“Sustainability and Eco-innovation strategies. An analysis of the Amazon ecosystem"

Abstract

During recent years, the relation between the population and the environment is not working anymore and the theme of sustainability has become crucial for the future of our ecosystem. In the last years, maybe also due to the Covid and the lock-downs, the requests for home delivery and from the consumers to receive products ordered on apps or through e-commerce platforms faster and at a lower price have increased a lot. In our daily routine, ordering something online and receiving it in a few hours in front of our home door is something normal but we are ignoring the impact of these services on the environment and the impact to the “old-style” companies that cannot give this service and compete with bigger companies that have more resources. In this paper we try to analyze the situation of sustainability related to the innovations, in particular the adoption of eco-innovation as a diversification strategy for the companies and in detail the case of Amazon. Amazon is a salient example for innovation and diversification strategy since is one of the pioneers for making the logistics more sustainability and for bring innovation in the e-commerce sector but at the same time is criticize for the impact of it operations on the environment and there are few concerns around it impact on the entire ecosystem related to the transportation and traditional retails. In the first chapter, we will analyze what sustainability means and how it has changed the perception by companies of its importance. I will explain what a diversification strategy is and why it's becoming one of the most important factors for the companies to survive in a world always more competitive. At the end of the chapter, we will illustrate what are the current blockers for sustainable development and what is Greenwashing and why it is important to recognize it. In the second chapter, we will cover in detail the gap between green innovation and the sustainable world. We will try to explain what an innovation ecosystem is and the value chain of an innovation ecosystem. Later on the chapter, we will define what is an eco-innovation and we will cover the confusion in the literature of the use of the words green and sustainability explaining the conceptual difference between these two worlds. In the third chapter we will start to analyze our case-study: ”Amazon”. We will illustrate the story and the evolution of this company leader in the e-commerce sector and we will focus on its innovations, why they are important for the company and how the company is contributing with its innovations in creating a more sustainable world and in improving the sustainability inside the online commerce market. In the two following chapters we will deep dive into the correlation and the impact of Amazon with the traditional retails, the transportations and the environment. There are a lot of concerns related to the impact of Amazon to the ecosystem around us. We will analyze why there are these concerns and how the company is trying to improve and prevent these criticisms.I will perform this analysis in a general way and then more specific on the impact of the company to the PMI, the Made in Italy and the Italian ecosystem. In the last chapter, I will provide a general overview of the strategy of Amazon being critical and providing new areas of improvements to improve its impact on the world and on Italy.