Amazon’s new “Climate Pledge Friendly” badge identifies more sustainable products.
James Martin/CNET
Amazon customers looking for a greener online shopping experience now have an easier way to identify more ecologically sustainable products. On Wednesday, Amazon announced the rollout of its new “Climate Pledge Friendly” label, that will highlight items that have been certified by a wide range of partners as sustainable products.
The online retailer also created a dedicated storefront for the program, which lets shoppers either browse by category or search for specific products bearing the green label. Amazon said the badge can already be found on about 25,000 listings.
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A number of outside organizations partnered with Amazon to certify these products as sustainable, including EnergyStar, Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance. Amazon also created its own program, called “Compact by Design,” to highlight products whose designs are more sustainable even if the items themselves don’t appear particularly eco-friendly.
“Climate Pledge Friendly is a simple way for customers to discover more sustainable products that help preserve the natural world,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in a release. “With 18 external certification programs and our own Compact by Design certification, we’re incentivizing selling partners to create sustainable products that help protect the planet for future generations.”
Amazon has been working to expand its green initiatives, with Bezos in September 2019 unveiling the company’s Climate Pledge, an array of programs with the overarching goal of making Amazon net zero carbon by 2040. As part of the effort, Amazon earlier this year started the $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund, a venture capital fund that’ll invest in companies that develop ways to reduce carbon emissions.
During an event on Thursday, Amazon also unveiled an energy dashboard for consumers to see the energy consumption of their Echo and Alexa-compatible smart home devices. Alexa will be able to use this information to suggest features that can help save energy, said Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, during the event. Limp added that Amazon is building new wind and solar farms to match the electricity used by Echo devices, so the company can put the “same amount of clean energy back into the grid that’s being used by the devices themselves.”
Amazon’s Climate Pledge Friendly program comes just one day after CNET reported the date for Prime Day 2020, which will kick off on Oct. 13. The annual shopping event, which usually takes place in July, was delayed this year amid the coronavirus pandemic.
