Amazon and JPMorgan headline group committing $100 million to cut ‘superpollutants’
Other founding companies in the Superpollutant Action Initiative include Autodesk, Google, Figma, Salesforce and Workday. Read More
- Emissions from methane, soot and refrigerants are responsible for about half of global climate impacts to date.
- The Initiative will develop best practices for identifying high-quality interventions.
- At least two members, Google and Workday, have already backed methane reduction projects.
A group of seven companies — Amazon, Autodesk, Figma, Google, JPMorgan Chase, Salesforce and Workday — will invest up to $100 million in a new initiative aimed at cutting emissions from methane, soot, refrigerants and other short-lived greenhouse gases.
These gases are commonly dubbed “superpollutants” because their release into the atmosphere contributes to adverse human health impacts, such as asthma, and to faster global temperature increases.
Collectively, superpollutants are responsible for an estimated one-half of climate warming. Measures to cut their emissions, particularly those related to methane from agriculture and fossil fuels production, can mitigate climate change more quickly than projects aimed at removal of excess carbon dioxide. Superpollutants are often closely linked with landfills and food waste, energy production and cooling systems.
The new Superpollutant Action Initiative is managed by the Beyond Alliance (formerly the Business Alliance to Scale Climate Solutions), a corporate group formed in 2021 to share best practices.
Improved methodologies
Companies participating in the initiative have agreed to identify and fund “high-integrity” projects that address superpollutants, after independent ratings groups cautioned that some credit-issuing projects might be based on flawed methodologies. The group plans to publish a roadmap for their investments later this year, and it’s actively seeking additional members.
“This initiative shows how companies can deploy private capital where it matters most — unlocking solutions that cut warming, improve air quality and deliver measurable results now while creating a clear pathway for others to follow,” said Luke Pritchard, director of the Beyond Alliance, in a statement.
At least two companies involved in the new superpollutant group, Google and Workday, already use credits from projects that prevent methane from entering the atmosphere to reduce their emissions inventories. The market for these sorts of certificates has tripled since 2019.
Workday, for example, bought credits worth 200,000 metric tons of methane removal as part of a December 2024 contract with Tradewater to cap orphaned oil wells. Google is buying credits from projects in Brazil and Indonesia, including one focused on remediating home ventilation systems.
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