Amazon leads corporate clean-energy purchases in record year

Online retail giant Amazon.com. led a record year for corporate renewable-energy purchases worldwide as businesses expand efforts to clean up their power sources to combat climate change.

Amazon accounted for 20 per cent of a record 31.1 gigawatts of clean power capacity bought by corporations in 2021, according to a report from BloombergNEF. Overall, corporate buyers accounted for more than 10 per cent of all renewable energy capacity added globally last year, BNEF said. That’s equivalent to more than a third of California’s generation capacity.

“It’s no longer a matter of whether corporate clean energy procurement will grow each year, it’s a matter of how much more,” said Kyle Harrison, head of sustainability research at BNEF.

“More corporations are making new sustainability commitments, costs for renewables are plummeting and regulators around the world are slowly coming around to the fact that clean energy might be a silver bullet in the decarbonization of the private sector.”

Technology giants were the largest corporate buyers of renewable power, accounting for more than half of the deals last year, according to the report.

Amazon signed deals for 6.2 gigawatts, bringing its total clean energy capacity to 13.9 gigawatts and giving it the 12th largest clean energy portfolio among all types of companies.