Nearly 1,000 Amazon employees have pledged to join the massive upcoming Global Climate Strike. The employees will walk out on September 20th to demand that the company “makes climate a priority.”
The 941 Amazon employees that have signed the internal pledge includes workers at corporate offices, according to Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, the group organizing the walkout.
Workers are demanding that Amazon do the following:
- Commit to zero emissions by 2030.
- Pilot electric vehicles first in communities most impacted by pollution.
- Sign zero contracts with fossil fuel companies the use Amazon’s AI technology to help them accelerate oil and gas extraction
- Provide zero funding for climate-denying lobbyists and politicians
“I’m proud that Amazon is one of the most innovative companies, and that means we can be a leader on climate. As a leader, we need to reach zero first and not be a company who slides in at the last possible deadline,” said Roshni Naidu, Senior Technical Product Manager at Amazon in Seattle. “A clean energy future means that Amazon must hit zero emissions by 2030 at the latest. This walkout is about telling our business and political leaders that we demand urgent action at the scale of the crisis.”
The walkout is a part of the youth-led Global Climate Strike happening on the same day, ahead of the United Nations Climate Action Summit on September 23rd.
Amazon workers have been hard at work, especially in the last year, to demand that the massive corporation take a leadership role in fighting climate change. Earlier this years, thousands of employees published an open letter asking for leaders of the company to adopt a shareholder resolution and company-wide climate change plan, which shareholders refused to do.
Although Amazon has committed to nearly 70 renewable energy projects, employees believe it is not nearly enough to account for Amazon’s environmental footprint.
“Amazon employees are deeply concerned about the climate crisis, and we see how it’s impacting our lives,” said Danilo Quilaton, Product Designer in San Francisco. “I’ve seen how rising sea levels and increased hurricane activity are eroding coastlines and devastating sea turtle habitats where I’ve grown up and lived all my life. The climate walkout is about showing Amazon that employees want to make climate justice central to our business and show real climate leadership.”
The majority of workers that have signed the pledge are from Amazon’s Seattle office but others from around the U.S. and even Europe have shown interest as well.
“As employees at one of the largest and most powerful companies in the world, our role in facing the climate crisis is to ensure our company is leading on climate, not following,” said Amazon Employees for Climate Justice in an official statement. “We have to take responsibility for the impact that our business has on the planet and on people.”
Amazon workers also collaborated on a video to personally express their decision to participate in this month’s Global Climate March:
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