Amazon announced that it would adopt green hydrogen, starting in 2025, to decarbonize its operations. The contract will provide power for 30,000 forklifts or 800 heavy-duty trucks. Even though ocean shipping was mentioned in the announcement, Amazon did not give a firm commitment to when it would green its ocean cargo shipping operations.
Commenting on the announcement, Dawny’all Heydari, Lead for the Ship It Zero Campaign, with Pacific Environment, welcomed “Amazon’s step to clean up its supply chain by adopting green hydrogen,” but he also highlighted that the retail giant must rapidly scale the fuel at a level necessary to support a 100% zero emission supply chain by 2030.
This announcement comes after news reporting that Amazon’s carbon emissions increased by 18% in 2021 and, overall, its emissions are up 40% since 2019.
Amazon has enormous market power to create transformative change. While we are very encouraged to see Amazon leveraging its clout to support zero emissions fuels and technologies, it must accelerate its efforts to immediately reduce and eliminate its ocean shipping pollution problem
Kendra Ulrich, Shipping Campaigns Director and Ship It Zero Campaign Lead for Stand.earth stated.
Ms. Ulrich also added that green hydrogen appears to be one of the best solutions to decarbonize sectors like ocean shipping, but other technologies such as battery power storage may be better suited for long-haul trucking and other land transportation.
We urge Amazon to focus its green hydrogen efforts on ocean shipping, commit to 100% zero emissions maritime transportation by 2030, and invest in other zero emissions land transportation technologies to reach its decarbonization goals
