The Climate Pledge Fund is a division of
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...
, set up to develop and manage investments in the climate technology space, as part of its Climate Pledge initiative. It is a
corporate venture capital
Corporate venture capital (CVC) is the investment of corporate funds directly in external startup companies.Chesbrough, Henry''Making Sense of Corporate Venture Capital''. Harvard Business Review, 2002. CVC is defined by the Business Dictionary a ...
fund.
History
The Climate Pledge Fund was founded in June 2020 to make investments into early-stage companies focused on decarbonizing or sustainable technologies and services. As of December 2021, Matt Peterson, director, corporate new initiatives, and Kara Hurst, vice president and head of sustainability, lead the fund.
Amazon used the fund as the
naming rights
Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization where a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event (most often sports venues), typical ...
sponsor of
Climate Pledge Arena
Climate Pledge Arena is a multi-purpose indoor arena in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is located north of downtown Seattle in the entertainment complex known as the Seattle Center, the site of the 1962 World's Fair, for which it was ...
, a sports and entertainment venue in Seattle that opened in 2021. The venue was designed with environmentally-friendly features and aimed to have
net-zero emissions
Global net-zero emissions is reached when greenhouse gas emissions and removals due to human activities are in balance. It is often called simply net zero. ''Emissions'' can refer to all greenhouse gases or only carbon dioxide (). Reaching net ze ...
.
Notable investments
*
BETA Technologies
Beta Technologies (stylized as BETA Technologies), is a South Burlington, Vermont-based aerospace manufacturer developing electric vertical take off and landing (eVTOL) and electric conventional take-off and landing (eCTOL) aircraft for the car ...
- Electric vertical aircraft manufacturer
*
CarbonCure Technologies - Lower carbon concrete manufacturer
*
Redwood Materials - process & technologies for recycling lithium-ion batteries and producing battery materials from recovered elements
*
Rivian
Rivian Automotive, Inc., is an American electric vehicle manufacturer and automotive technology company founded in 2009. Rivian produces an electric sport utility vehicle (SUV), a pickup truck on a Skateboard (automotive platform), "skateboard" ...
- electric vehicle automaker
*
Turntide Technologies - optimal efficiency motor technologies for building controls (e.g. ventilation, lighting)
*
ZeroAvia
ZeroAvia is a British/American hydrogen-electric aircraft developer. The company was founded in 2017 by Valery Miftakhov, who currently serves as the company CEO. ZeroAvia is developing hydrogen-fueled powertrain technology aiming to compete w ...
- share-haul hydrogen-electric aircraft
See also
* Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund
*
Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Breakthrough Energy is the umbrella name of several organizations, founded by Bill Gates in 2015, that aim to accelerate innovation in sustainable energy and in other technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It has been investing in a var ...
* Elemental Excelerator's Earthshot Ventures Fund
* VertueLab's Climate Impact Fund
* Decarbon8-US
References
External links
The Climate Pledge's Website
{{Amazon
Amazon (company)