Amazon.com Annual Meeting - Reducing Use of Plastic Packaging

I’m Conrad MacKerron, senior vice president of As You Sow, filer of Proposal 8 on the Amazon proxy.

Plastic pollution has become an international environmental crisis, drawing top of mind attention from governments and citizens. Public concerns about plastic pollution now rivals that of climate change.

11 million tons of plastic waste enters the ocean every year, fatally impacting more than 800 marine species, and causing up to $2.5 trillion in damage annually to marine ecosystems.  Every month brings new reports of degraded plastic in our air, water and food.

Amazon’s substantial and growing use of plastic packaging exposes the company to increased financial and reputational risk.  Our proposal asks the co. to report on how much of its plastic packaging is released to the environment to help investors assess its exposure to plastics related risks, and to set goals for significant cuts to help manage that risk.

The company lags its peers in addressing this growing problem. Amazon has not taken basic actions such as disclosing the amount of plastic it uses, or committed to cuts in plastic use as competing retailers like as Target and Walmart have done. Researchers say companies need to cut their plastic use by one-third to be able to reduce ocean plastic pollution 80% by 2040.

A report by environmental group Oceana estimated that Amazon generates 465 million pounds of ecommerce plastic packaging waste annually and that 22 million pounds of that is mismanaged and may enter and pollute freshwater and marine ecosystems. The company says it does not use that much plastic, but has declined to say how much it does use.

I move Proposal #8 and ask for your support.  The information requested will help investors assess the extent of the company’s exposure to plastic pollution and encourage it to step up and match its peers by committing to significant cuts in plastic use.

Thank you.