from the does-Mr.-Betteridge-have-any-input? dept.
Amazon's recent rollout of Rivian electric delivery vehicles represented a milestone in the company's work toward reducing emissions. Starting in major cities, including Chicago, Dallas, San Diego, and -- no surprise -- Seattle, Amazon plans to have the vehicles in more than 100 cities shortly and will expand to more than 100,000 vehicles across the U.S. by 2030. While Rivian had the inside track as a company that Amazon has invested in, the EV company will have to feature more than just electrification to compete long-term in an industry where electrification will start to become the norm.
[...] For example, according to Amazon's just-released sustainability report for 2021, it delivered over 100 million packages in Europe using a fleet of over 3,000 electric delivery vans and other zero-emission vehicles last year. And in the dense streets of Manhattan, the company delivered 30 million packages using cargo bikes and people on foot. And those packages are far less wasteful than they've been in the past as the company has implemented options such as programs that ship products without packaging, Climate-Friendly certifications for sustainably designed products, and even using machine learning algorithm improvements to pack products more efficiently into smaller boxes that allow for more efficient use of cargo storage.
But much of the quest to reduce the carbon footprint of transportation will take place via modes of transportation that are not seen by customers. For example, the company is a member of an industry group seeking to drive the adoption of sustainable aviation fuel and helped create another to advance zero-emissions technologies and fuels for use in shipping vessels. [...]
[...] The company's promise to be a net-zero business by 2040 forms the central tenet of The Climate Pledge, a group Amazon co-founded that now includes over 300 organizations that have pledged to achieve the milestone by 2040, 10 years before The Paris Accord deadline.
What do you think? Greenwashing, or getting out in front of what it sees as inevitable laws to be enacted? (Or maybe a little from Column A and a little from Column B?)
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday August 08 2022, @06:41AM (2 children)
I'm not saying it's greenwashing, but it's probably aliens [itv.com].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday August 08 2022, @01:40PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by corey on Monday August 08 2022, @10:48PM
Top Gear still going??? I stopped watching it 10 years ago and even then that Clarkson was an old battering twat boomer. I was over their smugness and that association of one’s car with their identity. I’ve got a nice car so I’m cool, type stuff. I think the early seasons were ok but it got tired and repetitive.
Anyway, electric vans — great! Now we just need charging stations here in Australia.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Anartech Systems on Monday August 08 2022, @12:16PM (1 child)
A distraction from the heat around unwarranted access to Ring data and the fact they are about to turn a bunch of Roombas into portable Alexas.
Anyone with half a brain knows the green train is a good train to be on, just like the flurry of rainbow stickers which have suddenly popped up everywhere (and all the organisations out there putting lip service on their websites and press releases). Most rational people know these are good statements to make and things to support, but orgs make it a virtue signal. And I feel like banging your chest about going green when it is basically a no brainier is just that. A virtue signal. Especially when you are doing far more nefarious things with the other hand that you are holding just out of sight.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 09 2022, @04:30AM
¿Porque no los dos?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Monday August 08 2022, @12:42PM (1 child)
One electric van on a carefully optimised circular route from the distribution centre making a couple of dozen deliveries,
vs.
A couple of dozen private cars (of all shapes, sizes and fuel types) making a round trip to the shopping mall or crowding into a congested town centre, visiting heated/air conditioned shops (which rely on regular van deliveries from the distributors anyway).
There may be other reasons to worry about Amazon, but I don't think the fuel efficiency of large-scale online shopping vs. personal transport is one of them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 08 2022, @02:39PM
One thing Amazon could do to drastically improve their greenwashing would be to collect and recycle cardboard boxes. Theirs, others, whatever: clean collapsed cardboard containers collected in bulk on the return trips from delivering stuff in cardboard.
The municipal recycling stream is nowhere near as efficient as a dedicated clean cardboard stream such as grocery stores get paid for when they send their cardboard back to the warehouse->recyclers.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 08 2022, @12:52PM (6 children)
Amazon abuses everything, from their workers, to their marketplace dominance, to their tech services. Things could be worse, of course. Imagine a marriage of Amazon to Bayer (current owners of Monsanto)! Google and Microsoft could be Best Man and Maid of Honor!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 08 2022, @02:41PM (5 children)
It's not abuse, it's minimization of costs. People are impacted? People need to stand up for themselves and refuse to accept the impacts. Amazon isn't a critical utility, nor the only source of income in any given community.
Implicit in this: government and regulators need to support the people, if there's a failure in the US system it is there.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2022, @02:54PM (3 children)
Have you tried not using Amazon? It may not be 'designated' a critical utility but if it were to disappear today, half of what you actually rely on to live, work, operate would cease functioning.
It may not be designated a critical utility, but it _is_ a critical utility nonetheless.
Yes, but that doesn't take away the fact that Amazon is an predatory organization. It predates and consumes every single thing it touches, and not for the better.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Monday August 08 2022, @07:45PM
Sorry, it'd be a lot less than half. And that'd only last until I found other outlets for buying stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2022, @12:43AM
Yes. They shafted my publisher (and me) back when they were just an online bookseller, nasty/unethical/lying dirty trick stuff. I've never bought anything from the sleazebags at Amazon.
We are fine, there are plenty of other sources for things that I can't find locally...and I usually find that eBay, etc. is cheaper than Amazon anyway.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 09 2022, @04:38AM
I have. Ever since they kicked Wikileaks out [reuters.com].
I'm alive and very well, thanks you.
ebay.com.au and aliexpress.com worked beautiful for me and I have no reasons to think I'll need amazon for the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by corey on Monday August 08 2022, @10:52PM
I laughed and agreed with the grandparent post (about Amazon abusing everything), but your response is right on the nail. This is capitalism through and through, it’s the intent and the result.