Amazon Prime Day is a ‘festival of consumption’— and it’s terrible for the environment

Even with the steps Amazon is taking toward sustainability, the scale of Prime Day has a huge environmental impact.

Amazon has undoubtedly changed the way people shop. And each year, Amazon Prime Day—its now-landmark summer sales event—gets bigger and bigger. In 2023, the first day of Prime Day (which spans two days) was the single largest sales day in the company’s history. Across both days last year, customers purchased a total of 375 million items.