Dive Brief:

  • Amazon is increasingly relying on ocean shipping for next-day delivery in Sweden, part of an effort to speed shipments while lowering transportation emissions.
  • The e-commerce giant said late last month that it is partnering with sea carrier Stena Line to ferry loaded trucks from sortation centers in Germany or Poland to Sweden.
  • The increased use of ocean transportation is expected to avoid roughly a quarter of the carbon emissions generated from next-day deliveries in the country.

Dive Insight:

Amazon began ramping up use of ocean shipping in 2019 in an effort to gain greater control over its supply chain. Since then, it’s delved even deeper into the mode: Today, the company’s logistics arm offers container shipping from mainland China and Hong Kong to the U.S., U.K., EU, and Japan according to its website.

While many companies have pursued alternative modes of transport to lower costs and speed deliveries, Amazon is instead taking a sustainability-first approach with its new venture in Sweden called Amazon Sea.

When a customer in Sweden purchases a product, Amazon will locate the item within a European fulfillment center and then pick, pack and ship it to a sortation center in Poland or Germany. The product will be consolidated with other shipments, where it will then be loaded onto a truck.

Instead of driving to the final destination, however, the truck will instead board a Stena Line ferry where it will be transported to a port in Sweden. From there, the truck moves the shipments to one of Amazon’s partner hubs in Sweden for final delivery.

Amazon said that it’s partnered with logistics company Airmee, for example, to move last-mile shipments via bikes.

“We are always looking for innovative ways to transport packages for customers through less carbon intensive methods,” Gulfem Toygar, country manager, Amazon Sweden, said in a statement.

The e-commerce giant operates more than 170 sea routes across Europe, and plans to up its use of short trips by sea. Amazon added 60 short sea and waterway routes this year, according to the release.

The company has ramped up its sustainability investments in Europe this year. In October, Amazon announced its plan to invest more than 1 billion euros to double the size of its electric van delivery fleet over the next five years.