As of 6 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, more than 4,500 employees had signed on.
Screenshot of a tweet by the group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, updating the number the employees who have signed the petition.
Amazon software engineer and letter co-signer Rajit Iftikhar confirmed to CNN that the letter followed two meetings between concerned employees and Amazon leadership about the company's climate plans that did not yield clear results.The letter also grew out of the work 28 former and current employees who filed a shareholder resolution in December of 2018, the group's press release said. The company had told them it would soon print a statement of opposition to that resolution.
The movement of Amazon workers is remarkable in two respects, The New York Times noted. For one, it is rare for tech workers to give their names when agitating for change. Secondly, it represents the growth of an emerging tactic for employees to use a shareholder resolution to influence their employers. Historically, this tactic has been used by outside groups, but it is increasingly being used by tech employees who are given stock options as part of their benefits packages. Amazon has more than 65,000 corporate and tech employees in the U.S., but more people have signed the letter so far than are employed at any one Amazon location other than Seattle or the Bay Area.
The letter also called out specific Amazon policies and actions, such as donations made to climate-denying lawmakers and an AWS for Oil and Gas initiative that helps oil and gas companies expand and speed extraction.
The letter also wrote that the company's current sustainability pledge, Shipment Zero, did not go far enough. That commitment would make packages emit net zero carbon emissions and shipping emit 50 percent net zero carbon by 2030, but the letter writers said that relying on carbon offsets could displace indigenous communities in poorly thought out forest-preservation schemes and would do nothing to reduce air pollution.
In a response to the letter, Amazon told CNN it had 200 scientists, engineers and product designers working on sustainability.