Shady Routes: How Big Retail and Their Carriers Pollute Along Key Ocean Shipping Corridors

New research by Ship It Zero coalition members Stand.earth and Pacific Environment takes an in-depth look at four major retail companies that import goods into the United States — Walmart, Target, Amazon, and IKEA — and maps their often-hidden relationships with the fossil-fueled cargo carriers they hire to transport their goods. The groundbreaking analysis, titled “Shady Routes: How Big Retail and their Carriers Pollute along Key Ocean Shipping Corridors”, was released on Cyber Monday, in a year that promises to mark a shift to e-commerce shopping unlike anything the world has ever seen.

Amid an ongoing global shipping crisis spurred by increased consumer demand fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, retail brands and cargo carriers have reported record-breaking profits. These new findings reveal close relationships between major retailers and the cargo carriers transporting consumer goods, and how that partnership showcases possibilities for both sectors to address the growing demand for zero-emissions cargo shipping. The report shows the routes favoured by the four companies, the emissions impacts of those routes, and how the ongoing cargo shipping backlog has saddled U.S. port communities with increasing rates of pollution.