The Climate Pledge is a commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040. Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge with Global Optimism in 2019, and became the first company to sign the Pledge. The Climate Pledge is a cross-sector community of companies working together to address the climate crisis and solve the challenge of decarbonizing our economy.
Popular questions
General inquiries
Why did Amazon and Global Optimism create The Climate Pledge?
Commitments & accountability
Are signatories of The Climate Pledge held accountable for their commitments?
Commitments & accountability
What emissions scopes do signatories to The Climate Pledge need to mitigate?
Related initiatives
What is the Climate Pledge Friendly program?
Topics
General inquiries
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Signatories of The Climate Pledge agree to three principal areas of action:
Measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis;
Implement decarbonization strategies through real business changes and innovations, including efficiency improvements, renewable energy, materials reductions, and other carbon emission elimination strategies;
Neutralize any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially-beneficial offsets to achieve net-zero annual carbon emissions by 2040.
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The Climate Pledge defines net-zero carbon as:
Reducing emissions across a company’s own operations and value chain to the greatest extent possible.
Neutralizing any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially-beneficial offsets.
Make significant and transformative emissions reductions
Available climate models say that reaching net-zero will require a drastic reduction in emissions across corporate value chains. Emissions mitigation activities will vary by business sector and the individual business. For most, this will mean addressing emissions associated with:
Energy use and sourcing
Manufacturing and production
Product design and materials use
Transportation and logistics
Supplier and customer engagement
Neutralize any remaining emissions
Signatories should prioritize implementing real business changes in their operations and value chain, including energy and materials efficiency, renewable energy generation, and other lower-carbon technologies to reduce their direct and indirect footprints. Still, getting to net-zero carbon by reducing all emissions is not possible for the vast majority of companies. For remaining emissions, Climate Pledge signatories should invest in high-integrity nature-based and technological solutions outside of their value chain. The current voluntary carbon market offers many options but not all are meaningful and effective. The Climate Pledge supports efforts that measurably expand sequestration capacity, achieve permanent emissions removal from the atmosphere, and have an effect within the timeframe of the Pledge.
For information on Amazon’s approach to carbon neutralization, see here. -
Visit the Signatories page to see the current list of companies that have signed The Climate Pledge.
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No, there is no cost to join The Climate Pledge.
Signatory Benefits
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Signatories of The Climate Pledge become part of a fast-growing global collective of businesses and companies that have agreed to reach net-zero carbon by 2040 and receive many exclusive benefits to support their progress, including:
Joint Action Projects: Help tackle some of the planet’s biggest climate change challenges alongside the best in the business. Signatories have come together to innovate, collaborate, and scale solutions that lead to measurable results. View the full list of projects at theclimatepledge.com/jointaction
Cohorts: Cohorts give our signatories a focused, collaborative space to develop solutions to shared challenges and make progress toward our net-zero goals. Current Cohorts include Supply Chain Decarbonization Cohort, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) Cohort and Science Club. Learn more at theclimatepledge.com/cohorts
Amazon’s Carbon Credit Service: Signatories of The Climate Pledge receive exclusive discounts on high-quality carbon neutralization and inset credits to complement their decarbonization work. Learn more about carbon credits on the Sustainability Exchange.
Marketing Opportunities: As a signatory of The Climate Pledge, companies gain access to a robust, integrated marketing and storytelling ecosystem designed to elevate their sustainability leadership and accelerate engagement with priority audiences including The Climate Pledge’s owned channels, email and newsletter placements, website features, and editorial storytelling opportunities. Our team works to spotlight meaningful signatory progress and innovations through articles, videos, and campaign storytelling.
Events: The Climate Pledge offers signatories exclusive opportunities to attend and participate in global events focused on climate action and innovation. These include our tentpole gatherings, such as The Climate Pledge Hubs at London Climate Action Week and Climate Week NYC, as well as other major industry events or climate moments. At these events, signatories may be invited to take on speaking roles, sponsorships, and leadership opportunities that highlight their organization’s commitment to advancing climate solutions.
Tools and Resources: Access to videos guides, toolkits and other educational resources. Signatories also get access to other influential professionals in roles at top companies all over the world.
Becoming a signatory
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To begin the process of becoming a signatory of The Climate Pledge, please complete this form after watching the short video outlining the Pledge’s commitments. After submitting the form, you’ll receive an email with a brief questionnaire to help our team determine whether The Climate Pledge is the right fit for your company.
We typically review inquiries within 1–2 weeks and may reach out for additional information if needed. Once your application is approved, we’ll send you further details and a letter template to be signed by a C-suite executive at your company. After we receive the signed letter, your company will be officially recognized as a signatory.
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Yes. Companies that have not yet measured or reported their carbon emissions are still eligible to join The Climate Pledge. Upon signing, you commit to measuring and publicly reporting your greenhouse gas emissions within 18 months. Annual measurement and reporting of emissions is one of the three core commitments of The Climate Pledge. We believe that understanding your carbon footprint is a foundational step toward identifying meaningful opportunities to reduce emissions and achieve net-zero goals. If you need guidance on where to start, our team can provide information on best practices.
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Yes, we welcome companies that have an existing net-zero carbon goal of 2040 or earlier, and/or already participate in other climate commitments.
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We believe setting a science-based target is a best practice, however it is not a requirement to join.
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Organizations joining The Climate Pledge must be in the private sector and commit to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 and advancing meaningful decarbonization across their operations and value chains.
Eligible organizations
Companies that commit to the three pillars of The Climate Pledge: measuring and reporting emissions, implementing decarbonization strategies, and neutralizing residual emissions with high-quality offsets.
Companies that have been operating for at least two years and have at least one commercially available product or service.
Organizations requiring additional vetting
Some organizations may undergo additional review as part of the application process, including:
Companies in hard-to-abate sectors (e.g., fossil fuels, mining, aviation, cement, energy utilities, and some financial services), which must demonstrate strong and credible decarbonization and reporting plans.
Companies with fewer than 20 employees, to ensure they have the capacity and resources to support the long-term commitment of achieving net-zero carbon by 2040.
Commitments & accountability
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Signatories are expected to regularly and publicly report on their emissions across all scopes, either through a sustainability or similar report published on their website, or through a public disclosure platform such as CDP. We ask that signatories use best practices aligned to the GHG Protocol Corporate Standards to achieve accountability to their stakeholders.
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Yes, signatories are required to publicly report their emissions on an annual basis according to the guidelines of The Climate Pledge. Companies not already measuring and reporting their emissions when they sign the Pledge must do so within 18 months of joining. The Climate Pledge performs regular reviews of participation based on this requirement.
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has declared that the world needs to reach net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. At the same time, the IPCC has noted that significant carbon emissions from several sectors of the economy will not be fully abated by 2050. In other words, even with aggressive decarbonization efforts, companies will need to step outside of their own value chains to net out some portion of emissions to reach zero by mid-century.
Pledge signatories can drastically reduce their own emissions while also investing beyond their value chains in actions that drive collective, economy-wide emissions reductions. By doing both, we can increase our positive impact to mitigate the effects of global climate change. To do this right, it will take principled leadership, innovation, open collaboration, and a new level of accountability for businesses, governments, and partners who participate in this work.
Carbon removals or reductions outside of a company’s value chain should be additional, quantifiable, real, permanent and socially-beneficial, and signatories are encouraged to ensure offsets are verified and registered with a third-party verification standard.
The Climate Pledge will seek to engage and align with leading initiatives in developing more detailed positions on outside-value chain action, as those develop and evolve.
Additional Background
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Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge with Global Optimism in 2019. The two agreed to join forces by launching The Climate Pledge, a platform for signatories to work together on ambitious actions to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
The list of Signatories is constantly growing—sending an important signal that there will be rapid growth in demand for products and services that help reduce carbon emissions.
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Scientists tell us that urgent and sustained action is needed this decade to address climate change and reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. No one company can do this on its own and everyone must do their part—business does not operate in a vacuum. The Climate Pledge community together is a whole-economy approach, which can influence vast value chains and supply chains to make real business changes feasible more rapidly. Together, we can send demand signals that help deliver the products, policies, goods and services that are needed to tackle the climate crisis.
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Amazon is a global company with operations across e-commerce, cloud computing, consumer products and devices, digital streaming, grocery, and more. Amazon co-founded and was the first signatory of The Climate Pledge. In addition to advancing its own work to reach net-zero carbon by 2040, Amazon funds The Climate Pledge program, including the operational management of the initiative and the resources, tools, events, and engagement opportunities provided to signatories. Through The Climate Pledge, Amazon also works to encourage and support other companies in accelerating their climate goals, plans, and programs to address the urgency of climate change.
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Global Optimism is a purpose-driven organization that exists to catalyze transformative actions in our world. The organization co-founded The Climate Pledge and is led by two founding partners: Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief and Tom Rivett-Carnac, former political strategist at the UNFCCC, who together oversaw the delivery of the historic Paris Agreement, the first global accord on climate change. Global Optimism helps build and manage The Climate Pledge community, delivers programming to signatories and provides access to expertise across teams, industries, and NGO partners so that signatories of The Climate Pledge can continue to accelerate action.
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Becoming a signatory to The Climate Pledge means a company commits to reaching net-zero carbon by 2040. The Climate Pledge seeks to bring together a group of companies that are prepared to move faster and inspire greater climate action. The team works with a range of partners to highlight The Climate Pledge as an ambitious standard of commitment and to accelerate collaborative action, such as the We Mean Business Coalition, Smart Freight Centre, and Clean Energy Buyers Alliance, and we welcome the potential for future collaborations.
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Scientists tell us that we have a limited window to make meaningful progress in addressing the impacts of climate change and reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world would have to curb its carbon emissions by at least half by 2030 and then achieve net-zero by 2050 to meet this target. Through The Climate Pledge, signatories believe that accelerating action to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040; is the right thing to do for our planet and our businesses.
Related initiatives
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The Climate Pledge Fund is a $2 billion venture investment program supporting the advancement of sustainability-focused technologies and services that enable Amazon to meet our net-zero carbon goal. It specifically targets hard-to-abate sectors for investment, with the goal of supporting companies building breakthrough solutions that could eventually lower the overall cost to decarbonize Amazon and the broader industry. Visit The Climate Pledge Fund page to learn more or make an inquiry.
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Amazon introduced the Climate Pledge Friendly program to help customers discover and shop for products with sustainability features. Visit amazon.com/climatepledgefriendly to learn more about the Climate Pledge Friendly program.
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