Amazon is launching a new environmental program called Climate Pledge Friendly that will label certain products that meet one of 19 certifications for sustainability. The goal is to help climate-conscious consumers make a better decision about whether to buy one product over another by letting them know when a brand has made an effort to reduce its carbon footprint. Amazon says more than 25,000 products should now display the program’s label.
“Climate Pledge Friendly selection includes grocery, household, fashion, beauty, and personal electronics products, as well as items from a range of other categories,” reads Amazon’s press release. “Climate Pledge Friendly products are clearly labeled in shopping results, have additional sustainability information on the product page, and are featured in a dedicated section of our store. Amazon has partnered with trusted third-party certifications, and customers will be able to discover sustainable products that meet sustainability standards that help preserve the natural world.”
Amazon has its own reasons to support environmental efforts: the company is one of the largest logistics operators in the world, shipping billions of packages each year and using astronomical amounts of cardboard and packaging materials as a result. That’s in addition to the climate effects of its ever-expanding delivery network, which includes scores of cars, trucks, airplanes, cargo freighters, and other forms of package transportation. The company’s operations have only grown in size since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, too. So it makes sense that Amazon would want to invest in efforts and programs that help reduce the environmental effects of its business and those of the brands that sell on its platform.
“Climate Pledge Friendly is a simple way for customers to discover more sustainable products that help preserve the natural world,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement. “With 18 external certification programs and our own Compact by Design certification, we’re incentivizing selling partners to create sustainable products that help protect the planet for future generations.” The Compact by Design certification is a new complimentary program that aims to promote products that are more efficiently designed and, as a result, require fewer resources to ship. It will be one of the 19 certifications that will make a product eligible for Climate Pledge Friendly.
In June, Amazon launched a $2 billion climate change fund to invest in technologies that can reduce greenhouse gases as part of the Climate Pledge commitment it introduced in last year that includes a promise to be carbon-neutral by 2040. Bezos, the world’s richest person with a net worth of $185 billion, also separately announced a $10 billion back in February dedicating to combating climate change.
