Verizon Joins Amazon in the Climate Pledge, Issues $1 Billion Green Bond

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Today, Verizon announced it has joined The Climate Pledge — the commitment co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism to meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early. The Climate Pledge calls on new signatories to be net zero carbon across their businesses by 2040 — a decade ahead of the Paris Accord’s goal of 2050.

Verizon is on track to be carbon neutral across scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by 2035 and has issued a $1 billion green bond to invest in innovative solutions to accelerate the company’s sustainability efforts. This includes powering operations with 50% renewable energy by 2025 and new virtual power purchase agreements (VPPA) for more than 380 MW of new wind and solar power capacity.

Verizon and other companies that sign The Climate Pledge agree to:

• Measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis;
• Implement decarbonization strategies in line with the Paris Agreement through real business changes and innovations, including efficiency improvements, renewable energy, materials reductions, and other carbon emission elimination strategies;
• Neutralize any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially beneficial offsets to achieve net zero annual carbon emissions by 2040.

“As the climate crisis worsens, more companies will need to get serious and challenge themselves to achieve decarbonization at a faster pace,” said Christiana Figueres, the UN’s former climate change chief and founding partner of Global Optimism.

By joining The Climate Pledge and agreeing to decarbonize at a faster rate, Verizon will play a role in stimulating investment in the development of low carbon products and services that will be required to help companies meet the pledge. Amazon previously announced an order of 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from Rivian, the largest order ever of electric vehicles, with vans starting to deliver packages to customers in 2021. Amazon plans to have 10,000 of the new electric vehicles on the road as early as 2022 and all 100,000 vehicles on the road by 2030 – saving millions of metric tons of carbon per year by 2030. Amazon plans to announce many more signatories throughout 2020.