Amazon creates a $2 billion climate fund, as it struggles to cut its own emissions:
Investment areas: In a press release, Amazon said the new fund would focus on startups that could help it and other businesses achieve "net zero" emissions by 2040. It will invest across a wide array of industries, including transportation, energy generation, energy storage, manufacturing, materials, and agriculture.
What's behind the move? The Seattle retail giant has come under growing pressure from the public and its own employees to shrink its environmental footprint as the dangers of global warming grow. [...]
Earlier Amazon efforts: Several days later, Amazon committed to achieve "net zero" emissions by 2040, which means it would need to offset any remaining emissions from its operations through investments in carbon removal projects, such as forest restoration or carbon capture machines. In February, chief executive Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person, announced he would donate $10 billion of his personal fortune to scientists, activists, and NGOs working to address climate change.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday June 25 2020, @02:53PM (1 child)
I guess the public pressure and now near constant accusations of corporate greed need to be pushed back a bit, and hidden, with some well timed PR funding on progressive projects -- it's not like 2 billion dollars is all that much to Amazon, or for that matter 10 billion dollars of Bezos own money if he ever gets around to it. This seem to be quite in line with what corporations and robber-barons do when the critical voices become a bit to loud -- build a museum, start some funds or foundations, bread and circuses for the masses!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday June 25 2020, @03:46PM
No, they're buying stock in what they think will be the "next big thing":
Those are investments, not grants. So that means that they'll make big bucks off of somebody else's hard work if any of those businesses succeed.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.