E-commerce giant Amazon has announced its collaboration with international charity organisation the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in order to adopt industry-wide circular economy solutions.

The collaboration will allow Amazon to become a strategic partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Network.

As part of this effort, the two partners will leverage their respective expertise to launch and scale various circular economy solutions.

Amazon will provide its reach, technology, and innovation capabilities while the Ellen MacArthur Foundation will be responsible for sharing its subject matter expertise to support the initiative. 

The move is in line with Amazon’s commitment to sustainability, which includes its 'Climate Pledge’.

Through this pledge, the company aims to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

According to the company, adopting circular solutions in all its business areas, from packaging to products to data centres, is an integral part of helping it achieve this net-zero goal.

Amazon Circular Economy director Rich Loretto said: “The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has done amazing research and work to create frameworks for us all to work toward. Their advice will be extremely valuable as we work on our own initiatives, and their network will help to ensure those initiatives can scale to have greater impact across the industry.”

The foundation is prioritising the elimination of waste and pollution, circulation of products and materials, as well as the regeneration of nature.

Amazon is also working with certification organisations, including the National Sanitation Foundation, which develops public health standards and services, as well as the International and Scientific Certification Systems Global.

These certifications will help in identifying key attributes for a particular product, which along with reward programmes, will encourage customers to support circularity.

Furthermore, the foundation’s 'Plastics Initiative' will help to develop a 'vision' to scale up returnable packaging systems.

This work is being supported by Amazon and its AWS Global Impact Computing team which provides future visualisation and analytical modelling to demonstrate how scaled reuse systems can prove as better alternatives economically, environmentally, and experientially, when compared to single-use packaging.