As part of its commitment to the newly formed Climate Pledge, Amazon has ordered 100,000 fully electric delivery vehicles from U.S.-based electric vehicle (EV) company Rivian.
Amazon plans to have 10,000 of the new EVs on the road as early as 2022 and all 100,000 on the road by 2030 – saving 4 million metric tons of carbon per year by 2030, Amazon estimates.
Rivian has headquarters in Plymouth, Mich., and a manufacturing plant in Normal, Ill. Amazon previously announced a $400 million investment in the company, and earlier this year, Rivian secured a $500 million investment from Ford Motor Co.
Amazon is targeting 80% renewable energy by 2024 and 100% renewable energy by 2030 on its path to net-zero carbon by 2040. Amazon and Global Optimism are co-founding The Climate Pledge, which calls on signatories to be net-zero carbon across their businesses by 2040 – a decade ahead of the Paris Accord’s goal of 2050.
“We’re done being in the middle of the herd on this issue; we’ve decided to use our size and scale to make a difference,” says Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO. “If a company with as much physical infrastructure as Amazon, which delivers more than 10 billion items a year, can meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early, then any company can. I’ve been talking with other CEOs of global companies, and I’m finding a lot of interest in joining the pledge. Large companies signing The Climate Pledge will send an important signal to the market that it’s time to invest in the products and services the signatories will need to meet their commitments.”
Why wait until 2030. We have solutions right now. The emission problem is NOW! There are CNG stations close to Amazon warehouses today across the US. The natural gas station owners will build to accommodate Amazon today. Let’s start today, why wait. All this feel good press does not address the current situation of air pollution.