Amazon‘s absolute carbon dioxide emissions grew 18% last year.
The retail giant emitted 71,54 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2021.
In a special blog post, Amazon said its total carbon footprint for last year rose 40% since 2019 when it was 51.17 million metric tonnes.
At the same time, the company said its carbon intensity – its carbon emissions divided by gross merchandise sales – decreased by 1.9% in 2021.
Amazon has acknowledged that there are some “big challenges” along the road to net zero.
In the report, Amazon said: “Many new technologies are showing promise in their ability to reduce carbon emissions, but may still require significant development.
“We need to both invent new solutions and scale and drive down the costs of known solutions.
“In 2021, we reached 85% renewable energy across our operations, and we are on a path to achieve 100% by 2025 – five years ahead of the original target of 2030.
“Progress is not easy, and we are far from done. However, our success in deploying renewable energy globally provides us with a playbook that we are deploying to tackle big challenges like transportation, building construction, and supply chain decarbonization strategies.”
