Amazon’s fleet is electrifying! The company is thrilled to announce the largest order of electric delivery vehicles in the history. The company ordered 10,000 electric delivery vehicles on 19 September 2019 from Rivian, an electric-vehicle startup that is focusing on trucks and SUVs. This order is a part of Climate Pledge of the Amazon which is aimed at reaching zero net carbon emissions by 2040. Amazon aims at using 80% renewable energy by 2024 and 100% by 2030.
Do you wonder, what was the reason to take this step? More than 1,000 employees of the Amazon in Seattle planned to walk out Friday (20 September 2019) as part of the Global Climate Strike. And more than 8,200 have signed an open letter to Jeffrey Preston Bezos, CEO of Amazon, in April, to lower the carbon footprint of the company.
Three demands by the staff that organized a walkout
- Amazon should stop donating to politicians and lobbying groups that deny the reality of climate change
- Amazon should stop working with oil and gas companies for optimizing fossil fuel extraction
- Amazon should achieve zero carbon emissions by 2030.
More than 15,500 employees walked off the job for protesting the pollution by the company as well as the support of fossil fuel companies and climate deniers. They walked out on 20 September 2019 and pledged to join massive demonstrations around the world ahead of a United Nations summit on climate action that is taking place in New York City on 23rd September 2019.
It is for the first time that the employees of Amazon have decided to walk out of the job. This forced the CEO of the company to make plans for making Amazon carbon neutral in the future soon. The CEO announced a new commitment for fighting the climate change, The Climate Pledge. As a part of this plan, Jeffrey Preston Bezos commits to measure and report the emission by the company on a regular basis. Jeffrey Preston Bezos announced that the first electric delivery vans will be on the road by 2021, and around 100,000 vehicles will be deployed by 2024.
With this step, the company is aimed at meeting the Paris agreement’s climate goals 10 years earlier that aims the entire world to become carbon-neutral by 2050.
Emission reduction is one of the major challenges for retail giants. Amazon with enormous physical infrastructure for delivering packages, delivers around 10 billion items every year and possesses a massive transportation and data center footprint, hopes to reduce emissions by using electric vans for the delivery of packages.
