Environment activist Wendell Berry once said, “The earth is what we all have in common.” Over at Amazon, we recognize this common cause. We are also cognizant of the fact that environment and clean energy initiatives need entire communities to come together and work together. At Amazon India, we take our role as part of this community very seriously and have continuously strived to light up rural lives with renewable energy, clean lakes, and decrease our carbon footprint by a significant margin.
At Amazon, we are putting our scale and our inventive culture to work on sustainability and protecting the environment. We are committed to and invested in this work because it’s a triple win – it’s good for business, good for the planet, and good for our customers and communities.
Going green
This year, on the occasion of World Environment Day, we are further sealing our commitment to the cause of clean environment and clean energy. We are doing this by making a significant investment in clean energy generation through solar panel installations on the rooftops of our fulfillment centres and sortation sites in India. Amazon’s initiatives in India, in line with its commitment to the environment include installations of large-scale solar panel systems at 8 fulfillment centres and 2 sortation centres. This investment will help Amazon India generate close to 10 MM units of solar energy by the end of the 2019 to support the annual energy needs of these buildings, reducing dependency on conventional sources of energy. These investments are part of Amazon’s long-term goal to power our global infrastructure using 100% renewable energy.
Protecting the environment
With this large-scale solar initiative, Amazon India is stepping up its partnership with the Government of India in the latter’s commitment to generate 100 GW of solar power by 2022. Akhil Saxena, Vice President, Customer Fulfillment, Amazon India, said, “At Amazon, we are putting our scale and our inventive culture to work on sustainability and protecting the environment. We are committed to and invested in this work because it’s a triple win – it’s good for business, good for the planet, and good for our customers and communities. The installation of the solar panels at fulfillment centres in Hyderabad and Delhi reinstates this commitment and by the end of 2018, we plan to expand this installation to an additional 9 Amazon Operations sites in India. The investment in solar energy systems in India is in line with Amazon’s vision to deploy solar systems on 50 fulfillment and sortation centres globally by 2020.”
Going beyond FCs
But our work does not stop with rooftop solar installations at our fulfillment centres. Our approach to clean environment has many legs and touches the lives of many communities that we are part of in India. Four Amazon Cares Community and Resource Centres in Haryana now have solar energy systems that provide solar power to support the community programs in these centres all year round. We have donated solar energy systems to 40 government schools and 1 mini-planetarium in Bhiwandi, Maharashtra. This infrastructure supports the needs of children in schools and other members of the local communities in 24 villages, consequently benefitting more than 2500 people across Haryana and Maharashtra.
7 facts about our sustainability initiatives
