Carbon offsets are a greenwashing scheme, new research shows, despite Amazon’s bullying campaign

SEATTLE (Traditional Puget Sound Salish and Duwamish Lands) — New research released today by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) reveals that carbon offsets are an ineffective tool for reducing emissions. The release follows an aggressive lobbying campaign by Amazon aimed at pressuring the international standard-setting body to lower its strict standards, and allow the use of carbon offsets as a pathway to meet supply-chain climate targets.

The Bezos Earth Fund – directed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and one of SBTi’s largest funders since its inception in 2015 – held meetings earlier this year in London, where lobbying groups reportedly strong-armed representatives from SBTi with “a barrage of implicit and direct requests to relax their position on carbon offsets.” Amazon was dropped from the UN-backed SBTi late last year for failing to set an adequate target to meet SBTi’s net-zero criteria.

The latest report from SBTi follows a surprise announcement in April – later backtracked – by the standards-setting body that it would move to allow corporations to use ineffective carbon offsets (i.e., Environmental Attribute Certificates, or EACs) to meet their supply chain net-zero targets. The summary of evidence released today confirms that “high-value” submissions from climate and energy experts show that offsets should not be permitted, revealing that they are “ineffective in delivering their intended mitigation outcomes.”

Despite claims by the company that its operations are now powered by 100% renewable energy,¹ Amazon’s environmental strategy already makes heavy use of another widely discredited type of EAC used to offset electricity consumption: unbundled RECs². These RECs — which Amazon data centers rely on for 52% of their energy usage, according to a recent Stand.earth report — allow companies to buy a claim to renewable energy associated with renewable electricity produced on a different grid, even from a previous year, typically at a fraction of the cost of the electricity itself, while continuing to increase demand for fossil fuel-based electricity where their facility is located. Earlier studies have shown that the purchase of unbundled RECs rarely results in the addition of renewable energy to the grid, and in fact the practice is significantly undermining the credibility of voluntary corporate targets under the SBTi.

“Rather than following the approach used by companies like Apple to transition its supply chain to renewable energy at scale, Amazon obscures the real climate impact of its manufacturing and supply chains with unbundled RECs, and decided that literally getting physical with SBTi staff to change their standards was a more effective strategy. The release of today’s report confirms that SBTi must stay the course and make sure that actual ‘science’ is not stripped out of the Science Based Target by corporate lobbying when it releases its draft Corporate Net-Zero Standard at the end of this year,” said Rachel Kitchin, Senior Corporate Climate Campaigner at Stand.earth.

SBTi’s latest release follows a period of controversy sparked by the SBTi Board of Trustees’ decision earlier this year to include environmental attribute certificates, including RECs, in corporate climate targets to address Scope 3 emissions — emissions that result from activities from assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organization³. This move prompted significant opposition from SBTi staff,⁴ advisory group members, NGOs,⁵ academics, and business leaders, while Amazon continues its aggressive push to adopt new standards⁶.

Amazon’s approach to shaping the global climate agenda resembles tactics the company has used in other parts of its operations. In transportation, the company has gestured toward progress with electric vehicle adoption targets that are not likely to result in real emissions reductions by 2030. Also, since 2019, the company has more than doubled air freight emissions from its Amazon Air subsidiary, while failing to offer real solutions to the aviation sector’s carbon impact.

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Media contact: 

Shane Reese, Corporate Campaigns Media Director, shane.reese@stand.earth, +1 919 339 3785 (Eastern Time)

Footnotes:

1. The term “100% renewable energy” often means allowing the purchase of RECs in exchange for “business-as-usual,” pollution-emitting operations — while “24/7 renewable energy,” means true, around-the-clock renewable energy use.
2. A REC is a claim to a certain quantity of renewable energy production. In markets where a REC tracking system exists, when a power company generates one megawatt-hour (1 MWh) of electricity from renewable sources, it has two products to sell: the electricity itself, and the REC. These can be sold together (bundled) or can be transferred or sold separately from power produced (unbundled).

3. Statement from the SBTi Board of Trustees on the use of Environmental Attribute Certificates (EACs), including carbon markets, against scope 3 emission reduction targets: https://sciencebasedtargets.org/news/statement-from-the-sbti-board-of-trustees-on-use-of-environmental-attribute-certificates-including-but-not-limited-to-voluntary-carbon-markets-for-abatement-purposes-limited-to-scope-3

4. SBTi staff response to SBTi Board of Trustees’ statement on the use of Environmental Attribute Certificates (EACs), including carbon markets, against scope 3 emission reduction targets: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/gvjkqr4k4cdtt57qit9s6/SBTi-Staff-Response-to-the-Board-of-Trustees-April-9-Statement.pdf?rlkey=o38yubknqezjqzim44wjtk5fb&e=4&dl=0

5. Joint statement issued by 80 NGOs, calling for scientific and credible rules on carbon accounting and corporate climate target setting, and for the exclusion of offsetting from voluntary and regulatory frameworks on climate transition planning: https://beyondfossilfuels.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Joint-CSO-Statement-Offsetting.pdf

6. Amazon is spearheading an initiative which could weaken accounting standards by allowing companies to offset their real-time fossil fuel reliance. The Emissions First Partnership, set up by Amazon, seeks to make it easier for companies to buy cheap credits rather than take steps to ensure their actual real-time supply of electricity is from renewable energy: https://www.emissionsfirst.com/