Amazon launched a $2 billion fund today to advance technologies that will cut down greenhouse gases. The fund will help Amazon and other companies adhere to The Climate Pledge initiative it started in September 2019. That pledge committed the company, and others that sign onto it, to becoming carbon neutral by 2040.
The Climate Pledge Fund will invest in companies of all sizes and in multiple industries, including “transportation and logistics; energy generation, storage, and utilization; manufacturing and materials; circular economy; and food and agriculture,” Amazon said in a statement. Amazon hasn’t provided a timeline for selecting beneficiaries or distributing funds.
Amazon’s changes come after more than 3,500 Amazon employees posted an open letter to Jeff Bezos and other company executives last spring calling for a company-wide climate change plan. Among the workers’ demands were a complete end to the use of fossil fuels and that Amazon Web Services end its Oil and Gas initiative.
Amazon also announced today that by 2025, it will rely on renewable energy for all its energy use. That’s five years earlier than a goal it previously set for itself.
Despite its commitments, Amazon pumped out about 15 percent more carbon dioxide last year than it did in the year prior as its sales increased. It released more than 51 million metric tons of CO2 in 2019, according to the 2019 sustainability report it released today. That’s compared to just over 44 million metric tons it emitted in 2018, which was the first time it disclosed its carbon footprint.
