Amazon is taking advantage of Europe’s maritime condition to expand its use of maritime transport through the Amazon Sea. Thousands of trucks have already left the asphalt and are navigating the motorways of the sea: this is how our deliveries between Spain and Italy are. Almost half of the merchandise movements that we make between our logistics centers in Italy and Spain are made by sea, significantly reducing our CO₂ footprint. By 2022, Amazon has transported thousands of loads in Europe using the sea, avoiding thousands of tons of CO₂ emissions”,

Amazon operates multiple maritime routes to move inventory between its logistics centers in Italy and Spain, and thanks to the fact that thousands of trucks will travel by ship between both countries in 2022, thousands of tons of CO₂ emissions are being avoided.

According to Helder Velho, Vice President of Surface Transportation for Amazon in Europe, “maritime routes, or highways of the sea, provide a more efficient and sustainable mode of transportation and, in some cases, faster than other alternatives”.

Alliances with partners

Amazon is always looking for alternative forms of transportation for both deliveries and moving items between its fulfillment centers. In southern Europe, Amazon started with two maritime lines to be able to reach customers in Sardinia and Sicily in 2019. Since then, Amazon has launched a multitude of maritime connections between Italy and Spain and today there are already more than 170 maritime connections or “motorways”. of the sea” throughout Europe.

This initiative is an integral part of Amazon’s goal of decarbonizing its operations and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2040, ten years before the Paris Agreement, and for this it has partners such as European shipping companies such as the Grimaldi Group that are at the forefront of sustainable maritime transport with their state-of-the-art hybrid ships.

According to Francesco Satariano, Executive Key Account Manager of Maritime Lines of the Grimaldi Group “The strategic priority for the Grimaldi Group is to operate with sustainability in mind. In recent years, the Grimaldi Group has commissioned the construction of new ships that are more respectful of the environment and most of our fleet has been modernized to reduce the environmental impact,” he says. “We were pioneers in the sector by installing technology on our ships that allows us to turn off the engines when approaching ports, achieving zero emissions in port. We were also one of the first to order and receive ships prepared for the use of ammonia. We believe in this alliance with long-term partnership with Amazon as we share a mutual commitment to reduce our environmental impact while delivering more value to customers.”

Support for local SMEs

Approximately 60% of the merchandise that Amazon has in its logistics network belongs to independent sellers. They are small and medium-sized companies that sell through Amazon in order to reach new customers outside their home countries. In this way Amazon benefits, on the one hand, its customers by providing a wider selection of products. On the other hand, sellers on Amazon achieve greater geographic reach with their products, facilitating their entry into markets in other countries in Europe. And everything, with a more sustainable transport method thanks to the fact that the trucks will travel by boat, reducing their emissions.

Fulfillment by Amazon – To ensure that Amazon’s European customers benefit from a large selection of products and fast, reliable delivery, we analyze which products are ordered most frequently and from where, and position those products in our centers closest to the customer. .

Case study: Pesto Rossi, from Genova Italy. According to Sergio Panizza, from the Genoa-based Pesto Rossi factory, “Our family has been making pesto sauce in a small shop in Genoa since 1947, selling mostly locally. Our business suffered during the pandemic, so we decided to start selling through Amazon. Since then we have grown in number of clients and managed to sell our sauces to pesto fans in Spain, France and twelve other countries in Europe”. “By bringing our sauces closer to where our customers live, our products are available much faster and we benefit from having more international customers.”

Spanish exports to Italy registered €20,635.6 million from January to August 2022, which represents an increase of 19.4% compared to the same period in 2021, while imports, with €17,708.4 million, increased 24.1%. Source: ICEX
Source: Amazon.com