Amazon is buying up energy production capacity from solar and wind plants around the world in a bid to power all its business activities through renewable energy by 2025.
The Seattle-based e-tailing giant headed by Jeff Bezos said Wednesday it committed to buy 1.5 gigawatts of production capacity — enough to power 500,000 homes — from 14 new wind and solar projects in North America and Europe.
Wednesday’s purchases bring Amazon’s total renewable energy purchases to 10 gigawatts, making the company the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the US.
But Amazon has a long way to go before it reaches its goal of net-zero emissions. The company had a carbon footprint of about 51.2 million metric tons in 2019, according to its sustainability report — roughly equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of the entire country of Singapore.
Concerns about Amazon’s environmental impact resurfaced this week after a report alleged that an Amazon warehouse in Scotland destroys millions of unused products each year — including laptops, jewelry and books. A spokesperson for the company said that no waste from the warehouse is sent to a landfill.
Yet Bezos, who is getting ready to resign as CEO next month and blast into space, insisted in a Wednesday statement that his company is doing right by its home planet.
“Our investments in wind and solar energy in the US and around the world send a signal that investing in green technologies is the right thing to do for the planet and citizens —as well as for the long-term success of businesses of all sizes across all industries everywhere,” he said.
Amazon’s 11 new projects in the US are include solar sites in Arkansas, Mississippi and Pennsylvania. The company also announced new solar and wind projects in Canada, Spain and Finland, bringing Amazon’s total global number of renewable energy projects to 232.
Amazon is not the only company to double-down on renewable energy. Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Google parent company Alphabet together account for 30 percent of all corporate purchases of renewable energy worldwide, the Wall Street Journal reported.