Amazon backs new companies focused on low-carbon technology

Amazon has announced that The Climate Pledge Fund is investing in three more companies working to develop sustainable technologies. The businesses are Resilient Power, a company building electric vehicle charging technology; CMC Machinery, a company with technology that makes custom-sized boxes that eliminate the need for single-use plastic packaging; and ultra-low carbon electro fuels company Infinium.

With these additional companies, the Fund has now invested in 11 businesses, all of which are pioneering products and services that will help facilitate the world’s transition to a low-carbon economy.

“We’re proud to invest in these innovative technologies through The Climate Pledge Fund, and we continue to search for and identify revolutionary companies that are uniquely positioned to help accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy,” said Kara Hurst, vice president and head of Worldwide Sustainability at Amazon. “These companies span multiple industries and offer new pathways for Amazon to achieve the goals of The Climate Pledge, a commitment co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism for companies to become net-zero carbon by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement.”

The Climate Pledge Fund invests in companies that can accelerate Amazon’s path to meeting the goals of The Climate Pledge, which has been signed by more than 200 businesses worldwide. The Fund is a $2 billion venture investment program created to back companies building products, technologies, and services that will enable Amazon and other companies to accelerate their path to net-zero carbon.

Resilient Power: Resilient Power (RP) builds efficient and effective transformer-based electric vehicle (EV) charging technology. The company’s technology enables EV fast-charging infrastructure to be built at one-tenth the size and installation time of traditional EV charging technology. The technology is also capable of charging up to 24 vehicles at a time without requiring expensive distribution grid upgrades.

The Climate Pledge Fund is making its first round of investment in RP and views the company’s technology as a step toward Amazon’s goal of deploying 100,000 electric delivery vehicles by 2030. RP’s technology has the potential to help Amazon continue to expand its fleet of EV delivery vans in the coming years while ensuring that vehicles can be quickly recharged to support delivery of customer packages.

“As transportation transitions to electric, we must consider how to deploy charging stations at mass scale without jeopardizing the grid. Companies managing electric vehicle fleets demand viable, reliable, fast EV charging,” said Tom Keister, CEO of Resilient Power. “Our partnership with Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund will allow us to build the infrastructure our customers need to support and accelerate EV adoption, and then later expand our technology to other renewables, storage, and microgrid markets.”

CMC Machinery: CMC Machinery’s technology designs and manufactures custom-sized boxes tailored to the dimensions of the items in each order. This results in accurately sized packages that eliminate the need for single-use plastic padding while still protecting items during shipping.

Amazon expects that by the end of 2022, the technology could reduce the cubic volume for each box by 24% on average, and the technology is projected to reduce the use of approximately 1 billion plastic air pillows by the end of 2022.

“This investment further strengthens our long-standing partnership with Amazon and our shared commitment in reducing the environmental impact related to ecommerce packaging. We are proud that our technology has become a true activator of The Climate Pledge and contributes to the transition toward a carbon-neutral future,” said Francesco Ponti, CEO and strategic business development director of CMC Machinery.

Infinium: Infinium has developed a renewable fuels technology known as Infinium Electrofuels. An alternative to traditional fossil-based diesel and jet fuels, electrofuels are ultra-low carbon fuels that can be used in air transport, marine freight, and heavy truck fleets. Infinium technology converts renewable power into green hydrogen and then uses this hydrogen and waste carbon dioxide to produce ultra-low carbon fuels. This new class of fuels has the potential to accelerate Amazon’s efforts to transition its transportation network away from fossil-based fuels in order to deliver packages.

Amazon has now made two rounds of investments in Infinium to help bring this climate-friendly solution to market. This next stage of funding will support delivery of the industry’s first Infinium Electrofuels, and develop large-scale electrofuels facilities capable of producing nearly 40 million gallons of clean fuel per year. Each facility will also mitigate more than 300,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere—which alone is the equivalent of planting nearly 5 million tree seedlings that each take 10 years to grow, according to the EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.

The Climate Pledge Fund
Amazon launched The Climate Pledge Fund in 2020 to support the development of sustainable and decarbonizing technologies and services. This dedicated investment program invests in visionary companies whose products and solutions will help facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Amazon has previously announced investments in CarbonCure, Pachama, Redwood Materials, Rivian, TurnTide Technologies, BETA Technologies, Ion Energy, and ZeroAvia. These companies will be able to use the investment funds from Amazon to continue developing and scaling their products and services.

The hope is for The Climate Pledge signatories and other companies to take advantage of these products and services to generate greener economies. Amazon continues to accept applications for The Climate Pledge Fund.