazon employees signing a petition for climate action within their company.
Screenshot of a tweet by the group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, updating the number the employees who have signed theย petition.

Amazon software engineer and letter co-signer Rajit Iftikhar confirmed toย CNNย that the letter followed two meetings between concerned employees and Amazon leadership about the company’s climate plans that did not yield clear results.The letter also grew out of the work 28 former and current employees who filed a shareholder resolution in December of 2018, the group’sย press release said. The company had told them it would soon print a statement of opposition to thatย resolution.

โ€œThis campaign started with a dozen workers coming together to take action on our climate crisis. Now we have thousands of employees from all over the world who are publicly asking for a company-wide plan that matches the scale and urgency of the problem,โ€ Iftikhar wrote in the press release. โ€œWe’ve been blown away by the amount of support and passion there is for making Amazon a leader on climateย justice.โ€

The movement of Amazon workers is remarkable in two respects,ย The New York Times noted. For one, it is rare for tech workers to give their names when agitating for change. Secondly, it represents the growth of an emerging tactic for employees to use a shareholder resolution to influence their employers. Historically, this tactic has been used by outside groups, but it is increasingly being used by tech employees who are given stock options as part of their benefits packages. Amazon has more than 65,000 corporate and tech employees in the U.S., but more people have signed the letter so far than are employed at any one Amazon location other than Seattle or the Bayย Area.

The principles that the letter writers hope Amazon will adoptย are:

1.ย Climate goals consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changeย reportย that says we must halve emissions by 2030 compared to 2010ย levels

2.ย A full phase-out of fossil-fuelย use

3.ย Prioritizing climate when making businessย decisions

4. Prioritizing reducing harm to vulnerableย communities

5.ย Advocating for government policies that reduceย emissions

6.ย Fairly compensating employees impacted byย extreme weatherย events

The letter also called out specific Amazon policies and actions, such as donations made to climate-denying lawmakers and an AWS for Oil and Gas initiative that helps oil and gas companies expand and speedย extraction.

The letter also wrote that the company’s current sustainability pledge, Shipment Zero, did not go far enough. That commitment would make packages emit net zero carbon emissions and shipping emit 50 percent net zero carbon by 2030, but the letter writers said that relying on carbon offsets could displace indigenous communities in poorly thought out forest-preservation schemes and would do nothing to reduceย air pollution.

โ€œAmazon’s Shipment Zero announcement is a first step, and it showed the positive impact that employee pressure can have,โ€ Principal User Experience Designer and letter signer Maren Costa said in the press release. โ€œWe all โ€” individuals, corporations, governments โ€” simply need to do more. Amazon needs a company-wide plan that matches the scale and urgency of the climate crisis, and Shipment Zero is not nearlyย enough.โ€

In a response to the letter, Amazon told CNN it had 200 scientists, engineers and product designers working onย sustainability.

โ€œWe have launched several major and impactful programs and are working hard to integrate this approach fully across Amazon,โ€ the company said in a statement. โ€œOur dedication to ensuring that our customers understand how we are addressing environmental issues has been unwavering โ€” we look forward to launching more work and sharing more thisย year.โ€

Main image:ย AWS – Amazon Web Services Office in Houston, Texas. Credit:ย Tony Webster,ย CC BYย 2.0

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