Amazon’s Climate Pledge Friendly Badge: Everything you Need to Know (2024)
Have you ever noticed that small green badge that Amazon displays with some products in the search results, stating ‘Climate Pledge Friendly’? Are you wondering what that label means but more importantly how to get it for your products as well?
Search no more – this article will tell you all about what the badge is all about, why you should make the effort to get it for your products and what the process looks like, including examples from our own clients.
The Climate Pledge and Amazon’s Role in it
With rising awareness from people about climate change and the negative impact of Ecommerce on our environment, companies are increasingly feeling the pressure to integrate more sustainable practices.
Amazon as the world leader in Ecommerce and therefore a big contributor to these negative impacts has been in the spotlight for a while and recently took a bold step that will highly impact its sustainability strategy and investments.
In 2019 Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge, an organization whose members commit to reaching carbon neutrality by 2040, 10 years prior to the Paris Agreement.
Since then, Amazon has kicked off several initiatives to reach that goal, including reduced packaging, increased use of renewable energy and increased visibility for more sustainable products.
One of the initiatives to increase visibility for ‘greener’ products led to the display of a small green label you might have already spotted in Amazon’s search results:
The Climate Pledge Friendly Badge – What Does the Green Label Mean?
According to Amazon, Climate Pledge Friendly is:
- “A new program to help make it easy for customers to discover and shop for more products.”
- “Climate Pledge Friendly recognizes products with improvements in at least one aspect of sustainability.”
These ‘improvements’ are measured by having received a 3rd party sustainability certification. Amazon first partnered up with 15 organizations with grand expertise in certifying sustainable products (see overview below). Since launching the program, there are now over 50 external certifications available in the program.
“We focused on certifications that are reputable, transparent, and have a focus on preserving the natural world.”
There are two different classes of certifications:
Lifecycle-focused certifications:
Example Carbon Trust. For more on carbon footprints, check out our article on how using carbon labels could be your next USP.
Product-focused certifications:
Example Rainforest Alliance
Additionally, Amazon has launched its own labels.
First, Compact by Design, which identifies products that are more efficiently designed.
The program which was launched in 2020 has recently been expanded to Europe and currently includes products from the following categories:
- Grocery
- Household
- Beauty
- Fashion
- Office
- Electronics
More recently Amazon has also introduced the Pre-owned Certified category that promotes the selling of refurbished electronics to reduce e-waste and raw material extraction.
Amazon is also encouraging new sustainability certifications to apply to be included in the Climate Pledge Friendly program:
What the Badge Looks Like (Client Example)
Regardless of which 3rd party certification your product has received, the Climate Pledge Friendly badge always looks the same.
One of our clients, Ayurvedic body care company Auromere, has already received the badge through Amazon’s Compact by Design label and will serve as our example of how the badge looks on Amazon. Regardless of the product category, the display always looks the same.
The Climate Pledge Friendly Badge in the search results (and on the brand storefront):
The Climate Pledge Friendly Badge is displayed on the bottom of the search result with an expandable field showing the specific certifications of the product:
In the next chapter we will explore how helpful that added space and information on the search results page can be.
The Climate Pledge Friendly Badge on the Product Detail Page:
On the product detail page, the Climate Pledge Friendly badge gets displayed below the title and just above the bullet points as well as further down the page above the product description in more detail:
Notice how in both cases the badge is always placed in the visible field which means Amazon is placing a high value on that piece of information.
Why You Should Want It – The Power of a Small Green Label
On Amazon it’s all about the little details that make you stand out from your competition; almost all products exist multi-fold, sometimes even with similar packaging, names, quality, price, etc.
In contrast to your own shop, online or offline, there is less uniqueness you can display about your products. Amazon’s marketplace is built to make all products look as uniform as possible to create a consistent customer experience which gives less opportunity for differentiation.
The Climate Pledge Friendly badge (and other badges for that matter) adds that little extra space in the search results and is therefore valuable for providing a visual differentiator to the competing products. It’s likely to lead to a higher click-through rate to the product detail page. The additional information on the product detail page might help to increase the conversion rate. Increased click-through rate and conversion rate also help ad performance, possibly multiplying the initial effect.
A green label is also a strong signaling tool for the audience you want to attract – people that care about sustainability. Multiple studies have explored the impact of sustainability labels on consumers’ buying choices, usually finding that these labels lead to consumers being more likely to buy the product – especially when they already care about the environment. One study found that consumers with high ecological motivation had strong preferences for green-labeled products as compared to consumers with low ecological motivation. Crucially, these preferences were robust, despite contradicting environmental product information. This means the label was more important than the actual product! The Climate Pledge Friendly badge can be a great way to communicate your sustainability.
Amazon has updated its filter options to include Climate Pledge Friendly products and even offers customers to shop by certification. This makes it even easier for environmentally conscious shoppers to find products that fit their needs:
In a world where we are flooded with information and choice the power of labels should not be underestimated. A user decides in only seconds which product to click on and seeing a label that signals ‘better’ might be the necessary additional information that motivates that click and ultimately that purchase.
How to Get the Climate Pledge Friendly Badge
The difficulty of receiving the climate pledge friendly badge depends on which 3rd party organization you decide to get certified with. Some certifications, especially the ones that focus on carbon neutrality require a more involved lifecycle assessment that are more costly.
If you are already certified with one of the organizations but have not received the badge yet make sure that your products have the same GS1 barcode in Amazon as they have in the database of the 3rd party. Amazon looks at these databases so a matching barcode will make the process much easier.
Amazon’s green badge itself is free and available to all sellers. Your products need to be from one of the participating categories as stated earlier in this article. If you have received the 3rd party certification, checked the product category fit and made sure the barcode matches, you can fill out the application form on Amazon.
Here are the steps again:
- Check if the program is available in your country.
- Decide on the 3rd party certification that fits your products (in case you’re not already certified) or try for Amazon’s Compact by Design.
- Go through the process and receive your initial certification.
- Make sure the GS1 barcode of your products are identical in both databases of Amazon and the certification partner.
- Fill out the application form for the Climate Pledge Friendly Badge.
- Have your application approved by Amazon and wait to see the badge appear on your products.
Takeaways
Communicating the sustainability of your products is becoming increasingly more important for standing out among the sea of competitors. Customers care about it and therefore (luckily), Amazon has started to display opportunities for companies to show how ‘green’ their products are.
In this article we have outlined:
- Why Amazon is increasing their efforts for displaying more sustainable products.
- How the label can help you make your products stand out in the search results and lead to increased sales.
- What the process of getting the green badge looks like and why you might already qualify for it.
If you are interested in receiving assistance with the Climate Pledge Friendly badge or are interested in knowing how to efficiently sell your products on Amazon, reach out to us and we will be more than happy to help.
