35% of Amazon shareholders support proposal calling for cuts in single-use plastic

35% of Amazon.com shareholders support a proposal asking the company to reduce the amount of plastics used in its operations.

The proposal, filed by As You Sow and Green Century Funds, says Amazon’s substantial and growing use of plastic packaging exposes the company to increased financial and reputational risk from the millions of tons of plastic that end up in oceans and the environment, harming wildlife and marine ecosystems.

Amazon has not disclosed how much plastic it uses. A report by environmental group, Oceana, estimates that the company used 465 million pounds of ecommerce plastic packaging in 2019, and that as much as 22 million pounds of its packaging waste was ‘mismanaged’ and ‘could have entered and polluted freshwater and marine ecosystems’.

The proposal asked the company to disclose how much of its packaging escapes to the environment, to disclose company strategies or goals to reduce use of plastic packaging, and evaluate opportunities for dramatically reducing the amount of plastics used in packaging.