Amazon Commits $2B to Clean Energy Fund

Amazon co-founds The Climate Pledge. Image courtesy of Amazon.

Amazon has announced a venture investment program worth an initial $2 billion under The Climate Pledge Fund. The financial support will go to companies across multiple industries that offer products and services aimed at facilitating the transition to a zero-carbon economy.

The initiative builds on The Climate Pledge, a commitment the company took last year in partnership with Global Optimism that aims to reach the Paris Agreement 10 years early and to be net-zero carbon by 2040. Recent signatories of this pledge are Verizon, Reckitt Benckiser and Infosys.

READ ALSO: The Paris Agreement Inspires Amazon’s Climate Pledge

The retailer has also released its sustainability report for 2019 with updates on the company’s sustainability goals and programs. Specifically, Amazon is on a path to operate 100 percent on renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of schedule. As part of The Climate Pledge, the company had committed to reaching 80 percent renewable energy by 2024 and 100 percent by 2030.

To reach its goal, Amazon counts 91 renewable energy projects across the globe, which combined have a generating capacity of more than 2.9 gigawatts of clean energy, delivering more than 7.6 million megawatt-hours annually, enough to power 680,000 U.S. households. Moreover, in February this year, Jeff Bezos pledged $10 billion of his own money to fight climate change via the Bezos Earth Fund.

This green movement Amazon has embarked on comes roughly a year after some 8,700 Amazon employees published an open letter asking Jeff Bezos and other leaders to adopt a shareholder resolution and release a company-wide climate change plan meeting their terms. The workers’ demand included the end to the use of fossil fuels in addition to Amazon Web Services ending its Oil and Gas initiative.