Avoiding Waste Through Product Donations At our global fulfillment centers, we use software to identify and sort eligible items that are fit for donation. We partner with local community organizations to collect these items from Amazon facilities and distribute them to people in need. By donating surplus inventory to charitable organizations, we keep usable products out of the waste stream and help strengthen our local communities. Many of our product donations are generated through our Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) donations program, which automates the process for Amazon selling partners to donate their overstocked or returned items. The service requires no additional action from selling partners, allowing Amazon to easily scale product donations through our existing logistics. We distribute the majority of our product donations through Good360, a nonprofit that works with a network of 100,000 charity partners in the U.S. Through our partnership with Good360, Amazon product donations are distributed to low- income households, foster families, individuals with special needs or disabilities, seniors, veterans, immigrants, and more. In Europe, we partner directly with more than 100 charities and local organizations to distribute product donations. Since 2019, Amazon has contributed more than 100 million products to our global charity partners in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan. We are continuing to expand our product donations program globally by adding new locations in the Middle East, North Africa, and South America. Redirecting Food Waste As an online food retailer and an operator of physical grocery stores, Amazon is committed to reducing our food waste by 50% across our U.S. and Europe operations by 2030. We became a member of the Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champions through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2020, and extended our commitment to reducing food waste to our Europe operations in 2021. To achieve this, we are optimizing our food inventory management systems to minimize waste from the outset and prioritizing ways to avoid landfills. Wherever possible, we donate surplus food to individuals and families who need it most through community redistribution programs. In 2021, we donated 85 million pounds of food—equivalent to more than 70 million meals—through Feeding America in the U.S. Feeding America is a network of food banks, pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and other community-based agencies that helps Amazon maximize the impact of our food donations. In Europe, we donated more than 4,000 tons of food—equivalent to 10 million meals—in 2021. All of our UK grocery stores have a donation partner in place that helps deliver surplus food to charities around London. Similarly, all of our U.S. grocery stores have a donation partner. For food that can’t be donated, we turn to processes that avoid landfills, such as composting and anaerobic digestion. In 2021, we diverted 27,000 tons of food through composting and anaerobic digestion across our worldwide operations. All Amazon Fresh stores operating in the U.S. have composting programs for food that cannot be donated, and we are expanding our on-site composting capabilities across our facilities. At our Whole Foods Market stores, we have active composting programs at nearly 470 locations and collectively diverted more than 155,000 tons of food waste by the end of 2021. Another 2,775 tons of food waste were sent to anaerobic digestion facilities through an organic waste recycling system called Grind2Energy. The Grind2Energy system has helped to divert 12,500 tons of food waste at Whole Foods Market stores since 2014. As a result, we have prevented nearly 9,000 metric tons of CO 2 e from entering the atmosphere and produced enough clean, renewable energy to power over 2,500 U.S. homes for a month. Recycling Solutions Across Our Operations Corrugated board is the most common material that flows through our fulfillment center operations, and we work with third-party recycling haulers to remove excess corrugate from our facilities for off-site recycling. Many of these haulers also supply Amazon with the packaging materials that we use for customer shipments, converting waste material recovered from Amazon operations into new, recycled packaging. Not all the materials we use can be easily recycled with current systems, so we look for innovative solutions to recycle these challenging materials. One example is plastic film, which is not commonly accepted through municipal recycling programs. We have on-site plastic film recycling systems at many Amazon operations facilities across North America and Europe, enabling us to convert plastic film into bags made of 100% recycled material. We continue to explore alternative solutions for other materials that are challenging to recycle. In 2021, we completed a pilot to recycle and repair damaged bags used to sort and stow items in our fulfillment operations into reusable materials. Additionally, we work with our shipping label suppliers in several European locations to recycle the silicone backing paper from shipping labels to make new ones. CityServe CityServe, based in California, is one example of a Good360 Community Redistribution Partner; it works with a network of local churches to deliver necessities to thousands of individuals and families. In 2021, our donations enabled CityServe to provide personal care supplies to more than 20,000 people. CityServe staff and volunteers assembled “blessing bags” full of items donated by Amazon, including toothpaste, toothbrushes, hand towels, and disposable masks. The bags were distributed to individuals and families without housing. 2021 Sustainability Report Introduction I Environment I Society I Governance I Appendix 27
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