Disclaimer: I work at Amazon, views are my own.

Delivery trucks: 100,000 trucks at $70k each = $7 billion investment over 5 years. [1]

Datacenters: 80% renewable energy by 2024, 100% by 2030 [2]

For boxes, I'd agree that there's a lot of room for improvement in reduction in cardboard use and packaging reuse.

Everyone should come to their own conclusions about whether companies are doing enough in each area. For delivery trucks in particular I'd call the investments happening there much more than "spare change".

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/19/20873947/amazon-electric-... [2] https://blog.aboutamazon.com/sustainability/reducing-carbon-...

But you’ve gotta admit they’re like 10 times better than the alternative.

I mean, their whole operation is optimized up the wazoo. Imagine the time saved, the carbon emissions saved when folks don’t have to drive to and back to get their stuff.

I’m kind of hooked on this grocery delivery stuff too now, so much time and headache and gas saved.

> But you’ve gotta admit they’re like 10 times better than the alternative.

Not if the alternative is bikeable and walkable cities with decent public transport, though.

Dear Jeff Bezos:

Amazon is great and all, but instead can you rebuild all of America to be denser walkable cities, with a great public rail system?

Signed, Hacker News

Oh come on, I suggested nothing of the sort and you know it. You're not assuming good faith.

My remark is only that if delivery is better for the environment than going shopping, then that is a sign of a badly planned city (in terms of climate impact). Well-optimized delivery will address a symptom but not the cause. The cause is cities built for cars.

OK. Let's say a magic wand is waved, and all of us Americans have bikeable and walkable cities with excellent public transportation. Let's say this happens literally overnight.

How do you expect this would change Amazon's logistics and how favorable they are for consumers? For my part, at the very least, I'm still likely to get a lot of things delivered. Local stores are very rarely cheaper for anything non-immediate and delivery takes much less of my time than going to a store and back.

At a guess, Amazon's still better than this alternative for many scenarios. Maybe not ten times better, but still better.

Last-mile logistics in bikeable and walkable cities would be accomplished with zero-emission vehicles like electric cargo bicycles. They're already being used in cities that support them.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andriacheng/2019/12/04/amid-rec...

Perhaps, we should wave this magic wand to make you order less stuff? No tech can save us unless we start to consume less. Also, we should care less about optimising our time which we are likely to waste anyway on netflix and co.

I'm a very strange person in many ways. I personally prefer to be able to make my own choices about how I waste away my free time - Netflix, books, biking, walks, prayer, meditation, yoga, etc. Trading that in for spending more time to get my groceries (or toiletries, or dry goods, or similar) does not sound like an attractive choice to me.

I understand that this is an unusual personality trait. Still, I'm reluctant to give it up.

I don't think this is about "attractive choices". Either our lifestyles (and those who will live after us) are sustainable or not. If they are not, we should consider changing our behaviour.

> Please stop buying stuff. It's bad for the environment. But also keep working - we need you paying your taxes!

If I'm morally not allowed to buy stuff because its bad for the environment, then what incentive do I have to earn more than 40k/year? Do I exist just to pay taxes to the government to fund "more moral" causes than my own consumption?

Is this a genuine question? There is no obligation to make more than 40k. Instead of making more money you could just work less and do what you like/love (as long as it's not bad for environment).

A universal carbon emissions tax would be an effective magic wand to make people order less stuff.

I assume you mean tax paid with money? That's not a solution. Most, if not all the ways that people make money require emitting more carbon and producing more waste. Such tax would lead to fatal feedback loop.

I'd love to see something like a personal carbon quota, same for every person on a planet.

I think they meant reasonable alternative.

American cities are not (for the most part) bikeable and certainly not walkable. Literally everything is designed to be driven to in a car.

The decent public transport would help, but since it's been made a political issue it's not exactly as easy as just working within the constraints of the system.

Unless you're getting all of your Amazon stuff in a single box in the weekly option, it's not really better. Driving 3 miles once a week to get everything from a store is better than 7 boxes a week + delivery increased truck load.

Don't forget that that delivery truck isn't just delivering boxes for you.

There is an option on Amazon to deliver on a single day of the week.

It just sounds like a PR stunt. They already have data centers which are under scrutiny for energy use and reducing packaging helps their bottom line as well. That's why I say it's 'spare change' for them.

There's an induced demand factor too, though. People are buying more stuff now because it's easy to get.

Hacker news is a total unnecessary luxury. By using it, you are contributing to the problem. This website consumes resources and energy to run and view.

It's actually a very efficient website ;)

Sure! but even if it's environmental costs are close to 0, it is not 0 and you are using it without an actual need. as GP said, it's luxury

> Amazon is throwing spare change at a massing problem they're involved in.

Yes, the point is that they're investing in efforts to help deal with some of their own externalities. We shouldn't be shaming a company for having the self-awareness to do this to the tune of billions of dollars.

It's not fair to criticize the amount, either, because $2 billion goes a long way to getting technology companies off the ground. Throwing more money at the problem doesn't produce better outcomes at this stage of the R&D pipeline. $2 billion is a lot of money.

The good news is corrugated cardboard is one of the most recyclable materials, with a high market value for recycled cardboard. It's probably not the biggest problem right now.

I agree with you. It's worth noting 0 emissions is impossible so things carbon offsets exist to counter that when you cant get to 0.

Another way to look at it might be that investing in those companies by yield solutions to them that address what you mentioned above.

That's my hope at least.

Amazon has actually done a great job in making manufacturers reduce plastic/clamshell packaging for their products, so the cardboard boxes are definitely a net improvement.

Agreed. This isn't an investment is climate tech. It's an investment in Amazon's future, which is dependant on the current - consumption focused - status quo.

I've sometimes wondered if rather than recycling paper and cardboard we could sequester it, trapping the carbon.

No good deed goes unpunished.