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Amazon’s 2021 Sustainability Report
About This Report
At Amazon, we are committed to and invested in sustainability because it’s a win all around—it’s good for the planet, for business, for our customers, and for our communities.
Our 2021 Sustainability Report builds on our sustainability progress over the last decade—particularly since we co- founded The Climate Pledge in 2019 and announced our commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across our business by 2040. This report also includes our work on a wide range of Amazon commitments and initiatives to support our employees, our supply chain partners, and the communities where we operate around the world.
All financial figures are reported in U.S. dollars ($), unless otherwise stated.
Please note that data within this report primarily reflects progress as of 2021, and all data that is timebound since a certain date is updated as of June 2022, unless otherwise indicated.
This report includes appendices that are informed by the following frameworks: the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), and the United Nations Guiding Principles (UNGP) Reporting Framework.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. We strive to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, Earth’s best employer, and Earth’s safest place to work. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Career Choice, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, Alexa, Just Walk Out technology, Amazon Studios, and The Climate Pledge are some of the things pioneered by Amazon. We have more than 1.6 million employees worldwide, with operations in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America.
Introduction 3 Opening Letter From Kara Hurst, Vice President, Worldwide Sustainability 4 Our Business 5 Sustainability Around the Globe 6 Goals and Progress 7 Continuing Our COVID-19 Response
Environment 10 Our Carbon Footprint 14 Growing The Climate Pledge 16 Investing in Innovation Through The Climate Pledge Fund 18 Supporting Nature-Based Solutions 20 On the Path to 100% Renewable Energy 22 Incorporating Sustainability Into Our Buildings 24 Decarbonizing Transportation 26 Avoiding and Managing Waste 28 Improving Our Packaging 30 Product Sustainability 35 Sustainability in the Cloud
Society 41 Respecting Human Rights Throughout Our Business 46 Providing a Range of Employee Benefits 51 Fostering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 57 Employee Engagement: Listening to Our People 59 Safety, Health, and Well-Being at Amazon 61 Building a Supply Chain That Puts People First 69 Supporting Our Communities
Governance 75 Corporate Governance 77 Business Ethics 78 Advocacy and Public Policy 79 Partnerships
Appendix 81 SASB 84 UNGP Reporting Framework 90 TCFD 96 UN SDGs 97 Carbon Footprint Data 98 Supplier Assessments 99 Our Workforce Data 100 Disclaimer and Forward-Looking Statements
Contents
Look out for these symbols throughout the report: A link that directs you to a website A link within the report A link to a download
Look out for these common abbreviations throughout the report: AWS—Amazon Web Services UN—United Nations NGO—Nongovernmental organizations CO2—Carbon dioxide CO (^) 2e—Carbon dioxide equivalent
Our Business
As part of our mission to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, we are
committed to building a sustainable business for our employees, customers,
and communities, including the people that support our entire value chain.
Our Operations
We offer access to a wide selection of products sold by us and by third parties across dozens of categories. We help make customers’ lives easier and more enjoyable through our devices and services. We create and provide access to world-class content and entertainment. We provide the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud offering. All of this and more is underscored by our commitment to customer service and a state-of-the- art logistics and delivery network.
Our Communities
We leverage our scale and assets for good to support charitable organizations and strengthen communities where our employees and customers live and work. Our culture is built around solving seemingly impossible problems, which is why we take a different, more hands-on approach than most. We use this approach to support education for underrepresented groups, address direct needs including family hunger, homelessness, and natural disasters, and protect our planet to build a better future for all.
Our Supply Chain
Our approach is designed to drive engagement with suppliers that meet our expectations for respecting human rights, providing safe and inclusive workplaces, and promoting a sustainable future. We engage with suppliers across the globe that are required to meet the standards we outline and commit to these principles.
Our Customers
We are always finding new ways to delight our customers while constantly aiming to offer lower prices, better selections, and more convenient services. We serve our primary customer sets in the following ways: consumers through our online and physical stores; sellers through programs that enable them to grow their businesses; developers and enterprises of all sizes through AWS; content creators through services that enable them to publish and sell content; and advertisers through advertising services.
Our Principles We have 16 Leadership Principles^ , which describe how we do business and how we keep the^ customer at the
Sustainability
Around
the Globe
Our global sustainability efforts
are making a positive impact in
communities around the world.
Learn more about our global initiatives on our website.
Australia
Indonesia
India
Singapore Italy
Tanzania
Brazil
United States
Canada
South Africa
Supported Solcast to use cloud cover, solar radiation, and photovoltaic power data to provide forecasts to the solar power industry.
Partnered with Water.org and WaterAid in India and Indonesia to provide clean water to over 250,000 community members.
Began adding 10, electric vehicles to our existing fleet.
Announced our first renewable energy project in Singapore, a 62-megawatt (MW) solar project made up of a series of solar panels mounted on a ground system that will generate 80,000 MWh of clean energy annually.
Supported Parco Italia, an urban forestry program that aims to plant 22 million trees across 14 metropolitan areas in Italy.
Germany Partnered with The Nature Conservancy’s Urban Greening Program in Germany and supported mapping and analysis for roofs, grasslands, and urban streetscapes in Berlin.
Began hosting data on AWS on the Digital Earth Africa platform to monitor how coastal erosion, rising sea levels, and deforestation are contributing to the degradation of mangrove trees on the island.
Partnered with The Nature Conservancy to launch the Agroforestry and Restoration Accelerator to restore native rainforest to naturally trap and store carbon and mitigate climate change.
Women at Amazon in the U.S. earned 99.9 cents for every dollar that men earned performing the same jobs in 2021.
Announced our largest renewable energy project in Canada in June 2021. Once online, our renewable projects in Canada will produce more than 1 million megawatt-hours (MWh) each year.
Launched our first operational solar project in South Africa, expected to generate up to 28,000 MWh of renewable energy per year for the grid.
Enabling Global Innovation
Our infrastructure has also been helping scientists gain and share knowledge of RNA viruses in record time. Diseases caused by RNA viruses include the common cold, influenza, SARS, COVID-19, hepatitis C, Ebola, rabies, polio, and measles.
An international team of scientists from the Serratus project built a powerful supercomputer on AWS in just eight weeks. The supercomputer searched almost 6 million publicly available biological samples for the presence of RNA viruses in less than two weeks for $24,000—achieving what would have taken a standard computer well over 2,000 years and cost at least 10 times more. Through this process, the research team used the AWS Cloud to identify more than 130,000 new RNA viruses, including nine new coronaviruses, creating a “global viral surveillance system” that could help prevent future pandemics.
A Helping Hand
In early 2021, Amazon took immediate action to help address the COVID-19 surge in India. We utilized our global logistics network to purchase, airlift, and deliver medical equipment identified as critically needed by the government of India and local charities.
We worked with industry partners and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to deliver more than 8,000 oxygen concentrators and 500 BiPAP machines to India. This medical equipment was donated to hospitals and public institutions to increase their capacity to help COVID-19-infected patients across multiple cities. We also joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Task Force on Pandemic Response to deliver ventilators to India. In Nepal, Amazon teamed up with the UN World Food Programme to donate and deliver supplies to communities affected by COVID-19, including 850,000 personal protective items.
AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative
The AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative (DDI) is a two-year, $20 million commitment to accelerate research and innovation to advance the collective understanding and detection of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases in order to mitigate current and future outbreaks.
In the first phase of the AWS DDI , AWS supported 87 organizations in 17 countries, ranging from nonprofits and research institutions to startups and large businesses. AWS awarded $8 million to support a range of diagnostic projects, including molecular tests for antibodies, antigens, and nucleic acids; diagnostic imaging; wearables; and data analytics tools that use artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect COVID-19.
In April 2021, AWS launched the next phase and broadened the Initiative’s scope to three new areas: 1) early disease detection to identify outbreaks at the individual and at the community level; 2) prognosis to better understand disease trajectory; and 3) public health genomics to bolster viral genome sequencing worldwide.
Helping Employees Get Back to Work
When the time came for employees to start returning to corporate offices, we engaged with our teams to find out what kind of flexibility they needed to keep everyone safe, rather than specifying a one-size-fits-all approach for all business units. We encouraged leaders to determine how many days their team members would be in the office and which days those would be, so long as that decision was guided by what would be most effective for our customers and safest for our employees. Some teams continue working mostly remotely, others work a combination of remotely and in the office, and others work mostly in the office.
Vaccine Support
From March through early December 2021, we hosted more than 1,800 on-site vaccination events for front-line employees. We also launched the Max Your Vax sweepstakes to encourage our front-line operations employees to get vaccinated. We offered a variety of weekly prizes—including two $500,000 grand prizes, six $100,000 cash prizes, five new vehicles valued at $40,000 each, and five vacations each valued at $12,000 that included 40 hours of paid time off.
Empowering Customers to Manage Health and Safety
Throughout the pandemic, we have invested billions of dollars in the health and safety of our employees and customers, including building an in-house COVID-19 testing program to ensure front-line employees have access to free, regular testing in the U.S. and the UK.
By January 2021, our national COVID-19 testing lab located in Kentucky processed more than 1 million COVID- tests for front-line employees from more than 700 testing sites, and provided access to COVID-19 testing to nearly all front-line employees. At the height of the pandemic, our labs were processing more than 30,000 tests each day.
We took what we learned from this process to create our own at-home COVID-19 test collection kit for customers. The tests received Emergency Use Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June 2021, providing an affordable, reliable, and convenient way for customers to test for COVID-19 at home. The kits are processed by Amazon’s in-house laboratory using the diagnostic approach recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Continuing
Our COVID-
Response
Since the early stages of the
COVID-19 pandemic, we have
worked nonstop to make hundreds
of changes to our operational
processes to protect the health of
our employees and communities. In
2021, amid new variants and further
lockdowns, we continued to invest
heavily in supporting our employees,
customers, and communities.
Learn more about our global efforts to support customers, employees, and communities through the COVID-19 pandemic.
$15B+
COVID-19-related costs incurred since the start of the pandemic to help keep employees safe while delivering for our customers
Operating sustainably is no longer a choice—
it’s an imperative. Making meaningful
progress to address climate change takes
unprecedented action across all industries
and societies. Amazon recognizes this and
acknowledges that the ways we do business
have impacts far beyond our own company.
There’s no time to waste, and that’s why
we are investing in efforts to protect the
environments of the people and communities
we serve—both now and in the future.
Environment
Investing in Positive Impact
Our Carbon
Footprint
Climate change is one of the world’s
greatest crises, and to address it,
the public and private sectors need
to act together. That’s why we
co-founded The Climate Pledge,
a commitment to reach net-zero
carbon by 2040—10 years ahead
of the Paris Agreement. Since we
created the Pledge in 2019, more
than 300 companies have joined
Amazon in making this commitment.
The path to decarbonization remains challenging. This is especially true for a business of the size and broad scope of Amazon. We operate businesses—delivery and transportation logistics, physical stores, grocery, manufacturing, and cloud computing services—that involve moving products, manufacturing goods, and creating computing capacity, all at scale. While some of these businesses—including cloud computing and e-commerce— offer greater efficiencies, some are more carbon-intensive endeavors. In reducing their carbon footprint through investment and innovation, we will enable even greater efficiency and more-sustainable choices for our customers.
As we work to decarbonize our company, Amazon is growing rapidly. We have scaled our business at an unprecedented pace to help meet the needs of our customers through the pandemic. From early 2020 to the end of 2021, we created more than 750,000 full-time and part-time jobs worldwide and doubled the size of the fulfillment network that we had built over the previous 25 years. At the same time, an increasing number of companies around the world moved their technology to the cloud, gaining significant speed, innovation, and cost advantages, and AWS grew its revenue by 37% year-over-year in 2021.
These developments meant we had to build new facilities— for both our consumer and cloud businesses—and expand our transportation network. Throughout this growth, we remained focused on improving our efficiency through more-sustainable solutions, including electric vehicles and alternative fuel options as well as wind and solar power across our network. In AWS, the team spent considerable resource innovating on power efficiency, removing the central Uninterruptible Power Supply from our data center
design, integrating power supplies into our racks, and utilizing Graviton EC2 instances that use up to 60% less energy for the same performance than comparable Amazon EC2 instances.
With all of our growth in 2021, our absolute carbon emissions increased by 18% in 2021; however, importantly, our carbon intensity decreased by 1.9%—this is the third year in a row we’ve seen our carbon intensity decrease. This measurement quantifies total carbon emissions, in grams of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e), per dollar of gross merchandise sales (GMS). As companies invest in new products and services, and their businesses grow substantially, the focus should not be solely on a company’s carbon footprint in terms of absolute carbon emissions, but also on whether it’s lowering its carbon intensity. Over time, continued decreases in carbon intensity can lead to lower absolute emissions. See the Appendix for our carbon data.
While we’ve had success cutting emissions from some operations, we are still early in the process of transforming others. Some actions and investments have immediate carbon savings, while others will take years to demonstrate results. The path to net-zero carbon has many obstacles, but we thrive on big challenges. A few of those big challenges include:
Powering Operations With 100% Renewable Energy
In 2021, we reached 85% renewable energy across our operations, and we are on a path to achieve 100% by 2025—five years ahead of the original target of 2030. This transition to 100% renewable energy benefits our customers as well. Studies by the international analyst firm 451 Research found that moving on-premises computing workloads to AWS can lower workload carbon footprint by nearly 80% compared to surveyed enterprise data centers. That number could improve to as high as 96% once AWS is powered with 100% renewable energy—a target we are on path to meet by 2025. AWS’ infrastructure is 3.6 times more energy efficient than the median of surveyed U.S. enterprise data centers and up to five times more energy efficient than the average European enterprise data center.
Developing More-Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure
Reducing carbon emissions in transportation is a complex challenge for many companies. We plan to make half of our shipments net-zero carbon by 2030, and to do that, we are creating a worldwide fleet of zero-emission vehicles. Right now, the vehicles and charging infrastructure don’t exist at the scale needed to serve customers. We need the supply to increase dramatically. We have ordered 100,000 electric vehicles (EVs) from Rivian, and thousands more from manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and Mahindra Electric. These orders have sent a demand signal that is shifting the market to meet not only our needs, but also the needs of other companies around the world.
We announced in November that, in the city of Paris, two-thirds of our shipments are delivered using zero- emission transport such as EVs, electric cargo bikes, and on-foot deliveries. We also are exploring green hydrogen
technologies: Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund—a corporate venture fund that invests in sustainability—recently announced it has invested in EH2 in the U.S. and Sunfire in Germany, two companies helping to push the green hydrogen industry forward.
It will take time to remove carbon emissions from heavy transportation systems, including ocean shipping, aviation, and trucking. Governments and the private sector need to come together on this important work. Amazon is at the heart of such industry initiatives and government partnerships, including the Cargo Owners for Zero Emission Vessels network (coZEV), the First Movers Coalition, the Sustainable Aviation Buyers Alliance Aviators Group (SABA), and the Clean Energy Demand Initiative.
Constructing More- Sustainable Buildings
Businesses also face the challenge of removing carbon emissions from new building construction. Via The Climate Pledge Fund, Amazon has invested in CarbonCure Technologies, which enables concrete producers to make the same high-quality concrete with a lower carbon footprint, and Brimstone Energy, which seeks to make cement carbon- neutral through a process focused on calcium silicate rocks, which have no embedded CO 2 , as well as magnesium species, which passively absorb CO (^) 2. Amazon is lowering the carbon footprint of our buildings by using CarbonCure’s systems and Brimstone Energy cement in some new construction, including in Amazon’s second headquarters in Virginia (HQ2).
HQ2 will be a model for sustainable construction. We’ve electrified the operations of HQ2, eliminating the use of fossil fuels for buildings systems and food service. We have committed to powering 100% of HQ2’s operations with
renewable energy through a combination of off-site and on-site solar projects. And we plan to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification, the highest sustainability building certification issued by the U.S. Green Building Council.
We also continue to innovate with construction techniques to make our fulfillment centers more sustainable. Many of our fulfillment facilities throughout the U.S., Europe, and India are powered by on-site solar, where a rooftop installation can power up to 80% of the facility’s energy use. As of 2021, 115 of our global fulfillment facilities have rooftop solar installations.
Constructing our AWS data centers also presents challenges related to sustainability. Concrete and steel used in construction are two of the largest contributors of embodied carbon in a data center building, and we have multiple initiatives to reduce their carbon impact. For example, our design standards now require concrete with a 20% reduction in embodied carbon compared with standard concrete for new U.S. data centers, and we are expanding this requirement globally. Also, instead of using steel from oxygen furnaces that burn coal or gas, we are moving to steel from electric-arc furnaces, which use scrap steel and can create steel using renewable energy and up to 100% recycled content. In 2021, six AWS data centers were constructed with steel made this way, and we have plans to build more in the future.
Prime Air
How Amazon Is Addressing the Global Challenges in Carbon Reduction
The path to decarbonization is incredibly complex, but we thrive on big challenges. Here’s a snapshot of how we are addressing some of them.
Reach net-zero carbon emissions across our operations by 2040
Eliminating the use of fossil fuels for buildings systems and food service at HQ2 and achieving LEED Platinum certification
Constructing data centers using steel made with renewable energy and up to 100% recycled content
Ordering a worldwide fleet of more than 100, EVs, powering our goal to make half our shipments net-zero carbon by 2030
Launching partnerships to decarbonize shipping and air freight industries , such as coZEV, First Movers Coalition, and SABA
Supporting the adoption of low-carbon fuel standards and policies that accelerate EV charging infrastructure
Recruiting more than 300 businesses to join us in the pledge to reach the goal of the Paris Agreement 10 years early, and be net-zero carbon by 2040
Collaborating with others to improve carbon emissions reporting, such as the We Mean Business Coalition’s SME Climate Hub Supporting the transparency of carbon emissions reporting and working to improve the granularity of data available
On a path to powering our operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025 —five years ahead of our original target
Helping our customers meet their net-zero goals: Studies found that moving on-premises workloads to AWS can lower workload carbon footprint by nearly 80%
“In the face of great peril, which is what the latest science depicts, the business community must have a clear path forward. Step up and accelerate emissions reductions so that we might avoid the worst of the damages yet to come. It’s encouraging that 300 companies are committed to working together to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040 or sooner through The Climate Pledge. But 300 companies are not enough to deliver the transformations we need. I encourage all business leaders to get to grips with the science, translate it for their businesses, and enable the changes we need without delay.”
Christiana Figueres Founding Partner of Global Optimism, Former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
Progress in 2021
In 2021, 253 companies joined Amazon as signatories of The Climate Pledge—an increase of over 700% in signatories over the previous year.
Collectively, The Climate Pledge signatories represent:
300+
Businesses and organizations
$3.5T+ In global annual revenue
8M+
Employees
29
Countries
51 Industries
Growing The
Climate Pledge
The Climate Pledge is a commitment
to reach net-zero carbon emissions
by 2040—10 years ahead of the Paris
Agreement. Amazon co-founded
The Climate Pledge in 2019 to
build a cross-sector community
of companies, organizations,
individuals, and partners working
together to address the climate
crisis and solve the challenges of
decarbonizing our economy.
Our Approach
Joining The Climate Pledge is an opportunity for companies to be part of a community committed to transformational action to protect the environment from the disruptive risks associated with climate change. Signatories commit to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 and play a critical role in stimulating investment in the development of low-carbon products and services.
Amazon became the first company to sign The Climate Pledge after co-founding the initiative with Global Optimism, a purpose-driven organization led by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, who oversaw the delivery of the historic Paris Agreement, the first global accord on climate change.
The Climate Pledge joins leading organizations like the We Mean Business Coalition, Race to Zero, TED Countdown, and the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to provide resources and support to mobilize the private sector to reach net-zero carbon by 2040.
The Pledge Commitments
Signatories of The Climate Pledge agree to three areas of action:
Regular Reporting: Measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis.
Carbon Elimination: Implement decarbonization strategies in line with the Paris Agreement through real business changes and innovations, including efficiency improvements, renewable energy, materials reductions, and other carbon- emission-elimination strategies.
Credible Offsets: Neutralize any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially beneficial offsets to achieve net-zero annual carbon emissions by 2040.
Learn more about the latest stories, progress, and signatories on The Climate Pledge website.
Investments in 2021
In 2021, Amazon invested in the following companies and initiatives to accelerate sustainability progress across the areas of transportation, aviation, freight, packaging, farming, and technology:
Amogy is developing a system to convert green ammonia to power that will be emission-free at the point of use. With the potential to become one of the first scalable ammonia- to-power systems, Amogy’s technology carries enough energy density to support long-distance transportation such as cargo shipping. This would be a significant step in helping decarbonize the main transport mode for global trade. Amogy’s technology also has future implications for Amazon’s own decarbonization goals, including those set by The Climate Pledge.
Investing in
Innovation
Through
The Climate
Pledge Fund
We know that substantial
investment is needed to develop
solutions that will facilitate
the transition to a low-carbon
economy. The Climate Pledge
Fund is a $2 billion venture
investment program supporting
the development of sustainable
technologies and services that will
enable Amazon to meet our net-
zero carbon goal. As of the end
of 2021, Amazon had invested
in 13 companies across multiple
industry sectors since launching
this fund in 2020.
BETA Technologies is reshaping air transportation with an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. This aircraft, called the ALIA, can carry three cargo pallets, or up to six people, for zero operational emissions delivery of cargo, medical supplies, or passengers. Amazon’s investment in BETA Technologies advances our path to zero-emissions package delivery and builds on our previous investment in ZeroAvia, the developers of hydrogen-electric aviation solutions.
Hippo Harvest is an agricultural company using plant science, machine learning, and robotics to grow leafy greens and other produce in greenhouse environments. Hippo Harvest’s technology addresses the emissions and waste that result from traditional produce farming. These include fertilizer and land use, transportation, and landfill methane from wasted produce, which account for roughly 30% of the emissions from crops grown for human consumption. The greenhouse system can be deployed almost anywhere, allowing produce to be grown closer to consumers. This cuts down emissions from produce transportation and increases the shelf life of fresh produce by up to five days. As a grocery retailer, Amazon is committed to supporting new produce solutions like those offered by Hippo Harvest as we grow our product offerings at our Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market stores.
CMC Machinery designs and manufactures custom-sized boxes tailored to the dimensions of the items in each order. This technology lowers or removes the need for single-use plastic padding while still protecting items during shipping. Amazon expects that by the end of 2022, this technology could reduce the cubic volume of the boxes we use for package deliveries by 24% on average, and the technology is projected to reduce our use of approximately 1 billion plastic air pillows by the end of 2022.
Infinium is a renewable electrofuels solution provider that focuses on converting captured carbon dioxide and hydrogen feedstocks into net-zero carbon fuels for use in today’s air transport, marine freight, and heavy truck fleets. Infinium electrofuels have the potential to enable organizations to meet their carbon-reduction goals by accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels.
Resilient Power (RP) builds efficient and effective transformer-based EV charging technology. RP’s technology enables EV fast-charging infrastructure to be built at one- tenth the size and installation time of traditional charging technology, and is capable of charging up to 24 vehicles at a time without requiring expensive distribution grid upgrades. RP’s technology has the potential to help Amazon meet our goal of deploying 100,000 Rivian electric vans by 2030, by ensuring that vehicles can be quickly recharged to support delivery of customer packages.
Collaborating to Accelerate Invention
In 2021, The Climate Pledge Fund joined Greentown Labs , the largest climate tech startup incubator in North America. Greentown Labs has a growing network of industry-leading organizations committed to climate action and innovation. The Climate Pledge Fund’s engagement with climate tech startups will help accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. Learn more about our full list of investments on The Climate Pledge website.
The Climate Pledge Fund has also joined Elemental Excelerator’s Scale-Up Program. Together, Elemental Excelerator and Amazon are working to accelerate a pathway to decarbonization that mitigates the impact of climate change more quickly and equitably by identifying and supporting technology startups at the forefront of clean energy, mobility, agriculture, and the circular economy.
ION Energy develops software to improve the life and performance of lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles (EVs) and energy-storage systems. ION works with more than 75 customers in the mobility and energy industry across 15 countries, including India, France, Spain, and the U.S. We believe that ION’s mission to improve the life and performance of lithium-ion batteries will ultimately scale solutions that help us all achieve our ambitious climate goals.
Nature-Based Investments in Communities Across Europe
Nature can transform urban communities while also mitigating some of the effects of climate change, like urban heat, flooding, and biodiversity loss. Therefore, in addition to our work and funding toward large-scale carbon emissions mitigation through nature-based solutions, we are also funding smaller-scale nature projects in the communities where we operate.
As part of our Right Now Climate Fund, Amazon has committed €20 million toward nature-based projects in communities across Europe. These projects will have robust, science-based environmental benefits for carbon removal and biodiversity, along with social benefits such as job creation and access to nature.
Promoting Reforestation in Italy In 2021, Amazon committed €2 million to support Parco Italia, an urban forestry program that aims to plant 22 million trees across 14 metropolitan areas in Italy. This translates to one tree planted per city resident. Amazon’s support for this project will help cities become more resilient to climate change by increasing urban biodiversity, improving air quality, and promoting urban cooling.
Urban Greening in Germany In 2020, Amazon committed €3.75 million to The Nature Conservancy’s Urban Greening Program in Germany, which promotes biodiversity, reduces urban heat islands, and improves stormwater management in the face of climate change. With Amazon’s support, the program launched in Berlin’s Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district in 2020. In 2021, the Urban Greening Program developed mapping and analysis for roofs, grasslands, and urban streetscapes for greening potential.
Learn more about Amazon’s science-driven approach to carbon neutralization and nature-based solutions.
On the Path to
100% Renewable
Energy
Transitioning to renewable energy
is one of the highest-impact ways to
immediately lower emissions. With
274 renewable projects announced
as of the end of 2021, Amazon is the
world’s largest corporate purchaser
of renewable energy and is on a
path to powering our operations
with 100% renewable energy by
2025—five years ahead of our
original target of 2030.
Our Approach
Since 2014, Amazon has invested in global renewable energy generation to decarbonize our business across our worldwide operations. We procure new renewable energy through contracts for utility-scale wind and solar, on-site rooftop solar installations, and green tariffs with local utilities that deliver new, renewable energy to the grids where we operate.
Our projects supply renewable energy for a variety of Amazon facilities, including corporate offices, fulfillment centers, data centers, and physical stores, which collectively serve millions of customers globally. These projects also help meet Amazon’s commitment to produce the clean energy equivalent of the electricity used by every customer’s Echo device. We are making additional large-scale investments in wind and solar farm capacity, which will produce the clean energy equivalent to the electricity used by all Echo, Fire TV, and Ring devices worldwide by 2025.
Our Journey
In 2021, we reached 85% renewable energy across our business, with more than 12 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy production capacity across our global portfolio. Once these projects are fully operational, they are expected to deliver up to 33,700 gigawatt-hours of energy annually— the electricity output equivalent to powering more than 3 million U.S. homes for one year.
These projects helped power more than 30 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity used by Amazon in 2021 and led to a 23% reduction in our carbon emissions from purchased electricity from 2020 to 2021.
In 2021, we expanded our renewable energy footprint into new geographies, and by the end of the year, announced renewable energy projects across 18 countries. Our first solar projects in South Africa and the United Arab Emirates came online, and we announced new projects in Singapore, Japan, Australia, and China. Our projects in South Africa and Japan are the first corporate-backed, utility-scale solar farms in these countries.
274
Global renewable energy projects
105 Utility-scale wind and solar projects
169
Solar rooftops on facilities and stores
We also announced two new offshore wind projects in Europe, including our largest renewable energy project to date. As of December 2021, we have enabled more than 3.5 GW of renewable energy in Europe through 80 projects, making Amazon the largest purchaser of renewable energy in Europe.
In June 2021, Amazon announced our largest renewable energy project in Canada. Once online, Amazon’s renewable projects in Canada will produce more than 1 million MWh each year—enough to power more than 100,000 Canadian homes.
As of the end of 2021, Amazon had announced: