Amazon's corporate climate initiative secures backing from another 13 major companies, as overall membership committed to net zero by 2040 swells to 31
Amazon has welcomed the most high-profile batch of new signatories yet to its Climate Pledge, with tech giant rival Microsoft and consumer goods multinational Unilever among 13 new members joining the corporate climate initiative.
Other big names revealed yesterday to have joined the Climate Pledge, which commits signatories to achieving net zero emissions by 2040, include Coca-Cola's largest bottler Coca Cola European Partners, Finnish oil refining company Neste, French consulting firm Atos, and UK media group ITV.
Tech company Rubicon, UK property firm Canary Wharf Group, Canadian airline Harbour Air, and UK sustainability consultancy ERM are also among the latest batch of inductees.
Companies that commit to the pledge must agree to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis, cut carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement through "real business changes", and only use high-quality offsets to deal with any lingering emissions that cannot be addressed through direct reductions, according to Amazon.
"There are now 31 companies from around the world that have signed the Climate Pledge, and collectively we are sending an important signal to the market that there is significant and rapidly growing demand for technologies that can help us build a zero-carbon economy," said Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in a statement.
After taking nine months to secure its first three corporate signatories, membership of Amazon's Climate Pledge has swelled in recent months. Yesterday's announcement comes a week after a number of transport companies - including ride sharing firms Uber and Cabify and electric vehicle start-up Rivian - signed up to the initiative.
Lucas Joppa, chief environment officer at Microsoft, said corporate collaboration would be key to fighting the climate crisis. "No one company or organisation can meaningfully address the climate crisis on their own," he said. "It will take aggressive approaches, new innovative technologies and strong commitment to collaboration across industries and economic sectors. By joining the Climate Pledge community and working together, we will be able to collectively rise to the challenge and curb our emissions so that we can make progress toward a net zero future."
The move follows Microsoft's landmark commitment earlier this year to become a carbon negative company by 2030, and to remove all the emissions the company has ever produced directly by mid-century.
Rebecca Marmot, chief sustainability officer at Unilever said the firm - which committed to achieve net zero emissions from all its products by 2039 earlier this year - was "delighted" to be working with Amazon and NGO Global Optimism on the Climate Pledge. "With the rest of the Climate Pledge community, we look forward to raising the bar for ambitious collective action on the most urgent challenge of our time," she said.