Supply Chain Dive covered Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recent $10B pledge to fight climate change, quoting AEE President Heather O'Neill. Read excerpts below and the entire Supply Chain Dive piece here.
Billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder, president and CEO of e-commerce company Amazon, on Monday announced his commitment to providing $10 billion toward fighting climate change. Specifics of the plan were sparse — in his Instagram post announcing the funding, he said the Bezos Earth Fund will provide funding for "scientists, activists, NGOs — any effort that offers a real possibility to help preserve and protect the natural world." He'll begin issuing grants this summer and said the $10 billion is "to start," but doesn't specify how much more he plans to spend or over what time period. Some speculate the billionaire's move was timed to deflect attention from FRONTLINE's release of a documentary that includes criticisms of his technology empire's carbon footprint and rising pressure from the company's employees about not doing enough on climate change...
"Thinking about the largest source of source of climate pollution in California and nationally, we think that investing some of those funds in electrifying transportation would have a significant impact," Next 10 founder Noel Perry told Utility Dive. Part of that goes back to policy, he said — "one of the biggest tools in the tool box is public incentives to buy electric vehicles" as well as to build out charging infrastructure.
For that to happen, there needs to be state and wholesale market policy support, Heather O'Neill, president of national business group Advanced Energy Economy told Utility Dive in an email. "Amazon has taken a leadership step with its order of 100,000 vehicles from Rivian, helping to create a market for electric delivery trucks, but we need a nationwide buildout of charging infrastructure to support a mass market of EVs of all types, and that requires supportive policies at the state and federal level," she said...
Read the entire Supply Chain Dive piece here.