Is Amazon Getting a Sustainability Makeover?

Amazon, which has never published a sustainability report, has recently hired sustainability executives that may change the online retail giant’s strategy — and reputation — according to the Guardian.

The publication reports Amazon has grown its sustainability team by hiring global supply chain expert Dara O’Rourke. O’Rourke co-founded Underwriters Laboratories’s product-rating website GoodGuide, which rates the environmental impact and sustainability of thousands of products. At Amazon, he will lead a team called “Sustainable Science.” He joins Kara Hurst, Amazon’s director of worldwide sustainability and social responsibility, and former CEO of The Sustainability Consortium; Christine Bader, author of The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist; and Christina Page, who led energy and sustainability strategy at Yahoo for eight years.

“They’ve hired great people,” sustainability consultant Andrew Winston tells the Guardian. “But we really don’t know what they’re doing. Amazon is a very quiet company.”

Amazon has been criticized for its sustainability performance in recent years. The company has ignored a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that requires companies to inform investors of climate-related risks and does not report its carbon emissions to the CDP.