Amazon’s climate pledge gets friendlier
Last September, Amazon introduced its Climate Pledge Friendly program that made shoppers aware of national and own brand products available to buy that were also certified as being better for the environment. If approved through Amazon’s third-party partners, the products got tagged as Climate Pledge Friendly.
In honor of Earth Day, Amazon has grown the program, increasing it to more than 75,000 products stamped with the Climate Pledge Friendly seal, and increasing its certification partners to 18 trusted third-party certifications. Amazon also has its own certification called Compact by Design, which focuses on products that use less air, water and packaging materials to ship more efficiently.
The four new certifications joining the program include: CarbonNeutral product by Natural Capital Partners, Carbon Neutral Certification by SCS Global Services, Climate Neutral by Climate Partner, and Carbon Neutral by Carbon Trust.
Amazon also announced it was investing in nine renewable energy projects in Canada, United States, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The wind and solar energy projects impact Amazon corporate offices, fulfillment centers, Whole Foods Market stores and AWS data centers.
In total the projects put Amazon on a path to power 100% of its activities with renewable energy by 2025 — five years ahead of the original target of 2030. Investing in renewable energy is one of the many actions Amazon is taking as part of The Climate Pledge, a commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement.
“Amazon continues to scale up its investments in renewable energy as part of its effort to meet The Climate Pledge, our commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “With these nine new wind and solar projects, we have announced 206 renewable wind and solar projects worldwide, and we are now the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in Europe and globally. Many parts of our business are already operating on renewable energy, and we expect to power all of Amazon with renewable energy by 2025 — five years ahead of our original target of 2030.”
Amazon and Global Optimism co-founded The Climate Pledge in 2019, a commitment to reach the Paris Agreement 10 years early and be net-zero carbon by 2040. The pledge now has 53 signatories, including IBM, Unilever, Verizon, Siemens, Microsoft, and Best Buy.
Amazon said to reach its goal, the company will continue to reduce emissions across its operations through the renewable energy projects, delivering its Shipment Zero vision to make all shipments net-zero carbon, purchasing 100,000 electric delivery vehicles, and by investing $2 billion in the development of decarbonizing services and solutions through the Climate Pledge Fund.