Some positive news on emissions reporting: a more edifying counter-example
In this third instalment of a series examining the flaws in emissions reporting, Elizabeth Carey, an independent adviser to the LGPS, highlights an unexpected positive example of corporate emissions disclosure
Progress is being made on transparency and emissions reduction in the real world. Beyond the energy industry, increasing numbers of global companies take seriously global warming and the need to achieve net zero in their own business models. For many, it’s simply prudent risk management; a way to create a competitive edge through lowering operating costs; strategic adaptation to anticipated future regulations; and/or a strategy to attract environment-conscious younger consumers and workers.
One enlightening example is Amazon, the global company employing more than 1.5 million people (full & part-time) and sometime poster-child for zero hours contracts, overworked delivery drivers and recently the uber-lavish Venice wedding of its founder, Jeff Bezos.
Contrasting with its image in the press or on social media, Amazon exhibits credible commitment to tacking some of the world’s most urgent environmental and societal challenges. In 2019, Amazon co-founded and committed to The Climate Pledge. It has announced a corporate goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund invests globally in companies that support its emissions reduction and broader sustainability goals. Finally, Amazon undertakes impressive sustainability reporting[1]. Its annual reports to investors repeatedly identify climate change as a material risk to its operations. Amazon’s annual Sustainability Reports detail the measures the company is taking to transform nearly every aspect of its operations and value chain.
Amazon’s business model ranges from the online retail website that musters products quickly to the front door of billions of customers worldwide; to aggregator of own-branded and 3rd party goods for sale; to on-line and in-store food retailer; to online content generator and distributor (Amazon Prime); and finally, to the AWS hyperscaler and data centre operator, and prospectively AI-based goods and services provider. Measuring Amazon’s Scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions is a complex real-world undertaking that mirrors much of contemporary life. Amazon’s 2024 Sustainability report[2], published in July 2025, offers a highly readable deep dive into what meaningful TCFD reporting looks like. Amazon describes a myriad of initiatives undertaken to de-couple business growth from GHG emissions.
Amazon acknowledges that further progress towards its stated goals in carbon reduction, waste and circularity and water use is needed. More focus on the circular economy and end-of-life disposal or recycling of products sold would be welcome extensions.
Amazon has developed a Sustainability Exchange focusing on seven key focus areas: Buildings, Carbon Neutralization, Carbon-Free Energy, Human Rights, Transportation, Waste and Circularity, and Water Stewardship. Amazon hopes that the Sustainability Exchange will become another widely used platform that is adopted by industry peers.
Given the unparalleled scope and global reach of its businesses, Amazon’s focus on achieving tangible improvements across its operations and those of third-party suppliers is a very positive example. Amazon demonstrates how taking net zero seriously can enhance a company’s competitive position and longer-term profitability, while also reducing real world emissions and building sustainability into the whole value chain.
Amazon issued its 2024 Sustainability report in July 2025. Nearly as striking as Amazon’s sustainability document is the near total absence of any reference to it on the main Amazon.com corporate investor relations website where the earnings releases, annual reports, proxy statements and other mandatory disclosure is found. In fact, Amazon’s sustainability reports are not accessed or even referenced through the Amazon investor relations website. It is found instead on a separate site (About Amazon) and searching under “Impact”, then “Sustainability”: Sustainability at Amazon While there may be legal or SEC-driven reasons for this separation of websites, this more distant placement creates an impression that Amazon might be trying not to draw too much attention to its commitment to sustainability, ESG, social and diversity goals. The current political climate in Washington, DC makes that understandable. Nonetheless, it marks yet another contrast with Total and Shell whose corporate websites highlight their curated headline numbers about the energy transition, while links to glossy, misleading reports on Energy Transition or Sustainability are easily accessible on the main corporate IR website.
Contrasting Approaches
The example of Amazon, together with Shell and TotalEnergies discussed in the two preceding articles, are intended to illustrate the wide variety of ways that TCFD reporting, net zero goals and “decarbonisation pathways” are being interpreted, presented and sometimes misrepresented by a handful of global companies. In this non-statistical sample, the negative examples of Shell and Total should cause us to question many of the assumptions that underlie third-party sustainability ratings widely used by investors or investment managers to align their portfolios to so-called decarbonisation pathways. For example, it defies common sense that MSCI deems Total to be “in line with the Paris agreement’s minimal goal of limiting global mean temperature to below 2°C”, or rates Shell as AA. Meanwhile, Climate Action 100+ supposedly has recognised Total’s leadership in the energy transition, placing the company far ahead of the Net Zero Standard for Oil & Gas.
Amazon’s positive counter-example demonstrates that, over time, commitment to a robust and transparent re-engineering of a global business model can credibly align with the spirit and letter of the Paris agreement. Beyond implementing strategies for reducing emissions (Scopes 1, 2 and 3), Amazon also measures, monitors and reports on the broader environmental, community, human rights and supplier diversity impacts of its activities in impressively granular terms. It would be reassuring to discover that Amazon is not alone in its sustainability endeavours, and that a growing list of companies large and small are adopting similar practices from an emissions plus broader impact standpoint. Setting the bar high in emissions reduction plus other sustainability-related goals are areas where market dominance could become a force for good if it helped to embed better industry standards throughout the global supply chain.
Conclusion
The investigations that have led to this series of articles about Shell, Total and Amazon remind us yet again that asset owners, investment managers and advisors cannot always rely on company claims and presentations. Numbers or statements—or in some cases, lack thereof—cannot be taken at face value. Instead, we need to exercise healthy scepticism towards claims about decarbonisation, sustainable practices and external ESG ratings. Following the example of the charities taking TotalEnergies to court in Paris, where we find issuers engaged in questionable or misleading practices, we need to call these out loudly.
As 2030 and 2050 loom, robust, independent assessments are needed to distinguish between issuers that are walking the walk versus those employing accounting wheezes or providing misleading accounts of progress towards net zero while simply gaming Scope 1 & 2 metrics. Otherwise, TCFD reporting risks becoming a time-consuming exercise of limited value if it does not reflect real-world facts on the ground….or in the air.
[2] 2024 Amazon Sustainability Report
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