We are excited to announce that we are expanding our partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a global philanthropic organization dedicated to building a circular economy. As a strategic partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Network, we will combine Amazon’s technology, innovation capabilities, and extensive reach with the Foundation’s subject matter expertise to launch and scale circular economy initiatives that address various global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss. The circular economy aims to decouple economic activity from the consumption of finite resources, eliminate waste and pollution, and keep products and materials in circulation while regenerating nature.
At Amazon, we are committed to sustainability, and the circular economy is one of our priorities across all areas of our business, from packaging to products to data centers. In 2019, we co-founded the Climate Pledge with a goal to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. Collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation aims to develop a third-party certification body that recognizes the important circularity characteristics of products, encourages intentional designs that support circularity, and rewards such designs.
Our goal is to provide customers with the information they need to make more cyclical choices when purchasing products. We encourage original equipment manufacturers, retailers, suppliers, and e-commerce platforms to create products designed according to circular economy principles. We offer several certifications, such as the Recycled Content Standard for Electrical and Electronic Equipment, which verifies the total percentage of recycled materials in products against established minimum performance standards.
Our Climate Pledge Friendly Program allows customers to find more sustainable products by labeling products with sustainability certifications. We will continue researching circularity certification with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and encourage its adoption to establish industry-wide standards. Additionally, the Foundation’s Plastics Initiative is working on expanding returnable packaging systems, and we are supporting this work with analytical modeling to show that enhanced reuse systems are more effective than single-use packaging.
According to Rich Loretto, Director of Circular Economy at Amazon, “A commitment to the circular economy is essential to addressing climate change. As with pledge goals, and many aspects of sustainability, industry standards and collaboration are also essential.” Joe Murphy, Executive Lead of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Network, believes that the success of any circular economy initiative relies on collaboration, adoption, and scale. We look forward to collaborating with the Climate Pledge signatories and other businesses to share ideas, opportunities, and research to transition to a circular economy.
To learn more about Amazon’s commitment to sustainability, please visit our website.