Washington (AFP)
The online retail giant Amazon announced Tuesday the creation of an investment fund with $ 2 billion to finance companies that will achieve "a zero carbon economy".
"The Climate Pledge Fund should allow the development of technologies and services that will allow Amazon and other companies to become carbon neutral by 2040," the company said in a statement.
Amazon manages a gigantic logistics network around the world for its deliveries but has also developed a dematerialized IT offer, based on server farms that consume large amounts of energy.
The group made a commitment last year to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040, sometimes meeting the skepticism of organizations fighting against climate change due to the company's very large carbon footprint.
Businesses of all sizes - from start-ups to already established companies - and around the world will be eligible to receive funding.
"The Climate Pledge Fund will invest in companies from different sectors including transport, logistics, production, storage or the use of energy but also the manufacturing and materials sector, the circular economy and food, "said Amazon.
The company has indicated that it plans to let other companies that have partnered with the carbon neutrality initiative announced last year participate in the investment fund.
In its 2019 report on sustainability commitments, Amazon also claimed to be ahead of its original plan to use only renewable energy.
The company plans to achieve 100% renewable energy consumed in 2025, 5 years before the date originally announced in its promise for the climate.
Google, also one of the big cloud, has only used renewable energy for several years, while Microsoft has committed to show a negative carbon footprint by 2030.
Amazon said telecom operator Verizon, Reckitt-Benckiser, the household products group, as well as Infosys, an IT development company, had recently joined this initiative, launched in the fall of 2019 with great support from advertisement by Jeff Bezos, the owner and founder of Amazon.
The Covid-19 pandemic has placed the fight against climate change in the background.
Overall, average temperatures for the past five and ten years have been the highest ever.
Since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization published in January, which expects the trend to continue.
According to the specialized agency of the UN, the annual global temperature in 2019 exceeded the average recorded in pre-industrial times (1850-1900) by 1.1 ° C.
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