An Amazon.com Inc. Mercedes-Benz AG electric vehicle at a BP Plc Pulse charging station in Milton ... [+]
With the transportation sector causing 28% of the U.S.’ CO2 emissions, Amazon wants to take the lead — to invest in companies that ratchet down the heat-trapping emissions and to consume their products. Its most recent investment is in Infinium — a company that converts carbon dioxide and hydrogen feedstocks into net-zero carbon fuels for use in today's air transport, marine freight, and heavy truck fleets.
It’s all part of Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund — sourced initially with $2 billion to help Amazon and other carbon-conscious companies become net-zero by 2040. The fund is investing in visionary businesses, which extend beyond transportation and into Amazon’s other touchpoints such as energy generation, manufacturing, buildings, materials, and food and agriculture. To this end, Amazon is leveraging its relationships in the market with other high-profile enterprises such as IBM
“If any company wants to get to net-zero today, not all the technologies exist today,” Matt Peterson, director of new initiatives and corporate development for Amazon, told this writer. “The technologies might be early-state or not-yet scaled. The Climate Pledge Fund’s purpose is to invest in those technologies that will help Amazon and others get to net-zero by spurring the innovation. We are trying to invest in the future. Amazon will be a customer of some of the companies we invest in.”
Amazon established the Climate Pledge Fund in June 2020, although the “pledge” was announced a year earlier. It establishes a framework and path forward for those businesses to follow. To be a co-signatory, enterprises must commit to being net-zero by 2040 and to report regularly their CO2 emissions — transparently and clearly. The ultimate goal is the elimination of CO2 releases. But if this is not possible, then each co-signer must agree to credible offsets, which in effect means companies will achieve “net-zero” emissions.
Consider the investment in Infinium: While Amazon’s ultimate goal is to electrify its vehicle fleet, it must still reduce the emissions associated with long-haul trucking, shipping, and aviation by relying on low-carbon alternatives. Infinium, for example, uses CO2 and hydrogen as raw ingredients to create liquid fuels. It allows Amazon to utilize its present infrastructure. Still, it is not extracting fossil fuels. It is using captured carbon. And it is working on green hydrogen — a zero-emissions energy source that relies on wind and solar power to create a pure hydrogen source to turn that into electricity through electrolysis.
This “is a huge vote of confidence for the promise of electro-fuels and our technology's ability to scale to meet today's urgent climate challenges,” says Robert Schuetzle, chief executive of Infinium. “We expect that current projects under development will be the first broad-scale utilization of electro-fuels by commercial vehicles, harmonizing hydrogen utilization and waste carbon capture.” Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Neuman & Esser, and the Grantham Environmental Trust also have an interest.
The Pull
Amazon
Rivian, for example, is an electric vehicle maker and one that supports Amazon’s “last-mile” deliveries to homes and businesses. Amazon is not just investing in it. It has also agreed to buy 100,000 of these cars. It will have 10,000 on the road by 2022 and the rest by 2030. CarbonCure produces low-carbon cement. Besides taking a stake in the company, Amazon is its biggest customer — using its product to build its Virginia-based headquarters.
As part of Amazon’s overall effort, it wants to fully power its operations with renewable energy by 2025. Right now, it has 187 renewable energy projects across the globe that can generate more than 6,500 megawatts. That includes 62 utility-scale solar and wind projects, it says, and 125 on-site solar systems.
With that, Amazon is part of the Science Based Targets initiative. A science-based target is when a company sets its personal goals in line with the best available science, all to limit global temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius from the pre-industrial era. Roughly 400 companies are using the standard, including Xerox Corp.
“What keeps me up at night?” Peterson asks. “Twenty years is not a lot of time to hit net-zero — from an investment standpoint as well as all of the work we have to do at Amazon and with the co-signatories. We are optimistic and know we can do it. We have our work cut out for us.”
Amazon is leading by example and influencing others. It is building a coalition of like-minded companies, all of which aim to reduce their CO2 emissions and to get promising technologies to market — efforts that could trickle down to those businesses without such deep pockets. The Climate Pledge Fund is a catalyst that could spearhead the growth of tomorrow’s technologies and green businesses.
