Climate Insider Brief:
- Amazon has launched the Sustainability Exchange, a free, publicly available platform sharing previously proprietary guidance and information to help other companies achieve net-zero carbon emissions.
- The platform initially focuses on seven areas: Buildings, Carbon Neutralization, Carbon-Free Energy, Human Rights, Transportation, Waste and Circularity, and Water Stewardship.
- It offers playbooks and guides based on Amazon’s experiences and advancements in these areas.
PRESS RELEASE – July 10, 2024 – The Sustainability Exchange, launched today, provides never-before shared guidance and information that helped Amazon decarbonize its operations—and we’ll continue to unlock more for all.
Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge in 2019, and committed to reaching net-zero carbon by 2040. It’s an ambitious goal, especially for a company with a footprint as complex as ours, and we’ve spent more than a decade building the knowledge, methodologies, and programs needed to tackle climate change head on. Over the years, we’ve invented and built some of the world’s most advanced systems, tools, and solutions to drive our net-zero path forward—and while we still have work to do, we’ve made meaningful progress so far.
We’ve rolled out more than 24,000 electric delivery vehicles all around the world; built a new headquarters, HQ2, that achieved LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum Certification; co-invented and developed a new technology for recycling mixed polyester plastics, including bio-based, biodegradable plastics with The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) through the BOTTLE Consortium; and in 2023, we matched all of the electricity used across Amazon’s global operations—including our data centers, corporate buildings, grocery stores, and fulfillment centers—with 100% renewable energy (seven years ahead of our original goal). These are just a few examples.
Because Amazon is comprised of many different businesses that touch nearly every sector—some which rely on carbon-intensive industries to provide critical goods and services to our customers—these milestones were no easy feat. It’s taken thousands of engineers, researchers and scientists, hundreds of thousands of hours, and billions of dollars to get to where we are today. We’ve learned a lot. We could keep those learnings to ourselves, but we know that achieving net-zero will require collective action from those that supply our operations. And we’re in a unique position to help drive significant global change.
That’s why today, we’re democratizing our guidelines, playbooks, science models, and other resources, through our newly launched “Amazon Sustainability Exchange,”a free, publicly available website of previously proprietary information that will help other companies make meaningful progress toward net zero.
The Amazon Sustainability Exchange
At launch, the Amazon Sustainability Exchange will focus on seven key focus areas: Buildings, Carbon Neutralization, Carbon-Free Energy, Human Rights, Transportation, Waste and Circularity, and Water Stewardship. Some of the previously proprietary information that will now be available includes:
- A Carbon Measurement and Reporting Playbook detailing how to develop a carbon goal, identify abatement opportunities, and learn from other insights from our years of measuring and reporting data across Amazon’s global operations.
- A Renewable Energy Playbook, which shares Amazon’s lessons learned as the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy for the last four years.
- A guide to buildings which leverages all we’ve learned on developing HQ2 and our ILFI certified buildings, whether grocery stores, warehouses, corporate offices, or others.
- A “starter” guide to establishing a water stewardship program, sharing what we’ve learned on our path to be water positive across our data centers by 2030.
We want to empower companies across all industries, of all sizes—from small businesses, to large multi-national organizations, and global companies—to take steps to decarbonize and develop sustainable operations, regardless of where they are in their sustainability journey. Over time, the platform will be updated, and expand with new content and resources to meet the varying needs of suppliers. Our hope is that the Exchange becomes a platform widely used and adopted by industry peers.
Supplier Decarbonization
In addition to providing tools and resources to help others drive down their own emissions, we will prioritize working with suppliers who are also committed to decarbonization and reaching net-zero. We have identified a list of the highest-emitting suppliers directly supporting our operations. We expect those suppliers, who collectively contribute more than 50% of emissions globally to Amazon’s Scope 3 footprint, to provide a plan for how they will decarbonize their operations and demonstrate real progress over time. We will prioritize our business towards those who provide their plans and results on their path to net-zero. We are already working with many of these suppliers and will continue our engagement and share learnings through the Amazon Sustainability Exchange. We are committed to further reducing emissions in our supply chain and we expect that our future strategic suppliers aggressively decarbonize their operations over time.
Inviting suppliers to join The Climate Pledge
When Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge in 2019 it also created a business community that could help each other address some of our planet’s toughest climate challenges. And we’ve seen it work—today there are more than 500 signatories of the Pledge in 45 countries around the world.
While a number of our suppliers have already joined the Pledge, we invite others to join this community of business leaders committed to action, and gain access to special events, cohorts, joint-action projects, and experts from climate, policy, and sustainability science fields, who can help them in their own decarbonization journeys.
SOURCE: Amazon
Featured Image: Credit: Amazon
