As soon as I read what we had to do for this week’s assignment, the first company that came to mind was Amazon. Any time I need to buy anything, from clothes, to beauty products, furniture etc., I always find myself immediately opening the amazon app on my phone.

Amazon’s one of the biggest and fastest growing companies in the world, but with this also comes a lot of controversy. The company’s policies regarding environmental sustainability, supply chain transparency and employee rights amongst other things have always been a topic of discussion. For today’s assignment I would like to focus on their steps toward sustainability and employee relations.

Amazon is known for their easy and accessible service as well as their fast shipping. But faster shipping means a more stressful work environment and a much larger carbon footprint. To try and fix this, they have implemented new initiatives like entering The Climate Pledge which urges companies to achieve a net-zero carbon emission by 2040. They also hired over 200 scientists and product designers to help reduce their carbon imprint As well as contributing $100 million to other initiatives to mitigate climate change. However, in the last few years the company’ s total carbon footprint has greatly increased. This increase in not compatible with their goals of being zero carbon by 2040. It gives the impression of them doing as little as possible and trying to buy time focusing on promises for 2040 when they could have already been a leader in sustainable delivery give all the years they’ve been operating

Now, although the company’s Employee Hiring and training programs actively seek out candidates in ethnically diverse population, as well as providing reimbursement for up to 95% of tuition and fees for employees seeking to expand their skills, the way they treat their warehouse employees and drivers is questionable. its pretty well known by now how horrible the working conditions are, from working long shifts, being in your feet all day with a scanner that tracks everything you do (and don’t do), not being able to take breaks between tasks, timing all your tasks etc. meanwhile only being paid minimum wage. the physical and mental strain is unbearable. There’s no point in trying to be a diverse company when your employees are being subject to such cruel mistreatment.

Having looked at all this information, I feel like in order to become a more socially responsible and sustainable business, the company must focus on reducing their carbon footprint as soon as possible, instead of just making empty promises for a decade from now. the time to act is now, not later. they should treat their employees like humans, not robots, allow them to become unionized, and pay them a livable wage.