January 30, 2020

Amazon workers protest company’s climate policy

topic:	Climate Change
editor:	Yair Oded

Hundreds of Amazon employees posted comments criticising the online retail giant’s negligence of its “moral responsibility” to tackle climate change. They did so in direct defiance of the company’s policy barring its employees from voicing public criticism of Amazon.

In a document titled “Amazon Employees Share Our Views on Company Business”, which was published on January 27, 2020, over 350 Amazon workers had put their jobs at risk by raising various types of criticism against the company’s disregard for its own pledge to utilise only renewable energy sources in the future and cut carbon emissions. The workers called on Amazon to halt its ongoing dealings with oil and gas companies. 

In September 2019, Amazon issued a press release in which it declared its goal of fulfilling the Paris agreement ten years ahead of schedule. The company had pledged to reach “net zero carbon by 2040 and 100% renewable energy by 2030.” It also vowed to order an electric vehicle fleet of a record-breaking size and invest $100 million in reforestation projects in order to reduce the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. 

Yet, Amazon’s conduct, in reality, reflects the exact opposite of its professed ideals of environmental stewardship, as the company provides cloud computing, machine learning, and data services to a number of companies that are largely responsible for increasing CO2 emissions and exacerbating ecological degradation (including BP and Shell). 

“The science on climate change is clear. It is unconscionable for Amazon to continue helping the oil and gas industry extract fossil fuels while trying to silence employees who speak out,” wrote Amelia Graham-McCann, a Senior Business Analyst at Amazon. 

Some employees took a more moderate approach to the company’s actions on climate change and centred their message around the importance of allowing workers to speak up without fear of retribution by the company. “Amazon participates in the global economy, where it has a substantial impact on many issues. Expecting its employees to maintain silence on these issues, and Amazon’s impact on them, is really a reprehensible overreach, and I am proud to take this opportunity to demonstrate my unwillingness to comply. I was heartened to hear about Amazon’s commitment to invest in an electric delivery fleet and can’t see the harm in saying so. I can’t support a policy that would silence commentary, both pro and anti,” wrote Michael Sokolov, a Principal Engineer for the company.  

The recent outcry by Amazon workers is the latest action taken by the company’s employees to voice their criticism of Amazon's climate policy. In the spring of 2019, nearly 9,000 Amazon employees signed an open letter to CEO Jeff Bezos, imploring him to take greater climate action. In September of the same year, members of the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice group organised a walk-out from the company’s headquarters in Seattle, demanding immediate climate leadership. 

The stance of Amazon employees reflects a wider trend in the tech industry of workers pressuring their companies’ leaders to eschew unethical business practices and take bolder climate action. In September 2019, Microsoft employees released a letter criticising the company’s collaboration with the oil and gas industry and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Google workers have engaged in a multi-year protest against the company’s sexual assault policy (which culminated in a walk-out). 

Pressure on large corporations and tech giants to comply with ethical standards and be environmentally conscious must be exerted by both company employees and the general public. With the power of such companies rising to unprecedented proportions, their impact on the trajectory of the climate crisis is enormous. It is therefore imperative for people working for such corporations - who are most familiar with their dealings, character, and structure - to be able to voice their criticism freely and lead the effort to hold these giants accountable.

Image: SP, The Bullet