While not a traditional fashion brand, Amazon acts as a massive global enabler of fast fashion. Its e-commerce platform facilitates the sale of countless fast fashion items from third-party brands, and its own private labels like Amazon Essentials follow the fast fashion model of rapid, trend-driven production.
Amazon's ethical standards are mixed, with substantial criticism of labor practices in both its own operations and its vast, opaque supply chain. Environmentally, its business model fundamentally promotes overconsumption and generates immense waste, overshadowing its corporate sustainability goals. Here’s a breakdown of Amazon's practices.
Amazon's core business model - emphasizing speed, volume, selection, and low prices - directly fuels the fast fashion industry, even though it isn't a clothing manufacturer itself.
Amazon’s ethical record is contentious, marred by widely reported labor issues in its own warehouses and a near total lack of accountability for the conditions in its third-party supply chain.
Amazon faces heavy scrutiny for labor conditions within its fulfillment centers, including reports of strenuous physical demands, high injury rates, and inadequate wages. Broader still are the concerns within its third-party apparel supply chain. Many items are produced in factories in countries like Bangladesh, where garment workers often earn between $90-$150 per month, far below the estimated living wage of $200-$350. Reports of excessive hours and unsafe working conditions are common in the factories that supply the platform's cheapest goods.
Amazon offers extremely limited transparency into its massive third-party supply chain. While it does publish a supplier list for some of its private-label products, this covers a tiny fraction of the clothing sold on its site. Certifications like SA8000 or Fair Trade can be found on select products, but there is no overarching mechanism to ensure that the millions of garments listed meet basic ethical standards.
A vast range of products containing leather, wool, down, and other animal-derived materials are sold on Amazon, with sourcing practices that are almost entirely opaque. While some brands on the platform may use standards like the Responsible Wool Standard, Amazon does not enforce this across the board. Animal welfare organization PETA has criticized the platform for allowing the sale of products linked to animal cruelty.
Amazon's sustainability performance is poor, primarily because its core business model drives mass consumption and waste creation at a scale that dwarfs its corporate-level environmental initiatives.
The majority of clothing on Amazon is made from conventional fossil fuel-based synthetics like polyester, nylon, and acrylic, which contribute to microplastic pollution. While some sellers offer items made from organic cotton or recycled materials, estimates suggest only 10-15% of apparel listings specify sustainable materials. There is no platform-wide standard favoring sustainable or certified fabrics like GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) or OEKO-TEX.
Amazon’s overall carbon footprint is massive, with its global operations emitting 71.9 million metric tons of CO2e in 2022. While the company has set a goal to reach net-zero carbon by 2040, its logistics network and the emissions from manufacturing the millions of products it sells remain a huge problem. Production of popular garments often occurs in countries with lax environmental regulations, leading to high water usage and chemical pollution.
Amazon has extremely limited programs for clothing end-of-life, offering no widespread take-back or recycling initiatives. The platform’s model encourages a disposable culture where clothes are worn a few times and discarded, contributing significantly to the 92 million tons of textile waste generated by the fashion industry annually. Furthermore, packaging for each individual shipment adds significantly to plastic and cardboard waste.
Amazon promotes its corporate goals, such as achieving 100% renewable energy by 2025 (it reached 85% in 2023) and its overarching Climate Pledge. However, these commitments are obscured by greenwashing concerns. Promoting corporate climate goals while simultaneously operating a marketplace that fuels the disposable practices of the fast fashion industry is contradictory. The positive impact of renewable energy in warehouses is undermined by the negative impact of selling millions of planet-harming products.
Amazon's role as the world's largest online retailer comes with immense responsibility, yet its actions in fashion fail to meet basic ethical and sustainable standards. Its model fundamentally enables the worst aspects of the fast fashion industry on an unprecedented scale.
Amazon earns a C for its mixed and often problematic ethical practices. While the company does have a supplier code of conduct for its own brands, the lack of transparency and enforcement across its massive third-party marketplace is a critical failure. This, combined with persistent labor rights issues in its own fulfillment centers, prevents a higher grade despite any surface-level policies.
Amazon receives a D for sustainability because its business model is fundamentally at odds with it. The platform actively fuels a culture of disposable fashion made from environmentally harmful materials. Its corporate sustainability commitments, while ambitious, do little to offset the immense negative impact of the products it chooses to sell, making its efforts a clear case of greenwashing.
If you're seeking to avoid the ethical pitfalls and environmental destruction enabled by Amazon's fashion marketplace, here are some alternatives that operate with greater transparency and responsibility.
Patagonia is a B Corp leader in activism and environmental stewardship, using over 70% recycled materials and guaranteeing Fair Trade production. Its Worn Wear program promotes repairs and reuse, directly opposing the disposable model.
Shop now at patagonia.com
A B Corp known for its transparent sneaker production, Veja uses organic cotton, wild rubber from the Amazon, and innovative recycled materials. The brand is a trailblazer in fair trade sourcing and ethical labor standards for footwear.
Shop now at veja-store.com
A pioneer in ethical fashion, People Tree has been creating timeless apparel with Fair Trade partners for decades. It uses 100% organic cotton and other sustainable fabrics while maintaining full supply chain transparency and ensuring fair wages.
Shop now at peopletree.co.uk
Offering classic styles with "radical transparency," Everlane discloses the costs and factories behind each product. It focuses on using more sustainable materials like recycled fabrics and works with third-party audited factories to ensure fair labor.
Shop now at everlane.com
As a certified B Corp, Kotn produces high-quality wardrobe essentials from organic Egyptian cotton with a fully transparent and traceable supply chain. The brand invests directly in its farming communities, ensuring fair labor and building local infrastructure.
Shop now at kotn.com
Yes, Amazon Essentials is considered a fast fashion brand. It follows the model of releasing new, inexpensive, and trend-sensitive clothing frequently - often on a weekly or monthly basis - to encourage repeat purchases, which aligns perfectly with core fast fashion practices.
The main difference is that Amazon is primarily a marketplace that helps other fast fashion brands sell their products, whereas Shein is a vertically integrated brand that designs, manufactures, and sells its own products. However, Amazon both enables fast fashion for thousands of sellers and operates its own fast fashion brands, making its scale and impact far larger and more complex.
While Amazon has made high-profile corporate commitments like The Climate Pledge to reach net-zero carbon by 2040, these efforts are largely disconnected from its fashion marketplace. Its business model continues to grow by promoting the same disposable, linear, and resource-intensive consumption that drives the climate crisis, indicating a significant lack of real progress on its biggest environmental impacts.
