The Amazon Climate Pledge Friendly program aims to help customers find more sustainable products. Around 25,000 products will receive the label, and will be searchable by customers under one of 19 different sustainability certifications.
These certifications are proof that the products help preserve the natural world in ways like reducing the carbon footprint of shipments to customers.
The array of Amazon Climate Pledge Friendly products can be located across categories such as grocery, household, fashion, beauty and electronics including a wide variety of brands like Clorox-owned Burt’s Bees, Unilever’s Seventh Generation, Honest Company and HP Inc. These products receive the label in shopping results as a part of the Climate Pledge Friendly program.
They show additional information on the product page about their sustainability, they appear in a special section of the store.
“In line with our mission to make sustainable living commonplace, we are delighted to partner with Amazon on its Climate Pledge Friendly initiative,” said President of Unilever North America, Fabian Garcia. “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.”
Amazon is working with 19 third-party certifications such as Cradle to Cradle Innovation Institute.
The Amazon Climate Pledge Friendly Program Objective
“Climate Pledge Friendly is a simple way for customers to discover more sustainable products that help preserve the natural world,” said Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos. “With 18 external certification programs and our own Compact by Design certification, we’re incentivizing selling partners to create sustainable products that help protect the planet for future generations.”
While searching for products, customers can see the Climate Pledge Friendly program label. This is how they know that the product they are viewing has been certified with one or more of the 19 different sustainability certifications to help preserve the natural world.
By removing excess air and water, products will need less packaging and will be more efficient to ship. In the grand scheme of things, these small product size and weight differences will lead to significant reduction of carbon emissions.
How to Qualify for the Amazon Climate Pledge Friendly Program
Being included in the Amazon Climate Pledge Friendly has benefits such as:
- The Climate Pledge Friendly badge in shopping results and detail pages
- Placement on the Climate Pledge Friendly landing page
- Potential inclusion in other store merchandising opportunities
No fee is required for eligible products that participate in Climate Pledge Friendly.
Third-party sustainability certifications
Note that a product needs to be certified by one or more of the qualifying third-party sustainability certifications or by Amazon’s Compact by Design in order to be eligible for Climate Pledge Friendly program badge.
Amazon works with third-party certifications to obtain a list of certified ASINs. If you think that your product qualifies under the Climate Pledge Friendly program requirements, you can work directly with the certifier. This ensures that your certification will be validated. It also confirms that all the relevant product-level data will be sent to Amazon by the certifier.
You can check the full list of certifications on the Amazon certification page. You will also find the links to official certifier websites to see their detailed requirements for qualification.
Amazon Climate Pledge Friendly | Compact by Design Certification
Compact by Design aims to identify products that may not look all that different from the outside but have a more efficient design.
What makes a product more efficient?
Less packaging
While many products are designed for stores and have designs and extra packaging to attract customers’ attention, this is not necessary for online shopping. As such, Compact by Design has identified products without this excess packaging.
Less air
Less air usually means less packaging. Some Compact by Design products may come in smaller packages that have less air but contain the same amount of product.
Shape
Compact by Design highlights products whose shape allows them to deliver the same amount of product while minimizing cubic inches.
Weigh Less
Some packaging materials that are lighter and are more efficient to ship.
Waterless Technology
Some water-based products and turn into solids such as powders. This can bring down the size and weight of a product by a large margin.
Concentrates
Compact by Design can have more products that are a concentrated version of the same product or similar.
Having the best in-class “unit efficiency” is one of the qualifying factors for Compact by Design. The unit efficiency of a product is measures factors such as item package dimensions, item weight, and the number of units. The definition of a unit is the total amount of product in the container. This is uniform in each product category.
The calculation for unit efficiency is: (cubed volume per unit) x (weight per unit)
This shows the volume and weight utilization for the number of units that a product delivers.
A more efficient design therefore shows a lower unit efficiency value. For instance, a concentrate delivers the same number of units in a smaller volume and weight. This is better unit efficiency.
Unit efficiency is calculated across items in a product category in order to set thresholds.
All this to determine which are the most efficient products within each product category. Having a unit efficiency higher than the threshold of the category qualifies that product for Compact by Design and thus a chance to be a part of Climate Pledge Friendly as well.
Final Thoughts
For the Amazon Climate Pledge Friendly program, the tech giant has partnered with organizations such as governmental agencies, non-profits, and independent laboratories.
These partners provide external certifications that assist in distinguishing which products are more sustainable.
Amazon focused on arranging for certifications that are reputable, transparent, and have a focus on preserving the natural world. Amazon commits to routine evaluations and reassessments of the certification landscape so that the best partners are included to assist customers in shopping for sustainable products.
