Amazon.com Inc: Sustainable Packaging Policies for Plastics
WHEREAS: The growing plastic pollution crisis poses increasing risks to our company. Corporations could face an annual financial risk of approximately $100 billion should governments require them to cover the waste management costs of the packaging they produce, a policy that is increasingly being enacted around the globe.
Recently, Pew Charitable Trusts released a groundbreaking study, Breaking the Plastic Wave, concluding that if all current industry and government commitments were met, ocean plastic deposition would be reduced by only 7%. Without immediate and sustained new commitments throughout the plastics value chain, annual flows of plastics into oceans could nearly triple by 2040.
The Pew report also finds that improved recycling must be coupled with reductions in use, materials redesign, and substitution. It concludes that plastic demand should be reduced by least 1/3, stating that reducing plastic production is the most attractive solution from environmental, economic, and social perspectives. The European Union has banned 10 single-use plastic products commonly found in ocean cleanups and enacted a $1/kg tax on non-recycled plastic packaging waste.
Amazon does not disclose how much plastic packaging it uses, but is believed to be one of the largest corporate users of flexible plastic packaging, which cannot be effectively recycled. A recent report by Oceana estimated that Amazon generated 465 million pounds of plastic packaging waste in 2019 and that up to 22 million pounds of its plastic packaging waste entered the world’s marine ecosystems. Flexible packaging represents 59% of all plastic production but an outsized 80% of plastic leaking into oceans. Amazon has no goal to make all of its packaging recyclable.
Amazon is falling behind its peers. Unilever has taken the most significant corporate action to date, agreeing to cut virgin plastic packaging by 50% by 2025, including absolute elimination of 100,000 tons. At least seventeen other public consumer goods companies have virgin plastic reduction goals. IKEA pledges to eliminate all plastic packaging by 2028.
Reducing Amazon’s plastic packaging use and making all its packaging recyclable are necessary steps to combat the plastic pollution crisis. Our company is long overdue on taking action on this important issue.
BE IT RESOLVED: Shareholders request that the Amazon Board issue a report, at reasonable expense and excluding proprietary information, describing how the company could reduce its plastics use in alignment with the 1/3 reduction findings of the Pew Report, or other authoritative sources, to reduce the majority of ocean pollution.
SUPPORTING STATEMENT: The report should, at Board discretion:
Quantify the weight of total plastic packaging used by the company;
Evaluate the benefits of dramatically reducing the amount of plastics used in our packaging;
Assess the reputational, financial, and operational risks associated with continuing to use substantial amounts of plastic packaging while plastic pollution grows unabated;
Describe any necessary reduction strategies or goals, materials redesign, transition to reusables, substitution, or reductions in use of virgin plastic.
Resolution Details
Company: Amazon.com Inc
Lead Filers:
Sara Sackner
Year: 2022
Filing Date:
December 2021
Initiative(s): Consumer Packaging
Status: 48.9% overall vote, (59.3% of independent shareholder votes)