How Amazon Is Supporting Sustainability Startups
Consumerism is rampant and is contributing to climate issues. Amazon is one of the biggest e-commerce businesses in the US — in 2020, Amazon captured 49.1% of the market. With the growing concern of climate change over the last couple of years, Amazon has made ambitious commitments to achieving net-zero carbon by 2040 as part of the Climate Pledge. Amazon is decarbonizing its business and supporting customers to achieve its sustainability goals. Below are a few of the ways Amazon is tackling climate change:
Investment:
Climate Pledge Fund: The Climate Pledge Fund is a $2B investment fund specifically focused on climate tech companies that can solve Amazon’s problems.
Right Now Climate Fund: The Right Now Climate Fund is a $100M fund focused on nature-based efforts to reduce carbon.
Startup Support:
Activate: Activate is a way for startups to get free credits on Amazon (available for any startup).
Clean Energy Accelerator: The AWS Clean Energy Accelerator is AWS’s first accelerator focused on fostering the rapid growth of cleantech innovations. The goal of the AWS Energy Accelerator is to help startups working in clean energy accelerate their impact, access additional resources, and expand their reach.
Techstars Sustainability Challenge: As participants in the Techstars Sustainability Challenge, Amazon is looking for startups to collaborate with that align with Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and goals.
Platform Support:
Amazon Climate Pledge Friendly: The Amazon Climate Pledge Friendly helps consumers find sustainable climate-friendly products. There are 20+ certifications that Amazon uses within this initiative to identify certified sustainable products.
Resources:
Amazon Data Exchange: The Amazon Data Exchange is a marketplace for data, including data for climate and sustainability (available for free). This is key because many solutions to address climate require data.
Outlook
Amazon is demonstrating its concern for slowing climate change by publishing its carbon footprint, providing transparency and insights into Amazon’s operations and what they’re doing to reduce those emissions. Amazon is demonstrating that larger organizations have a role to play in going net-zero and averting a climate crisis.
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