Amazon, an online retailer and cloud computing provider, has become the first company to not comply with global carbon offsetting standards, which are developed by a non-profit organization fully funded by Amazon's founder and executive chairman, Jeff Bezos.

Amazon is funding the development of a new standard aimed at helping the company overcome the shortage offset by quality labeling and achieve zero net emissions by 2040. Critics are concerned that this change will trigger market uncertainty and weaken the standards for carbon offsetting.

Companies that reduce emission pressures can purchase credit points from developers of carbon absorbing projects, such as forest regeneration. Due to the scarcity of projects that can prove their climate benefits, the offsetting market has always been small.

Amazon stated that it has completed work on a framework called Abacus to evaluate the quality of carbon offsetting in forest regeneration and agroforestry. Amazon collaborated with carbon emissions registration agency Verra to create this standard as an alternative to the standards developed by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM).

ICVCM is the world's largest alliance of corporate departments and environmental organizations dedicated to certified carbon offsetting. In 2022, Verra announced that it will collaborate with Amazon and its Abacus working group to produce the brand.

Bezos is one of the largest funders of ICVCM. Since its establishment in 2021, he has invested at least $11 million in ICVCM and its sisters organization, the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative.

Jamey Mulligan, Amazon's head of carbon neutrality, stated in an interview that the company evaluates and supports ICVCM's work, but hopes for a more ambitious standard. He added, "We want to ensure that each credit investment has a true, conservative calculation, and verification impact on emissions." He declined to disclose whether Bezos was involved in Amazon's decision.

Alphabet、Meta、 Microsoft and Salesforce have announced plans to acquire up to 20 million metric tons of Abacus certified credit.

Pedro Martins Barata, co chair of the ICVCM expert group, expressed concerns about establishing competition standards and hopes that Abacus can eventually integrate into ICVCM. He said, "Otherwise, the market will fall into complex situations, and each business organization will find its own standards to support and declare specific forms of quality."

Barata pointed out that ICVCM is researching Verra's technology for creating carbon offsetting from agricultural, forestry, and forest regeneration projects, and if approved, the Abacus label may be compatible with ICVCM labels.

Kelley Kizzier, Corporate Action and Marketing Director and ICVCM Board Member at Bezos Earth Fund, believes that Abacus is a supplement to ICVCM rather than a competitor. But she refused to discuss Bezos's position.

"We need to focus on developing high credibility offsets," she pointed out. "There are many other actors who can do this."