The News: Amazon partners with Infinium, a renewable fuels technology company, to power Amazon’s middle mile transportation fleet with ultra-low carbon electrofuels beginning next year. Amazon previously invested in Infinium through the Climate Pledge Fund. Read the announcement from Amazon.
Amazon Partners with Infinium
Analyst Take: Amazon is continuing its own mission to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040 with this partnership with Infinium. According to the United Nations, the transportation sector is responsible for 25 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. Currently, Amazon’s transportation fleet is comprised of an estimated 40,000 semi-trucks, 30,000 delivery vehicles, and 70 airplanes. By transitioning from diesel to electrofeuls for a sizeable portion of the transportation fleet, Amazon is signaling to other companies something we already know: They are taking climate action seriously.
This partnership is also a great move for Infinium, a relatively new company in the market. Infinium converts recycled carbon emissions and hydrogen feedstocks into electrofeuls for use in transportation like air, marine freight, and heavy truck fleets.
Initially, it is anticipated that Infinium will supply enough electrofeuls to replace diesel for five million miles of travel per year. To increase that number, Infinium is building a production facility in Texas.
The partnership is expected to begin sometime in 2023 with Amazon’s fleet of middle mile delivery vehicles in Southern California. The middle mile fleet is responsible for transporting orders from vendors and fulfillment centers to sorting and delivery facilities.
Although a new company, Infinium has been developing this proprietary technology for the better part of the last decade. In 2021, Amazon invested in Infinium through the Climate Pledge Fund. It’s great to see this investment take further shape and we will be eager to see how it continues to progress in years to come.
Watch a vignette on this news in the latest episode of our Good Equals Progress webcast, a show dedicated to all things ESG related.
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The original version of this vignette was first published on Good Equals Progress.
Transcript:
Shelly Kramer: So we’re going to wrap our show today talking about Amazon’s announcement of a new agreement with Infinium. So tell us a little bit about that, Lauren.
Lauren Kirkpatrick: I’ll start with a little backstory on Infinium. Amazon previously invested in the company through The Climate Pledge Fund at the beginning of 2021. They are a renewable fuels technology company, and what they do is they convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen feed stocks into net zero carbon fuels for the use in transportation fleets, whether it’s air, marine, or heavy truck fleets. So this new partnership that Amazon announced, they are working with Infinium to power Amazon’s middle mile transportation fleet with ultra low carbon electrofuels replacing diesel starting next year. Infinium is expected to initially supply enough electrofuels to begin powering the Amazon trucks in lieu of diesel fuel for approximately 5 million miles per year. That’s a lot of travel.
Shelly Kramer: That’s a lot.
Lauren Kirkpatrick: And the middle mile fleet is what Amazon considers the trucks that move orders from vendors and fulfillment centers to sortation facilities and delivery stations. So these are the semi-trucks that you see on the road that are packed full of packages. To get started, Infinium will build a production facility in Texas, and they haven’t announced exactly where in Texas yet that a facility will be built. But I can imagine that it’ll bring hundreds, if not thousands of jobs to the state.
Shelly Kramer: Right. Absolutely.
Lauren Kirkpatrick: Amazon’s delivery fleet has to make up a sizable portion of their carbon footprint.
Shelly Kramer: Yeah. Absolutely.
Lauren Kirkpatrick: If you think about how many times you see an Amazon truck on the road. In 2021, it was reported that they have 40,000 semi-trucks and 30,000 delivery vehicles plus a fleet of 70 planes. And that was last year. So I’m sure it has grown this year. But this pledge comes on the heels of a partnership that Amazon made in 2020 with Rivian to improve their vehicle fleet. And this summer they started rolling out electric delivery vehicles that Rivian has made, across, I think, seven cities in the United States. And then the goal is to have a hundred thousand of these electric delivery vehicles across the United States in the next year or so.
Shelly Kramer: Yeah, really interesting. Really good stuff.
Lauren Kirkpatrick: So Amazon is making some moves here with their delivery fleet.
Shelly Kramer: That’s awesome.
Author Information
Lauren Kirkpatrick is the Director of Project Operations for The Futurum Group. She covers topics ranging from corporate DEI and ESG initiatives, to cloud, mobility, and beyond. When she’s not working, she’s either chasing her dog, Whiskey, or cheering on her beloved LA Dodgers at the ballpark.
