Amazon’s latest renewable energy projects include its largest solar farm to date

Just ahead of Earth Day on Friday, Amazon has announced investments in 37 more renewable energy projects around the world. The company says these will increase its renewable energy capacity by almost 30 percent, up from 12.2 gigawatts to 15.7 GW.

The company claims the new investments will help it to power its operations entirely with renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the original timeline. The latest projects are in the US, Spain, France, Australia, Canada, India, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. They include wind farms, solar farms and eight solar rooftop installations on Amazon buildings. A 500 MW solar farm in Texas will be Amazon’s largest renewable energy project to date in terms of capacity.

Amazon has now invested in 310 projects in 19 countries. It says that when they’re all up and running, they’ll generate enough energy to power 3.9 million homes. The quantity of carbon-free energy they’ll generate will help avoid 17.3 million metric tons of emissions each year — the equivalent of taking more than 3.7 million combustion engine cars off roads.

In 2019, Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge, a vow to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. That’s 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement’s deadline. Along the more than 300 signatories that have joined the pledge are Microsoft, IBM and Best Buy.

Amazon said it will invest $2 billion into decarbonization efforts through the Climate Pledge Fund. Along with the accelerated timeline for fully switching to renewable energy, Amazon aims to make its shipments net-zero carbon. It hopes to be halfway to that goal by 2030 and to help it get there, the company placed an order with Rivian for 100,000 electric delivery vehicles.

Instagram brings its fundraiser tool to Reels

Instagram is rolling out the option to create and donate to fundraisers through Reels. Users in more than 30 countries can now add a link for people to donate to more than 1.5 million nonprofits. The fundraiser tool has been available in Stories and on livestreams for the past couple of years.

The feature was announced as part of Meta’s Earth Day efforts. Meta says that more than 4 million people have donated over $150 million through Instagram and Facebook to support environmental protection and nonprofits fighting against climate change. The most popular environmental causes, based on the overall number of donors, are The Ocean Cleanup, World Wildlife Fund and (one that’s close to my heart) Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

Most donations made on Instagram last year were under $20. Meta covers the payment processing fees for charitable fundraisers, so every penny that users donate goes to nonprofits.

Elsewhere, Meta announced that it’s adding more features to its Climate Science Center. It will highlight actions people can take in their day-to-day lives to combat climate change. The center will also shine a spotlight on data visualizations showing country-level emissions. The Climate Science Center is now available in 150 countries.

Across Instagram, Facebook and Messenger, Meta has released stickers and profile frames to help people show their support for environmental causes. In addition, the company revealed the nine organizations that will receive funding from a $1 million grant program to help them fight climate misinformation. Meta also announced the Sustainability Media Academy, a project to help Asia-based journalists build expertise and develop authority on sustainability issues.

Honda will retire the hybrid Insight to focus production on its ‘core’ models

The Honda Insight was first released in 1999 and immediately gained a passionate following among car enthusiasts, but was always something of an odd duck in the automaker’s lineup — it was the Civic Hybrid before there was officially a Civic Hybrid. However, the Insight’s days of being the single most fuel efficient gas-powered vehicle on the road that doesn’t plug in are coming to a close. Despite record sales of more than 100,000 electrified vehicles (that’s EVs and hybrids) in 2021, Honda on Thursday announced that it will be sunsetting the venerated Insight this June as the company refocuses production efforts on its “core” hybrid models — the Accord, CR-V and Civic — and continues to migrate towards full EV capacity.

“Hybrid-electric vehicles are effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and are a critical pathway toward Honda’s vision for 100% zero-emission vehicle sales in North America by 2040,” said Mamadou Diallo, vice president of Auto Sales at American Honda Motor Co., Inc. “Making the volume leader of our core models hybrid-electric will dramatically boost electrified sales in the Honda lineup, a strategy that will be augmented by the arrival of a Civic Hybrid in the future.”

The company notes that the Indiana Auto Plant where the Insight was produced will transition into making the CR-V, CR-V Hybrid and Civic Hatchback. Honda plans to introduce new iterations of the CR-V Hybrid later this year, followed by the Accord Hybrid and “in the future,” the Civic Hybrid.