Symbolic and substantive carbon accountability in e-commerce logistics: a longitudinal comparison of Amazon, UPS and Trendyol

Purpose E-commerce logistics firms disclose more emissions data than ever. This article asks whether more disclosure has meant more accountability, measuring emission decoupling, disclosure quality, target attainment and cross-vintage comparability for three firms on a common window. Design/methodology/approach A pre-registered longitudinal comparison of Amazon, UPS and Trendyol over 2022–2024, from 14 primary reporting documents and 7 cross-check sources. Four indices are computed: Tapio emission-decoupling elasticity under 3 activity denominators, a 15-item Disclosure Quality Index scored against a published codebook, a target-gap ratio and a restatement-to-change ratio measuring cross-vintage revisions against the annual change those vintages are used to interpret. The coding was performed twice and agreement reported. Findings The firms diverge on disclosure quality and converge on target failure. UPS scores 90.0 of 100 in every year; Amazon rises from 60.0 to 66.7 and plateaus; Trendyol falls from 73.3 to 43.3, entirely through accounting transparency and verifiability, while inventory coverage is unchanged. Disclosure volume is maintained while the infrastructure that makes it checkable is withdrawn. All five announced targets sit off their required trajectories, and the revision to Amazon, 2023 total across 2 report vintages is roughly 49 times the annual change that figure is used to demonstrate. Originality/value The restatement-to-change ratio is new and makes a comparability failure measurable rather than anecdotal. The article also shows that disclosure quantity and disclosure accountability can move in opposite directions within a single firm over two years.