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Amazon’s ‘Climate Pledge Friendly’ to Make It Easier for Customers to Discover, Shop for Sustainable Products

Label launches with 25K+ products endorsed by team of third-party sustainability certifiers. And Amazon’s new ‘Compact by Design’ certification aims to reduce carbon emissions through increased efficiency and better packaging.

Published 4 years ago | About a 5 minute read

Image: Amazon

Today, Amazon launched Climate Pledge Friendly — a program to help make it easy for customers to discover and shop for more sustainable products. Customers will now see the Climate Pledge Friendly label on more than 25,000 products; to signify that they have one or more of 19 different sustainability certifications that help preserve the natural world, and the people who make and use them.

Climate Pledge Friendly selection includes grocery, household, fashion, beauty and personal electronics products, as well as items from a range of other categories — from some usual-suspect brands such as Seventh Generation, Burt’s Bees Baby, The Honest Company, Mrs. Meyers and HP Inc; as well as Georgia-Pacific, Office Depot, Rubbermaid, 3M, Ecolab, Diversey, Staples, Kittrich, Branch Creek, Tork, Simoniz, Neenah, Betco and PortionPac, to name a few. Climate Pledge Friendly products are clearly labeled in shopping results, have additional sustainability information on the product page, and are featured in a dedicated section of the site.

Amazon has partnered with 19 trusted third-party certifications — all of which assess products to ensure that they meet sustainability standards that help preserve the natural world, and the people who make and use them. For example, Amazon has partnered with the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute — a global non-profit dedicated to transforming the safety, health and sustainability of products. The Cradle to Cradle certification encourages innovation to maximize the positive impacts of products and materials; and all Cradle to Cradle Certified products are safe, sustainable products made to support a circular economy.

“Cradle to Cradle certification provides a framework for product optimization based on the principles of designing with safe and healthy materials, using clean renewable energy and water, celebrating diversity, and eliminating the concept of waste,” said William McDonough, co-founder of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, who worked with Amazon on the development of the Climate Friendly Badge program. “We love that Amazon is making it simple for customers to find sustainable products. Amazon’s new program will expand our reach and enable us to empower more brands to deliver safer and more sustainable products for the circular economy.”

Cradle to Cradle Certified products included in the program include those from Redkin, Wolford, G-Star and Frosch.

Amazon evaluated hundreds of external sustainability certifications and chose organizations that certify products that have demonstrated tangible sustainability benefits. For example, Bluesign Technologies works with product design teams to eliminate harmful substances right from the beginning of the manufacturing process, and sets and controls standards for environmentally conscious and safe textile production.

“We are thrilled to partner with Amazon as a verifying entity for Climate Pledge Friendly, ultimately making it easier for customers to discover and shop more sustainable products,” said Bluesign CEO Jill Dumain. “Amazon’s new program will encourage brands and manufacturers to manufacture and source more sustainably, become verified, and grow their product selection. When consumers shop for more sustainable products on Amazon, they can now benefit from the bluesign® PRODUCT verification, which focuses on chemical safety for consumers and workers, as well as on environmental impact reduction.”

Other third-party certifiers participating in the program include OEKO-TEX and Textile Exchange — which evaluate the safety and sustainability of textiles; Fairtrade, which helps farmers and workers secure better incomes and farm more sustainably to tackle climate change challenges; the Forest Stewardship Council, the only certification system focusing exclusively on forest products that Amazon has selected to feature in the program; and Green Seal, which certifies products for health and safety — prohibiting carcinogens, mutagens, and reproductive toxins in certified products.

As part of the Climate Pledge Friendly initiative, Amazon is also announcing Compact by Design — a new, externally validated certification that identifies products which, while they may not always look very different, have a more efficient design. With the removal of excess air and water, products require less packaging and become more efficient to ship. At scale, these small differences in product size and weight lead to significant carbon emission reductions.

Seventh Generation, for example, offers a Compact by Design-certified super-concentrated laundry detergent that uses 60 percent less plastic and 50 percent less water than the standard 100-ounce laundry bottle, enabling significant energy and material savings. If every US household were to buy one bottle of Easy Dose ultra-concentrated laundry detergent instead of Seventh Generation's conventional 100-ounce laundry detergent, this would save 220,000 tons of CO2e every year, equivalent to not driving 540 million miles.

“In line with our mission to make sustainable living commonplace, we are delighted to partner with Amazon on its Climate Pledge Friendly initiative,” said Fabian Garcia, President of Unilever North America — makers of Seventh Generation, Love Beauty + Planet and Dove, among other brands available through the program. “Amazon’s initiative will drive scale and impact for more sustainable consumption by helping customers easily discover products that are Climate Pledge Friendly and encourage the manufacturers to make their products more sustainable. Unilever is committed to delivering products that provide the best experience for consumers while reducing the impact that our products and our operations have on the environment.”

The Climate Pledge Friendly initiative supports Amazon’s commitment to reach the Paris Agreement ten years early and be net zero carbon by 2040. Earlier this year, Amazon also launched the Climate Pledge Fund — a $2 billion fund to back visionary companies whose products and services will facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy. The Climate Pledge Friendly program will now make it easier for Amazon customers to access product choices that align with the company’s commitment to a more sustainable future.

Learn more about the program criteria, and participating brands and certifiers, at www.amazon.com/ClimatePledgeFriendly.