Amazon Funds Urban Greening Program to Increase Climate-Resilience of German Cities
May 26 2020 - 04:00AM
Business Wire
The effects of climate change, such as extreme
heat, urban flooding and biodiversity loss, have an increasing
impact on cities. Amazon is supporting The Nature Conservancy in
their partnership with municipalities to develop nature-based
solutions that enhance biodiversity and climate adaptation.
These nature-based solutions are part of an
urban greening program which will develop models for green urban
design in three German locations and enable the sharing of best
practices with cities across Europe.
This is the first project outside the U.S. of
Amazon’s $100 million Right Now Climate Fund to support its Climate
Pledge commitment to be net zero carbon by 2040 – 10 years ahead of
the Paris Climate Agreement.
Amazon today announced a €3.75 million commitment to The Nature
Conservancy in an effort to reduce climate change risks and
increase species biodiversity in three German cities. The initial
project is in Berlin’s Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district.
Learnings will be applied in two other German locations, and then
shared across other European cities. With this, Amazon is
recognizing the urgency of the climate crisis and its impacts on
urban communities. The announcement follows The Climate Pledge, the
company’s commitment to be net zero carbon by 2040.
Amazon’s commitment will fund The Nature Conservancy’s Urban
Greening program, which uses nature-based solutions to help cities
become more climate-change resilient. The program will collaborate
with city officials and local community organizations to create and
implement plans for:
- reducing flood risk by improving rainwater retention through
tree planting, revitalizing urban wetlands, and adapting existing
green spaces,
- reducing extreme heat and pollution by leveraging unused public
spaces to plant trees and improving urban water bodies, and
- increasing urban biodiversity by introducing
pollinator-friendly species, climate resilient plants, and urban
grasslands.
The program starts in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district of
Berlin and uses a science-based, municipality-wide, and
stakeholder-based approach to urban greening to ensure that
projects are complementing existing local efforts. Two additional
German cities will be chosen, in which the initial learnings from
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf will be applied. The goal is to share a
guide to urban greening with municipalities across Europe by the
end of the five-year project.
In recent years, Berlin has experienced extreme weather, and
people have been affected by intense heat waves and floods. For
example, storm “Axel” in May 2019 released 70 liters of rainfall
per square meter, leading to severe flooding. “We believe that
cities play an important role to lead on climate action at the
local level in the coming decades, in support of Germany’s strong
national commitment of climate neutrality by 2050,” said Dr.
Kerstin Pfliegner, Germany Director of The Nature Conservancy.
“The people of Berlin are experiencing climate change first-hand
– with urban floods and extreme heat events in the past years,”
said Dr. Ulrich Heink, Director of the Department of Nature
Conservation, Berlin-Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district. “The
nature-based climate solutions in this urban greening program will
help to reduce these impacts while at the same time increase
biodiversity and citizen well-being.” Dr. Kerstin Pfliegner added:
“Our research shows that nature can offer cost-effective options
for resilience in this changing environment.”
“Cities like Berlin are on the front line in the fight against
climate change”, said Oliver Schruoffenegger, City Councilor,
Berlin Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. “I welcome the commitment of The
Nature Conservancy and Amazon to work together with the city of
Berlin in our efforts to become greener. I look forward to working
with both partners and local communities to define the best
programs for our district.”
Ralf Kleber, Vice President and Country Manager for Amazon
Germany added: “In addition to all our efforts in the fight against
COVID-19, we must also maintain our efforts to protect the planet.
The Nature Conservancy and its municipal partners will apply a
science-based approach to developing a model that can be applied
more broadly across German and European cities. As the program
progresses, we will measure the impacts to ensure that the actions
result in tangible benefits to urban residents, such as more
greened spaces, greater counts of wild bees and other pollinators,
more cubic liters of storm water safely managed, and lower average
surface temperatures.”
The Urban Greening program is the first project outside the U.S.
for Amazon’s $100 million Right Now Climate Fund, which is part of
Amazon’s commitment to The Climate Pledge. Last year, Amazon
co-founded The Climate Pledge with Global Optimism and became its
first signatory. The Climate Pledge is a collaborative initiative
for companies that commit to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement
10 years early, to be net zero carbon by 2040 through
decarbonization of operations and the use of nature-based
solutions. In April, Amazon announced two other projects out of the
Right Now Climate Fund, committing $10 million to accelerate the
restoration and conservation of millions of acres of forest in the
Northeastern U.S.
For more information about Amazon’s commitment to sustainability
and the Right Now Climate Fund, visit
sustainability.aboutamazon.com. For more information about The
Climate Pledge, visit theclimatepledge.com.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather
than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to
operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews,
1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment
by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets,
Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and
services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit
aboutamazon.de and follow @AmazonNewsDE.
About The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy is a global conservation organization
dedicated to conserving the lands and waters on which all life
depends. Guided by science, we create innovative, on-the-ground
solutions to our world’s toughest challenges so that nature and
people can thrive together. We are tackling climate change,
conserving lands, waters and oceans at an unprecedented scale,
providing food and water sustainably and helping make cities more
sustainable. Working in 79 countries and territories, we use a
collaborative approach that engages local communities, governments,
the private sector, and other partners. To learn more, visit
nature.org or follow @nature_press on Twitter.
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