Amazon.com Inc., the fast-delivery giant historically under fire for its impact on the environment, has bought the name rights to Seattle’s KeyArena, giving up a corporate nickname for calling the site Climate Pledge Arena.
The facility, where the city’s incoming NHL franchise will play and where the WNBA’s Storm already does, will use 100% renewable electricity and seek to achieve a zero carbon footprint, Amazon AMZN,
Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said Thursday on Instagram and in a statement. NHL Seattle CEO Tod Leiweke told the Seattle Times that the sand will get food locally and cut all plastics by 2024.
It is “the greenest ice in the NHL,” the statement said.
The renovated facility is expected to be the first certified net zero carbon sand in the world, according to the company. It’s just Amazon’s latest, and perhaps most visual, move to rethink its impact on the planet. The company has only recently begun to reveal more about its carbon footprint. Signatories to the Climate Commitment, of which Amazon is now a part, agree to regularly disclose data on their greenhouse gas emissions.
“[W]We call it the Climate Pledge Arena as a regular reminder of the importance of fighting climate change, ”said Bezos. “We look forward to working together with Oak View Group, a new signatory to the Climate Commitment, and NHL Seattle to inspire global climate action.”
Past critics, including Amazon’s group of Employees for Climate Justice, have lobbied the company to raise its climate ambitions, pressing for efforts as zero-emission targets without the use of offsets. Previously, Amazon supported offsets, which fund activities like forest preservation but fail, critics say, to actually force companies not to pollute. Amazon depends on other companies throughout a large supply chain.
“If he [sports] the facility can deliver on promises … and if it can be expanded to even larger facilities … it will be necessary to see, but the frontline goal of bringing sustainability efforts to the front and center of a sporting audience, and essentially , to the general public who would not otherwise be involved in climate change campaigns, well, that is clear here, ”said Stephen Donofrio, director of Greenpoint Innovations, multimedia sustainability marketing consultants. Donofrio said the Formula 1 racing series and its switch to carbon neutral have found traction to be an effective campaign.
Donofrio said his company’s projects focused primarily on the large-scale arts attract corporate support in which the company renounces naming rights to maintain emphasis on the sustainability agenda. But corporations can take advantage of that participation and reputation building through other communications.
Earlier this week, Amazon said it is creating a $ 2 billion venture capital fund focused on investments in technology and transportation to reduce the impact of climate change, another part of the retailer’s sustainability initiatives whose delivery formula It has been in high demand during COVID-19 blocks. With the momentum of the pandemic, Amazon shares are up 49% in the year to date. The S&P 500 SPX,
it fell 4.5% in the same period.
Late last year, the company set a goal to meet the goals of the Paris climate deal 10 years earlier, promising to be carbon neutral by 2040 even for its one-day Prime shipping service. Amazon said it would work to use 100% renewable energy by 2030 and had placed a large order for Rivian’s electric vans, in which the online retailer acquired a $ 440 million stake.
In the 2016 Paris pact, nearly 200 countries volunteered to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent global temperatures from rising to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Nationwide, the US pulled out of the deal, leaving private companies to take the initiatives on their own.
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