9 Ethical & Sustainable Alternatives to Amazon for Better Buying
While online one stop shops are convenient, affordable, and often risk free with free shipping & returns, it’s important to ask the question: are we choosing the right companies to shop from?
In the U.S alone, 55% of online shoppers choose Amazon as their first e-commerce option.
Pin this sustainable shopping guide for later
Shopping online can be challenging for people who actually care about sustainability and ethically produced goods.
This blog post will explore a list of more sustainable shops & some of Amazon’s eco-friendly initiatives. Plus, discover a few discount codes to get started as a conscious consumer!
This post does contain some affiliate links which means The Honest Consumer may receive a commission if you decided to purchase. Our commission is at no additional expense to you! The commission we receive goes towards keeping The Honest Consumer as a free resource for all ethical shoppers.
A List of Ethical & Eco-friendly Alternatives to Amazon
The following list features online markets that can be good swaps to Amazon due to their ethics and ability to find a lot of goods in one place.
Pin this list of shops for later!
For supporting more specialized small businesses be sure to read our guides on 50 Woman Owned Businesses, 25 BIPOC Owned Brands, 45+ Black Owned Eco Online Shops, Indigenous Owned Small Businesses List, and AAPI Owned Small Business List.
While no company is 100% perfect these brands were built with ethical & eco-friendly in their business model from the beginning.
Thrive Market: Non-GMO Organic Groceries, Non-Toxic Beauty & Household Goods
Thrive Market is a great one stop shop for healthy foods, beauty, cleaning products, and home goods. Thrive Market has all the healthy brands that Whole Foods has at a fraction of the price! They have a vast selection of organic and non-GMO brands.
I’ve been using Thrive Market for over three years! Be sure to check out my Thrive Market review!
Shoppers can even shop by dietary restriction including keto, paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, vegan, organic, & more. Thrive Market also offer beauty, bath and body products, household supplies and supplements.
Every product Thrive Market carries is vetted against a list of 550+ chemicals that don't meet their standards for safety and quality.
Along with responsible sourcing, Thrive Market is 100% carbon neutral through carbonfund.org, uses packaging made from recycled paper and that is recyclable, and has zero waste warehouses powered by renewable energy.
Thrive Market gives back too. For every annual membership, they sponsor a family in need.
You can use my link for 40% off your first Thrive Market purchase!
Public Goods: Organic Pantry Products & Eco-conscious Household Goods
Public Goods offers sustainable, healthy, and everyday essentials. Conscious consumers can purchase eco-friendly household items such as tree free paper towels, bamboo straws, non-toxic cleaners, and much more.
Public Goods is also a great one-stop-shop for organic groceries, such as canned goods, vitamins and supplements, premium-quality CBD oil, and even goodies for your pets, ranging from food to treats and non-toxic cleaning products.
As you can see, Public Goods offers a wide range of sustainable products. A few other sustainable initiatives from Public Goods includes the white personal care product bottles are made with sugarcane, their paper products are tree-free, and they plant a tree for every new customer to reduce emissions.
Uproot Design Studio Gifts & Accessories
For bright & sustainable goods check out Uproot Design Studio!
This is an artist owned small business that sells eco-friendly gift cards, soy wax candles, grow kits, unique gift boxes, organic cotton clothing, home goods, and more!
Use the discount code HONESTCONSUMER for 10% off your purchase.
Healthier Homes Non-toxic home products
Healthier Homes is like Whole Foods for your house. They are a great source of natural, organic, nontoxic home furnishings for healthy and happy living spaces, including sustainable home decor, furniture, and rugs.
Featuring the Rocco Sling Chair
Use the discount code HONEST for 10% off your Healthier Homes order!
MINNA’s mindful home goods
MINNA is a tight-knit team of artists, creators, and thinkers based in Hudson, NY. This brand is a queer led business that believes in creating beautiful, ethically made products and using business to do good.
MINNA is a certified B Corporation. This marketplace is a great spot to find artisan made home goods such as rugs, pillows, furniture, bedding, art, and more.
EcoRoots Zero Waste Shop
EcoRoots is an online zero waste shop on a mission to provide conscious consumers with the best eco-friendly and low-waste products out there.
From beauty and health to household products, their eco-friendly lineup is here to help you find sustainable alternatives to everyday essentials!
This online zero waste shop features bath & beauty products, home goods, and more.
I’ve tried some of Ecoroots amazing shampoo and conditioner bars, reusable dish cloths, soaps, and facial toner! The quality of all their sustainable goods is amazing! Their products range in price from $5-$50.
Zero Waste Store
Since launching Zero Waste Store has become a trusted platform for sustainable brands, and a community of individuals making a positive impact on our planet.
Sustainable shoppers will discover a wide range of zero waste products including household goods, clean beauty, oral hygiene, hair care, and more.
All Zero Waste Store products are packed in 100% recyclable paper based or compostable starch-based materials including recycled paper tape, recycled mailer envelopes, dissolvable starch-based packing peanuts, so you can order free from plastic packaging. Their shipping is also carbon neutral.
Earthhero
EarthHero is a one-stop shop for all things eco-friendly! This mindful marketplace carries a wide range of responsible brands and makes sustainable shopping easy with their variety of products.
EarthHero’s sustainable products include kitchenware, toys, pet treats, beauty products, clothing, tech accessories, fitness accessories, office supplies, outdoor gear, and more.
EarthHero is certified carbon-neutral through CarbonFund. Through this partnership, EarthHero works to ensure that shipped products arrive to customers using the least amount of environmental impact as possible. EarthHero is also a member of 1% for the Planet and a certified B Corp.
Etsy: Shop Small & Support Entrepreneurs
Etsy is dedicated to providing small entrepreneurs a safe place to offer their products, ranging from home decor to jewelry and accessories, clothing and shoes, toys, and art.
Today, their marketplace has millions of creative entrepreneurs pouring their passion and energy into their stores.
Etsy supports small business owners, entrepreneurs, and artists who create the most innovative and sustainable products. Etsy also offers 100% carbon offset shipping and powers its operations with renewable energy.
Is Amazon sustainable?
While Amazon has certain eco-conscious initiatives in place, the reality is their current business model featuring free shipping and free returns encourages overconsumption.
Consumers can’t deny that the one stop shop is convenient, but it’s also important to hold companies accountable for their sustainability promises to avoid greenwashing.
Let’s look at Amazon’s Climate Pledge and explore some other eco-friendly marketplaces.
Amazon’s Climate Pledge
Amazon’s Climate Pledge plans to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
While the goal of net-zero carbon emissions is a start, as a large e-commerce leader with access to many resources, there is more they could be doing to reduce their environmental impact such as focusing on compostable packaging and limiting returns.
Amazon’s Carbon Emissions
Amazon’s quick shipping methods lead to a lot of vehicles on the road & planes in the air, partnered with the free shipping & return offers, this tends to encourage overconsumption.
As Amazon’s continues to grow this can cause further environmental impact ,for example it’s reported that Amazon’s emissions per dollar of merchandise sales dropped 5%, meaning the company was able to warehouse and deliver packages a bit more efficiently than in the prior year.
While headed in the right direction, that didn’t swing the overall numbers: Its total emissions in 2019 rose 15%, to 51.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Amazon also claims that they will be powering operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025. It would be a great step in the right direction if Amazon meets this goal.
Amazon’s Recyclable Packaging
Along with the emissions Amazon’s packaging has quite a bit of room for improvement.
Amazon’s packaging is made up of a mix of materials such as cardboard boxes, plastic film, and more.
While Amazon does have a page on their website telling consumers how to dispose of and recycle the packaging, but the chance of consumers actually taking the time to learn how to responsibly recycle the packaging is slim leading most packaging to end up in landfills.
Depending on where the consumer lives the packaging might not be able to be picked up in curbside recycling.
It’s also estimated that only 4 percent of plastic film accrued by U.S. households is recycled through collection programs at grocery and big-box stores, according to a 2017 Closed Loop report about U.S. recycling.
The other 96 percent becomes garbage, even if put into curbside recycling, and ends up in landfills.
In 2008 Amazon introduced the Frustration-Free Packaging an initiative designed to reduce waste and 100% recyclable packaging and no additional Amazon packaging. However, unfortunately this is only available on select products.
While Amazon has added some other conscious options such as allowing consumers to have items shipped in less boxes, if this e-commerce leader focused more on compostable and biodegradable packaging this would be better for the planet and set the bar higher for other companies.
Amazon’s Free Returns Encourage Overconsumption & Creates Waste
It’s also important to consider the waste generated from returns. Optoro estimates that $400 billion US worth of merchandise is returned to all retailers every year, which generates five billion pounds of waste directed to landfill in the U.S.
Contrary to what consumers believe, returned merchandise does not always end up back on the shelves.
A recent study from CBC post highlighted Marketplace’s partnership with the Basel Action Network, a non-profit Seattle-based environmental organization that specializes in tracking waste and harmful products around the world.
The trackers became a guide into the secretive world of e-commerce returns. Of the 12 items returned, it appears only four were resold by Amazon to new customers at the time this story was published.
Months on from the investigation, some returns were still in Amazon warehouses or in transit, while a few travelled to some unexpected destinations, including a like new backpack that Amazon sent to landfill.
While the items that end up in landfills obviously create unnecessary waste, it’s also important to consider the emissions emitted when the package travels back and forth for the returns.
Do I Shop with Amazon?
Honestly yes. As much as I wish I could say I’m a dedicated conscious consumer who shops 100% ethically and sustainably, that’s not the reality. And I don’t want to set unrealistic expectations.
I certainly try my best to check the shops listed above. Every decision and every purchase matters, and every single purchase can be a vote for sustainability, so do your best to make your vote count!
Sustainability and conscious shopping looks different for everyone and that’s okay. Make responsible purchases wherever you can.
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