“Alexa, grow a tree!” That is what US residents with an Alexa sensible speaker will now give you the option to ask of their voice assistant. They will then give you the option to monitor the variety of timber planted in actual time from their Amazon Pay account. But what impression can this new characteristic actually have?
Of all the environmentally pleasant actions that can be carried out in a few clicks from the consolation of your sofa, planting timber is with out a doubt one in every of the most widespread. Each search question entered into the German search engine Ecosia or the French browser extension Refoorest, for instance, guarantees that a tree will likely be planted.
It’s a easy trick that appeals to Internet customers and that has evidently not escaped the consideration of multinationals like Amazon, which has simply introduced a new initiative via its voice assistant, Alexa. People who want to accomplish that will likely be in a position to donate a greenback (taken straight from their Amazon Pay account) to plant a tree by saying the magic phrase – “Alexa, grow a tree!” – in a loud and clear voice.
To launch this initiative, Amazon has partnered with the NGO One Tree Planted, to which the agency says it’s donating US$1mil (RM4.21mil). The cash is anticipated to fund 4 completely different initiatives in the United States and India, and goals (amongst different issues) to reforest land that has been razed for mining, logging and agriculture. The aim is to plant a million timber between April and December 2022.
Genuine dedication or greenwashing?
It’s a nice challenge on paper, however one which’s not with out questions, particularly when a GAFAM massive tech agency is behind it.
“Amazon destroys products returned by customers when it is cheaper to do so. Therefore, selling sustainable products while persisting with these practices poses a problem.
“You can do what you want in parallel, but as long as you’re destroying new (products), the impact of that action will be reduced,” commented Frederic Bordage, founding father of the GreenIT collective, interviewed by ETX Daily Up in November 2020 following the announcement of Amazon’s “Climate Pledge Friendly” programme.
Note that the American platform ships between 4 and 5 billion packages per 12 months worldwide.
However, planting timber to restore areas devastated by deforestation (itself brought on by human exercise) will not be at all times sufficient, as scientific analysis has proven. Several NGOs additionally warn towards the seductive however deceptive promise of “carbon offsetting” as a means to obtain carbon neutrality (a aim brandished by Amazon and different massive tech companies), in different phrases respecting the stability between emissions and carbon storage, thanks to the planting of timber.
Some NGOs are extra sceptical about the intentions of multinationals that embark on this kind of challenge. Greenpeace went so far as to name out carbon offsets as a “scam” in 2021, describing the system as “a bookkeeping trick intended to obscure climate wrecking-emissions. It’s tree planting window dressing aimed at distracting from ecosystem destruction.” – AFP Relaxnews
