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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?
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General inquiries
The Climate Pledge is a commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040—a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement’s goal of 2050. 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 global companies working together to address the climate crisis and solve the challenge of decarbonizing our economy.
Signatories of The Climate Pledge agree to three principal areas of action:
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, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement.
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.
Scientists tell us that we have a limited window to make unprecedented headway towards limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. 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.
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 first signatory of The Climate Pledge, which calls on companies to commit to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. Amazon continues to work to reduce emissions across its operations to reach net-zero by 2040, as well as encourage other companies to join them in signing the Pledge to accelerate their goals, plans, and programs to address the urgency of climate change.
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 The Climate Pledge community, and provides access to expertise across teams, industries, and NGO partners so that Amazon and signatories of The Climate Pledge can continue to accelerate action and meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early.
Visit the Signatories page to see the current list of signatories to The Climate Pledge.
No, there is not a fee or any cost to join The Climate Pledge.
Becoming a signatory to The Climate Pledge means a company commits to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement. 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, such as Race to Zero, the We Mean Business Coalition, and TED Countdown, and we welcome the potential for future collaborations.
The Climate Pledge defines net-zero carbon as:
Make significant and transformative emissions reductions
Available climate models say that reaching net-zero emissions will require a drastic reduction in carbon emissions. Emissions mitigation activities will vary by business sector and the individual business. For most, this will mean addressing emissions associated with:
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 low-carbon technologies to reduce their direct and indirect footprints. Still, getting to zero carbon by reducing all emissions is not possible for the vast majority of companies. For remaining emissions, Climate Pledge signatories should invest in credible 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.
Scientists tell us that we have a limited window to make unprecedented headway towards the biggest environmental and societal impact we can have: stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius of global temperature rise. 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 emissions by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement, is the right thing to do for our planet and our businesses.
Becoming a signatory
Signatories and partners of The Climate Pledge become part of a fast-growing global collective of businesses and companies that have agreed to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
Those who join the Pledge also receive:
To begin the process of becoming a signatory of The Climate Pledge, please complete this form. Once completed, you will receive an email with a video that details more information about the process of signing. Additionally, you will complete a short questionnaire that will help our team assess if The Climate Pledge is the right fit for your company. We will process your inquiry within approximately 1-2 weeks, and will be in touch for more information if necessary. Once approved, we will send additional details and a template letter to be signed by a C-Suite executive within your company. Once we receive your letter, you will be confirmed as a signatory.
Yes. However, you must commit to measuring and reporting within one year of signing the Pledge. Measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions on an annual basis is one of the three principal areas of action that companies must agree to when signing up for The Climate Pledge. We firmly believe that a company must map and measure its own carbon footprint before it can start the hard work of identifying ways to make real business change to achieve net-zero goals. The Climate Pledge provides expert guidance on measuring and reporting inside Passport Academy, an on-demand learning resource with courses just for signatories. In addition, companies that have not yet measured and/or reported emissions within 12 months of signing the Pledge will be eligible to join a Climate Pledge Accelerator Program, so that the Pledge team can work with those companies to ensure they start regularly and transparently reporting emissions.
Yes, we welcome companies that have an existing net-zero carbon goal of 2040 or earlier, and/or already participate in other climate commitments.
We believe setting a science-based target is a best practice, however it is not a requirement to join.
Companies anywhere in the world, with 20 or more employees, are eligible to join The Climate Pledge, provided they agree to the commitments of the Pledge.
At this time, companies with fewer than 20 employees are not eligible to join the Pledge. However, we strongly encourage them to review and register for the SME Climate Hub —our trusted partners for companies that have fewer than 20 employees. The Hub provides resources for small and medium-sized enterprises to make climate commitments and access tools and resources to take concrete steps towards climate action across multiple pathways. These resources can help you get on the pathway to create realistic and meaningful decarbonization targets, and support the goals of The Climate Pledge.
Commitments & accountability
Signatories to The Climate Pledge commit to measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis. Signatories should report publicly and follow reporting best practices to achieve accountability to their stakeholders. All publicly traded companies are expected to report emissions annually and it is recommended that small and medium sized, as well as privately held companies, also report annually. The Climate Pledge has partnered with existing, leading organizations such as CDP, a not-for-profit charity that runs a global platform for ESG disclosure for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts, and can refer signatories to more information on how to get started working with CDP.
Yes, signatories are required to report their emissions regularly and transparently according to the guidelines of The Climate Pledge.
Signatories commit to net-zero by 2040 across all emissions scopes. The scopes covered in a company’s target setting are defined by the company, with the strong encouragement to utilize an existing best practice target setting methodology.
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 made clear that, even in global scenarios consistent with stabilizing temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, 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 outside of their value chains in ways that significantly contribute to the collective goal of achieving the Paris Agreement goals by mid-century. 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 mitigation 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.
Related initiatives
The Climate Pledge Fund is a $2 billion venture investment program that will support the development of sustainable technologies and services that will enable Amazon to meet net-zero carbon through The Climate Pledge. The Climate Pledge Fund considers investing in companies in multiple industries, including transportation and logistics; energy generation, storage and utilization; manufacturing and materials; circular economy; and food and agriculture. Companies of all sizes and stages will be considered, from pre-product startups to well-established enterprises looking to scale. The unifying theme around each investment is its potential to lower Amazon’s carbon emissions and increase overall sustainability.
Visit The Climate Pledge Fund page to learn more or make an inquiry.
Amazon introduced the Climate Pledge Friendly program to help make it easy for customers to discover and shop for more sustainable products.
Visit amazon.com/climatepledgefriendly to learn more about the Climate Pledge Friendly program.
Passport
Passport is a private online community for signatories of the Pledge that provides practical tools and industry expert connections to help companies achieve their net-zero carbon emissions goals. Learn more about Passport.
Only signatories and partners of the Pledge can access Passport and the exclusive content that’s available for members inside.
No, there is no cost or any fee to use Passport.
Invited members at signatory companies will receive an email with their credentials and a link to the sign in page.
If you haven’t received your sign in credentials a few business days prior to the official launch, reach out to your point of contact on The Climate Pledge team. Each signatory will be allocated access for up to five users in Passport. Additional users may be requested as needed by your company’s designated point of contact.
To sign in to Passport, you must first become a signatory. We invite you to learn more about the Pledge and to get started by filling out our online form.
Passport Academy is an on-demand learning resource with courses just for signatories. Get started on Passport.
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