Amazon - Levelling Up Impact Report by Social Mobility Pledge

LEVELLING UP Impact Report

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction to Amazon

The Journey to the Levelling Up Goals

Amazon’s Activities Mapped Against the Levelling Up Goals

Goal 2:

Rt Hon Justine Greening, Founder, Levelling Up Goals & Former Education Secretary

John Boumphrey UK & Ireland Country Manager, Amazon

Successful School Years

Goal 3:

Positive Destinations Post-16

Goal 8:

Good Health and Wellbeing

Goal 9:

Extending Enterprise

Goal 13:

Harness the Energy Transition

Concluding Remarks

Foreword Rt Hon Justine Greening Founder of the Levelling Up Goals & Former Education Secretary

It’s much easier to arrive at your destination if you have a good idea of how to get there before you start. You’ll be familiar with the most straightforward route that will get you there quickly, but you’ll also know about the alternative routes – the ones that take a bit longer but pay you back with some interesting insights into places you’ve not heard of on the way. So having the right information and advice about where you’re aiming to get to, as well as the chance to hear from others about their experiences, is key to a successful journey. And it’s the same for accessing opportunities as we go through life. It’s hard to aim for an opportunity you don’t even know exists, and it’s hard to navigate through lots of choices without good advice from people who’ve got the experiences to help you. As the country recovers from the pandemic and we reimagine some sort of ‘new normal’ for our economy and society, it is crucial that we do so with a clear ambition of ensuring that opportunity is available to everyone, no matter what their background or where they are from. The careers landscape has changed fundamentally over the last two years. There are roles now which simply didn’t exist a few years ago – many created in the context of a greener, digitalised, technologically driven economy. We’ve also seen new ways of working emerge as a result of the pandemic, including hybrid working, enabling many of us to think very differently about how new opportunities can work effectively with our wider lives, responsibilities and challenges we face. All of it means that access to opportunity is changing significantly. So if employers can think more strategically about how to harness that change to extend opportunities both to communities but also people, for whom finding them has previously been harder, then this can be a real moment of change. And not just change for the better for people accessing new opportunities, but change for the better for employers, reaching brand new talent that can transform their

04 Foreword - Justine Greening

company. What’s needed are employers who are willing to take a lead and show the difference they can make, and when it comes to extending access to opportunity, Amazon is a business doing just that. With its nationwide reach and huge brand visibility, Amazon is at the leading edge of providing the access, skills and careers that have the power to transform lives. A shared ambition to support and deliver opportunity to communities across the UK has partnered it with the Purpose Coalition, a group of purpose-led business and public sector organisations and their leaders, university vice-chancellors, policymakers, all working together to shape the agenda on levelling up. Levelling up has never been more crucial following the covid-19 pandemic which we know has affected the poorest and most vulnerable communities the hardest. In 2021, the Purpose Coalition developed 14 Levelling Up Goals as the key challenges to address in order to achieve equality of opportunity. They focus on key life stages, from early years to adulthood, connecting to opportunities, but also on other important drivers of social mobility such as good health and wellbeing and digital connectivity. The Levelling Up Goals provide a common and transparent framework for organisations to be able to identify the gaps in their social impact and put in place a levelling up plan. Crucially, they also provide a way to track and benchmark progress. It’s an approach that has directly fed into the Government’s Levelling Up White Paper with its 12 ‘Missions’ which mirror the Levelling Up Goals. Under the senior leadership team headed by its UK Country Manager, John Boumphrey, Amazon is leading on Goal 3, Positive destinations post-16, which aims to ensure that every young person and adult has the choice of a high-quality route in education, employment or training. It’s about being able to access good career advice and experiences which broaden

Amazon is at the leading edge of providing the access, skills and careers that have the power to transform lives.

horizons. It’s also about mentoring and being able to see someone like you in the workplace, doing a job you’d like to do. Amazon offers a wide range of careers – many not normally associated with the business - and its offers to candidates are based on motivation and potential. Its apprenticeship programme is open to those aged 18 to 60, acknowledging that it is not just young people who need opportunity, but other groups such as women returning to the workplace, people seeking a change of career or the longterm unemployed. Its Amazon Future Engineer Programme offers access to careers in computer science. It works closely with partners who understand the challenges faced by underserved groups, including Barnardo’s Amazon Academy which provides advice on the skills young people need, with an emphasis on confidence, resilience and self-esteem, with Magic Breakfast on food security and with the Digital Poverty Alliance, tackling digital poverty with device donations. Amazon’s approach focuses on harnessing the talent that is available in the communities it serves and enabling people to reach their potential through academic education or vocational training. It is also clearly defined by employees’ own stories and the use of role models so that people feel encouraged to have a go and begin to accumulate the skills they need to get on in life. That is vital for levelling up those communities furthest away from a level playing field and providing the right support for the individuals who need it most. This report highlights the comprehensive work that Amazon is already doing, as well as identifying the gaps that must be addressed to deliver meaningful change. As a leading employer, it is vital that Amazon is playing such a pivotal role on access to opportunity, and I am looking forward to continuing to work with it to help shape the wider levelling up agenda, including on metrics and measurement, and impact evaluation. Foreword - Justine Greening 05

Foreword John Boumphrey UK & Ireland Country Manager, Amazon

06 Foreword - John Boumphrey

At Amazon, we are committed to supporting the communities we serve across the UK, especially when it comes to creating more opportunities for people to develop skills. This is why we have worked with The Purpose Coalition on The Levelling Up Goals. These goals provide a helpful and meaningful framework for any organisation looking to help people from all backgrounds develop fulfilling, well-paid careers. Levelling up is about individual opportunity and social mobility. It is about making sure that more people, from all backgrounds across the UK can access the support and opportunities they need to improve their lives. I have worked in retail for many years. It is a huge employer of people from all walks of life, up and down the country, giving many young people their first experience of work. Throughout my career, I have met and worked with many amazing people who have risen up the ranks of businesses to become incredibly successful after struggling with formal education. It often came down to getting that one opportunity, and of course a lot of dedication and hard work. Those experiences have reinforced the importance of meritocracy – hiring and promoting based on achievement, not background. I truly believe that great ideas, and great contributions, can come from anyone, but it’s up to leaders in businesses and other organisations to drive the cultural shifts that clear the way for those voices to be heard. At Amazon, we guide our decision making with a set of Leadership Principles. These are guiding principles that we use every single day, from the development of our products, to how we develop our employees. Our two newest principles are extremely relevant to our work with This is Purpose. First, we believe that ‘Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility’. We are big, we impact the world, and we are far from perfect. It means we have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to support our employees, their communities, and future generations. Second, we ‘Strive to be Earth’s best employer’. That means we want to be safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and more just, in everything we do. Where these two principles meet is where we get to do some of our most interesting work, because organisational success and personal transformation are deeply linked. We want to see our employees grow, change and reach their potential.

Being the Earth’s best employer means being focused on people’s willingness to learn and desire to contribute, not specific qualifications or their background. One of the statistics that struck me most in the last year was that half of our new hires were coming to Amazon from unemployment, or straight from education. We’re a gateway employer for thousands starting or re-starting their careers, which is both a privilege, and a responsibility. As the head of Amazon’s business in the UK and Ireland, part of my role is to think about how these principles are deployed effectively inside the company, and how they frame our contribution to the communities where we operate. In reading this report, I feel a sense of pride in the efforts Amazon teams have made across the country. Those initiatives include: n

Partnering with the excellent charity Magic Breakfast, delivering millions of free breakfasts to children from disadvantaged areas, so they can concentrate on their learning.

Providing free STEM education resources to schools and parents across the UK.

Challenging the gender imbalance in technology that holds young women back from some of the most exciting careers through AWS GetIT and Amazon Future Engineer.

Supporting thousands of new apprentices, giving young people an alternative and more accessible route to growing career areas without a degree, and a route for career switchers who are changing direction later in life.

Creating pathways for children from care, and people leaving the armed services, to help them into rewarding careers.

Providing funding and support for employees to learn the skills they need for the next step in their career, whether that’s with Amazon or somewhere else, through our unique Career Choice Programme.

We have been inspired by working with Justine Greening, Seema Kennedy and The Purpose Coalition. We are now able to think about these programmes in a new way, to help create a framework for levelling up post-16 opportunities, which other organisations can learn from and then use. It’s inspired us to challenge ourselves, to look for new ways that we can do more, and to go further to create opportunity.

Foreword - John Boumphrey 07

Amazon’s impact goes beyond economic benefits as it works to make positive environmental and social changes.

Introduction to Amazon Over the past 22 years, with the support of its customers, Amazon has continued to grow and invest in the UK. The company has invested over £32 billion in its UK operations since 2010, creating more than £36 billion in value-added GDP. In 2021 it created more than 25,000 new permanent jobs in communities across the UK, which brings the company’s total workforce to more than 70,000 people. Amazon employees work at sites across the country, which include corporate offices in London and Manchester; research and development centres in London, Cambridge and Edinburgh; Amazon Studios, fulfilment centres, sort centres, delivery stations, a customer service centre and physical stores such as Amazon Fresh, Amazon 4-star and Amazon Salon. Amazon has also helped more than 65,000 UK based small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to grow their businesses by enabling them to sell their products on Amazon online stores. More than 175,000 jobs have been created and supported by SME’s selling on Amazon, and it’s estimated that 125,000 extra jobs were supported by companies in Amazon’s UK supply chain.

08 Introduction to Amazon

Amazon’s impact goes beyond economic benefits as it works to make positive environmental and social changes. In 2019 Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge, a commitment to reach net zero carbon across its business by 2040, ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement. By the end of 2021, more than 200 businesses and organisations had become signatories of The Climate Pledge, with 67 based in the UK. In 2021, the company announced it had increased its renewable energy procurement by 40% in one year, making Amazon the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the UK and the world. For communities in the UK, Amazon has established relationships with notable organisations like In Kind Direct, Barnardo’s and Magic Breakfast, and, in 2021, contributed over £100 million in support for charities, healthcare organisations and local communities across the country. As a major employer and innovator, Amazon is uniquely positioned to help address some of the problems faced across the UK. Namely, the need for regional development, improving technical literacy in education and developing sustainable solutions to power the country. By leveraging its unique culture which encourages invention and a ‘think big’ approach, Amazon is well-placed to support the UK’s levelling up agenda.

Introduction to Amazon 09

THE JOURNEY TO

The Levelling Up Goals 10 The Journey to the Levelling Up Goals

In 2015, as Secretary of State for International Development, Justine Greening led the UK delegation to the United Nations (UN). Along with 184 international partners, she helped to establish the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In 2017, the SDGs were made more ‘actionable’ by a UN resolution adopted by the General Assembly which identified specific targets for each goal, along with indicators used to measure progress towards each target. These 17 interlinked, global goals were designed to be

“a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.” 1 They marked a shift from the previously established Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000. In contrast to the MDGs, the SDGs were nationally owned, country-led and targeted wealthy, developed nations as well as developing countries. The SDGs emphasised the interdependent environment, social and economic aspects of development by centralising the role of sustainability. As Secretary of State, Justine recognised how useful a common set of accessible but ambitious objectives could be in galvanising action to effect change. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated many of the problems relating to social inequality in the UK. The recovery is a chance for the United Kingdom to address these issues and level up but that requires updated and specific goals in order to outline, inspire and measure progress. The Purpose Coalition, of which Amazon is a part, is a group of policymakers, businesses, universities and other organisations, which aims to improve social mobility in the UK. The Coalition has responded to this challenge with the launch of its own Levelling Up Goals. The new Levelling Up Goals build on the foundations laid by the UN’s SDGs by outlining 14 clear goals and draw on expertise provided by academia and business which has been applied to the unique challenges facing the UK in levelling up. They focus on key life stages and highlight the main issues which need to be resolved to create a level playing field for all. The Levelling Up Goals are intended to guide how this urgent ambition can actually be achieved.

The Goals are designed to look at the outcomes of CSR strategies and measures which organisations use. Many places are doing outstanding work and making important contributions to society, but they are still measuring this via inputs – focusing on pounds and pence rather than real impact to human lives. Crucially, these Goals are a shared framework. Justine Greening and the wider Purpose Coalition believe that with common understanding and objectives, there can be action that drives change on the ground. Distinct entities, including universities, businesses, policy-makers, communities and NGOs, can work together, with the Goals serving as a uniting and motivating foundation for progress. As the problems which cause social inequality in the UK are interlinked, the response to these problems must also be collaborative. The Purpose Coalition has encouraged businesses and universities to share their own best practice with other organisations, so they are not only demonstrating their own commitment, but creating a shift towards purpose-led organisations. The Goals can encourage an extension of this cooperative exchange of information which can be used to help level up the UK.

Amazon and Levelling Up Amazon is taking a leading role in shaping a set of the Levelling Up Goals, participating in the Levelling Up Goals’ Measurement Task Force and leading on Goal 3, ‘Positive Destinations Post-16’, which states that “every young person and adult should have the choice of a high-quality route in education, employment or training.” This commitment aligns with the company’s Leadership Principles, which set out how Amazon does business, how leaders lead, and how they keep the customer at the centre of their decisions. It is a unique culture, which helps them pursue their mission of being Earth’s most customer-centric company, best employer, and safest place to work. In 2021, two new Leadership Principles were added making them a set of 16. Aptly for the Levelling Up Goals, these were ‘Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer’ and ‘Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility’.

1. Resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly, 6 July 2017

The Journey to the Levelling Up Goals 11

Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer

Amazon has brought this principle to the work it does with The Purpose Coalition, working toward a society that is safe, comfortable and has equal opportunities for all.

“Leaders at Amazon work every day to create a safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse and more just work environment. They lead with empathy, have fun at work, and make it easy for others to have fun. Leaders have a vision for and commitment to their employees’ personal success, whether that be at Amazon or elsewhere.”

Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility

Amazon puts value on making the workplace a comfortable and equal environment for everyone. It is committed to building a diverse, merit-based organisation as demonstrated by its diversity and inclusion initiatives. In 2019, the company launched Amazon Amplify, a programme designed to help employees from all backgrounds with actionable tips to help them speak up, become better allies and lead inclusively. The programme builds on a wide range of initiatives such including work to ensure diverse interview panels, transgender guidelines to support transgender staff, and affinity groups for women, LGBT+, ethnicitybased groups including the Black Employee Network and Asians@ Amazon, and an affinity group to support people with disabilities. Altogether, Amazon has thirteen affinity groups that bring employees together across its locations. These groups play a key role in building internal networks for community building, career development, advising business units, and reaching out to communities where Amazonians live and work. Last year, Glamazon, Amazon’s internal LGBT+ affinity group was named as a Top 10 LGBT Network in the Global Diversity List 2021. Professional and personal development is taken very seriously within the company. Amazon has a number of mentoring schemes and training programmes to support employee growth. In 2021, the effect of these initiatives led to Amazon being ranked in LinkedIn’s list of the 25 top workplaces in the UK and Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies list.

12 The Journey to the Levelling Up Goals

“We are big, we impact the world and we are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about even the secondary effects of our actions. Our local communities, planet and future generations need us to be better every day. We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers, our employees, our partners and the world at large. And we must end every day knowing we can do even more tomorrow. Leaders create more than they consume and always leave things better than how they found them.” Amazon says all employees know that they are responsible for the impact they have. This principle, more than any other, drives Amazon in its ambition to be a force for good in the UK, and is a perfect fit for the role in Levelling Up Goals. For example, earlier this year Amazon announced it was working with a coalition of local charities in Fife, Scotland, together with the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, to donate products to over 13,000 families. These donations seek to alleviate poverty amongst those who have suffered from social exclusion as a result of unemployment, poor housing, and a host of other issues. There is an alignment between the Leadership Principles, Amazon’s UK priorities and five specific Levelling Up Goals – Goal 2: Successful school years, Goal 3: Positive destinations post16, Goal 8: Good health and wellbeing, Goal 9: Extending Enterprise, and Goal 13: Harnessing the energy transition.

The Journey to the Levelling Up Goals 13

FIVE CORE FOCUS AREAS

Every child successfully achieving their potential in attainment and development. This Goal focuses on one of the most fundamental pillars of ‘Levelling Up’, which is ensuring strong attainment in schools, particularly for young people who face the most significant barriers. Amazon has been working to improve young people’s school experience for a number of years. Taking a special interest in developing STEM education and opportunities for underrepresented and underserved students in the UK, Amazon has launched programmes such as Amazon Future Engineer and AWS GetIT, which offer opportunities to children from primary to secondary school age.

Every young person and adult to have the choice of a high-quality route in education, employment or training. Amazon is leading on this Goal, with strong expertise in connecting young talent to opportunities. This has never been more important, particularly as the UK emerges from a global pandemic and looks toward economic recovery. Through Amazon’s leading apprenticeships programmes, support for skills development, jobs training schemes like AWS Re/Start and its support for groups who might face higher barriers to employment through the Care Leavers Covenant and Armed Forces Covenant, the company is prepared to tackle this Goal. 14 Five Core Focus Areas

Improving mental and physical health at all ages to boost overall well-being to allow people to fulfil their potential. Amazon has shown a strong contribution to public health and wellbeing during the pandemic. Amazon utilised its logistics network and expertise to help the UK government testing programme. The company played a key part in the success of delivering 7 million testing kits free of charge to the British public. Amazon has also helped tackle child hunger in partnership with Magic Breakfast to ensure the wellbeing and health of disadvantaged school children. Together, Amazon and Magic Breakfast have delivered over five million breakfasts to the homes of children since May 2020, providing them with the proper fuel for learning at home or school.

Extending private enterprise and entrepreneurship to all people and communities. Amazon continues to provide exemplary contributions to extending private enterprise and entrepreneurship to all people and communities. It continues to deliver on this Goal through investment in the development of small businesses and startups through programmes such as the Amazon Small Business Accelerator, AWS Digital Innovation Programme, Amazon Launchpad and more.

Ensure that the energy transition is fair and creates opportunities across the UK. This Goal represents the job and career opportunities that come with a net zero Britain and the journey to arriving there. Amazon launched The Climate Pledge Fund in 2020 to support the development of sustainable and decarbonising technologies and services. This dedicated investment programme – with an initial $2 billion in funding – invests in visionary companies whose products and solutions will facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy. All of these investments and innovations in sustainability have a ripple effect, creating new opportunities, skills, areas of expertise and careers for people in the UK. Amazon’s impact across these areas reaches right across the UK. In a postCOVID world they have the potential to push the Levelling Up agenda forward, having shown already that they can create positive destinations where individuals can thrive with the right tools and support.

Five Core Focus Areas 15

Amazon’s Activities Mapped AGAINST THE LEVELLING UP GOALS

16 Amazon’s Activities Mapped Against the Levelling Up Goals

FREng, Ursula Burns FREng, and Professor Sue Black OBE to challenge public perception of engineering as well as inspire the next generation of young people, from all genders, ethnicities and parts of society.

Goal 2: Successful School Years Amazon leads many activities to support the development and education of children in primary and secondary school to ensure their school years are successful and prepare them for the future. While the majority of this activity is structured toward science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education, addressing education inequality throughout the UK is also one of its priorities. These activities include Amazon Future Engineer, Maths4All, Amazon Reads, AWS GetIT and AWS Educate. All of these programmes have been designed to ensure young people have successful school years and harness Amazon’s innovative nature in doing so.

Amazon Future Engineer Amazon Future Engineer is a comprehensive childhood-to-career programme that inspires, educates and enables young people from lowerincome backgrounds to realise their potential in computer science. Research by Capital Economics, commissioned by Amazon, showed the UK needed 38,000 workers with computer science related skills, including 21,000 computer science graduates, to meet labour demands every year – or the economy could lose out on an estimated £33bn a year by 2030. Since its launch in 2019, Amazon Future Engineer has forged relationships with organisations such as Teach First and the Royal Academy of Engineering to address issues identified as barriers for entry in STEM fields for children and young adults from underserved backgrounds. The programme is estimated to have reached over 190,000 students from lower-income backgrounds through its wider engagement and initiatives by the close of 2021. Women are still significantly underrepresented in engineering and technology. Last year, Amazon, the Royal Academy of Engineering and BecomingX launched a film series called ‘Engineering Heroes’, profiling pioneering women engineers Dame Stephanie Shirley CH DBE

In 2021, Amazon and the Royal Academy of Engineering expanded the Amazon Future Engineer bursary scheme to support more women from low-income households to study computer science and related engineering courses. Fifteen awards, worth £5,000 a year for up to four years, were granted to women students from lowincome households progressing from A Level, Scottish Highers or technical education courses to university education in the 2021/22 academic year, with a further seventeen planned to be granted in 2022 and sixteen more each year going forward. Amazon is working with education charity Teach First to help bring skilled computing teachers to schools serving disadvantaged communities across the UK. The Department for Education reported that recruitment for computer science teachers has fallen short by 25% or more since 2015, which can result in both educational and economic inequality if young people leave school without in-demand digital skills. In 2021, Amazon and Teach First helped recruit 38 new computer science teachers. Through Class Chats, a virtual career talk programme, Amazon aims to build a pipeline for students from underrepresented and underserved backgrounds to pursue careers in technology to ensure the industry is representative of the diverse communities in which it operates. Class Chats is aimed at students aged 11-18 and exposes them to the variety of careers available in the tech industry. Amazonians are welcomed and encouraged to host presentations in schools, sharing insights from their personal career journey. Amazon Future Engineer also offers students a real-world learning experience to excite and inspire future careers in STEM through the Amazon Virtual Fulfilment Centre Tours. The tours are available to all UK primary and secondary school students and provide fun and engaging workshops covering topics such as cloud computing, algorithms, and machine learning. In 2021, the tours engaged over 21,000 students. Amazon has also collaborated with non-profit organisation Code.org to create ‘Hour of Code: Dance Party’, an interactive and dance-themed online coding tutorial that gives students the opportunity to code characters to dance to songs from leading artists.

Goal 2: Successful School Years 17

Maths4All In 2020, Amazon launched Maths4All, a free learning store offering high-quality Maths learning resources including 300+ worksheets sourced from educational charities and content providers. In 2022, Amazon will launch an enhanced version of Maths4All that will offer Maths and Science learning resources for free – delivered in partnership with UK education charities and other third parties including the University of Cambridge, University College London, the University of Oxford, Primary Leap and Scratch-Maths. The programme will support young learners focused on STEM subjects by making worksheets available for parents, carers and educators to easily download. The free e-learning store will utilise Amazon’s existing e-commerce search, recommendation and optimisation engine to give all learners access to top-quality educational resources at a single trusted location.

Amazon Reads School closures due to lockdowns during the pandemic have affected almost 1.6 billion children and young people worldwide. In response, Amazon launched Amazon Reads, a global campaign focused on youth and education with aims to raise greater awareness of pandemic-driven education inequalities in literacy, while also raising funds for literacy charities. As part of this campaign in the UK, Amazon donated £50,000 to National Literacy Trust, an independent charity working with schools and communities to give disadvantaged children the literacy skills to succeed in life. Amazon also shipped thousands of literacy packs to primary school children from its fulfilment centres in Durham and Tilbury. To date, Amazon Reads has reached thousands of children and families across the UK and donated almost 100,000 to schools and charities.

AWS GetIT AWS GetIT is an initiative designed by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to encourage girls aged 1213 to consider a career in tech – challenging long standing gender stereotypes. Running between the autumn and spring terms of the school year, AWS GetIT invites teams from different schools to an app-building competition to solve real issues faced by their

18 Goal 2: Successful School Years

school or community. Along the way, participants learn practical digital and IT skills, experience working as a team, and gain self-confidence by presenting ideas to wider audiences – all while being exposed to IT as a potential career. Since AWS GetIT’s launch in 2018, tens of thousands of students from schools across the UK have participated in the programme. The diversity of the competition submissions reflects the varied issues and pressures facing young people today. App ideas range from managing stress and mental health, to helping teenagers come out about their sexuality and encouraging consumption of recyclable products.

AWS Educate Cloud computing can open the door to exciting opportunities in technology or business. AWS Educate offers hundreds of hours of free, self-paced online training resources and the opportunity for hands-on practice on the AWS Console. Designed specifically for the preprofessional learner, AWS Educate provides simple, barrier-free access to learn, practice, and evaluate your cloud skills without creating an Amazon or AWS account. Through AWS Educate, learners can follow personalised content recommendations to earn badges that demonstrate their skill mastery and search the job board to find employers looking to hire for in-demand roles.

Goal 3: Positive Destinations Post-16 Amazon is significantly contributing to the creation and provision of positive, rewarding and accessible opportunities for young people over 16 years through the large range of apprenticeships on offer. In 2022 alone, Amazon will create 1,500 new full-time apprenticeship roles in more than 40 different schemes to match a diverse range of skillsets and ambitions including automation engineering, broadcast production, robotics and workplace safety.

Beyond sector-leading apprenticeships, the company has supported skills development and jobs training schemes through AWS Re/Start. Amazon has also supported groups who might face higher barriers to employment, setting positive examples in its signing of both the Care Leavers Covenant and Armed Forces Covenant.

Apprenticeships Apprenticeships are a key way for young people, and indeed people of all ages, to upskill or re-skill. For young people particularly, apprenticeships offer a strong alternative to pursuing university and higher education and provide an opportunity to both earn and learn. Amazon has apprenticeship programmes for anyone aged 18+, from entry-level right through to degree level and provides an exciting path to becoming future team leaders, engineers and innovators. Thirteen new apprenticeship schemes launched by Amazon for 2022 include publishing, retailing, marketing, and a programme focused on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG), giving apprentices the opportunity to gain real-world sustainability experience. Amazon has apprenticeship programmes that enable people to choose from various career disciplines, such as: n

Chartered management degree

Human resources

Project management

Buying and merchandising

Data analysis

Software development

Solutions architecture

Advanced mechatronics

Automation Engineering maintenance

Health, safety and environment

Digital marketing sales (account manager level)

Supply chain with Business improvement techniques

The scale of Amazon’s apprenticeship programmes in the UK is significant. Since 2018, Amazon has created approximately 2,000 apprenticeships and in 2021 Amazon created

1,000 new full-time apprenticeships in 25 different schemes to match a diverse range of skill sets and ambitions.

In 2022, Amazon will create 1,500 new apprenticeship roles in over 40 different apprenticeship schemes across the UK including Northern Ireland for the first time. Once qualified, apprentices have the opportunity to work across Amazon’s UK sites including fulfilment centres, delivery stations, the UK head offices in London and Manchester, plus the three development centres in Edinburgh, Cambridge and London. Reskilling is particularly important for Amazon. In 2022, over 500 new apprenticeships will be offered to Amazon’s existing workforce, providing opportunities to retrain and gain new skills that lead to exciting new career paths. Apprenticeships exclusively for Amazon employees range from becoming a team leader through to becoming a coaching practitioner. Amazon has a very clear ambition to ensure its people can develop and progress in their careers and continue lifelong learning. The programmes last between 14 months and four years. The roles include 250 degree-level apprenticeships in automation engineering, finance, software development and account management. Amazon’s apprenticeships pay a minimum of £11.10 per hour in the London area and £10.00 per hour in other parts of the UK, and up to £32,000 a year for degree-level apprenticeships. Bringing innovation to every area of the business, Amazon is one of the first companies to introduce a new flagship Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability standard apprenticeship as it looks to further expand its expertise in societal sustainability in the UK. There will be other new apprenticeship schemes available this year including Business Administration, DevOps engineers, Data Analyst and many more. As part of Amazon’s ongoing commitment to supporting career opportunities and skills development across England, in 2021, it launched a £2.5 million Apprenticeship Fund to help small businesses, creative industry partners and Amazon Web Services customers upskill their workforce by taking on their own dedicated apprentices.

Goal 3: Positive destinations post-16 19

Camila Rey De Rosa Mechatronics Engineering Apprentice Camila previously worked as an occupational health nurse, then decided she wanted to try something different. At 37, she found it difficult to access an apprenticeship before discovering Amazon’s programmes.

“The apprenticeship at Amazon has been a brilliant experience and has offered me opportunities that I couldn’t get elsewhere. The skills and knowledge I have gained through the course have completely changed my mindset and challenged me to focus on finding the solution for every problem.” Camila is now vice-chair on the apprentice board at the Women’s Engineering Society, adding: “I have loved the opportunity to work alongside so many amazing Amazon engineers and would encourage everyone to sign up and give the apprenticeship a go!”

Anjalee Vichhi Digital Marketing Apprentice Anjalee started her own graphic design business after school but wanted to develop and refine her skills in digital marketing – and an Amazon apprenticeship unlocked that door. Equipped with new skills, she now has “more freedom” to tailor her career path in the near future.

“My aim is to become a Social Media Manager and to lead large and impactful campaigns. My apprenticeship will lay the foundations for me to achieve this goal and will kick start my career in digital marketing.”

20 Goal 3: Positive Destinations Post-16

AWS re/Start AWS re/Start is a free, skills development and training programme, which prepares individuals from unemployed, underemployed, and underrepresented populations for entrylevel careers in the cloud and connects them to potential employers. The 12-week programme covers fundamental AWS Cloud skills alongside practical career skills like communication, time management, collaboration, interviewing and CV writing. Supported by professional mentors and accredited instructors, learners build programming, networking, security, and database skills through scenario-based learning, hands-on labs, and coursework. AWS re/Start also covers the cost for participants to take the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam. The programme focuses on diverse groups of learners such as young people, veterans or people made redundant from non-tech careers. On completion of the programme, graduates are connected with potential employers. AWS re/Start was first launched in the UK in 2017 and has since expanded across the UK – from Belfast, Birmingham, and Blackpool through to London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Dundee and many more. The programme has also gone global, and we have more than tripled the number of cities where AWS re/Start is available—from 25 cities in 12 countries in 2020 to 95 cities in 38 countries at the end of 2021.

Care Leaver Covenant In 2018, Amazon signed the Care Leaver Covenant, a ground-breaking scheme rolling out over the next decade to create 10,000 work opportunities for young people who have left care settings. With 40% of care leavers aged 19-21 not in education or employment, versus 13% for this age group on average, this scheme recognises the need for businesses, charities and government departments to implement programmes to reduce this gap. This includes the opportunity for work, internships, training and coaching to develop relevant life skills. Those who have signed the pledge will work to support young people across the UK as they prepare to leave the care system, giving care leavers opportunities to advance themselves and prepare for future employment.

Armed Forces Covenant Amazon and Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently renewed their commitments to serving personnel, reservists, veterans and families by jointly re-signing the UK government’s Armed Forces Covenant, nearly a decade after first signing the Covenant in 2013. The company was one of the first major businesses to sign the UK government’s Armed Forces Covenant. The Covenant, originally introduced in 2011, focuses on helping the Armed Forces community to access the same support from government and commercial services as the public. It states: “Those who serve in the Armed Forces, whether Regular or Reserve, those who have served in the past, and their families, should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services… recognising those who have performed military duty unites the country and demonstrates the value of their contribution.” In 2019, Amazon received a Gold Award in the Ministry of Defence’s Employer Recognition Scheme, which publicly celebrates its positive attitude and sector-leading policies towards the Armed Forces community, and highlights its work supporting current and former defence personnel as an example of best practice in the UK business community.

Steven Giddings Business Management and IT Apprentice Steven managed a family-owned leisure business for 16 years before joining Amazon in 2016. He joined as a temporary associate and just two months after starting he was offered a permanent role as Outbound Shipping Team Lead.

“The opportunities that the apprenticeship has opened up for me within Amazon are incredible. I am thankful for the knowledge it offers which will allow me to progress in my career. I only wish that I had joined Amazon sooner!”

Goal 3: Positive Destinations Post-16 21

Amazon’s UK Corporate Military Internship In 2021, Amazon launched the UK Corporate Military Internship for the first time, offering a path directly into corporate roles for those transitioning from the Armed Forces. The six-month paid internship supports individuals through their transition to the corporate world and provides a military mentor who already works at Amazon, tailored support from line management and an onboarding buddy.

James Mallard James trained as an officer in the Royal Marines and went on to join a Commando unit in Scotland. His career in the military included time in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, the Norwegian Arctic Circle, Brunei and Oman. Recently married, with his wife expecting their first child, James wanted to spend more time with his family and the internship with Amazon has been a natural transition from military life.

“There are big similarities between military life and working at Amazon: the culture and ethos, the singular purpose on customer obsession, the sense that we’re all pulling in the same direction. Not everybody I know has transitioned out of the military so easily.” “I’m getting a brilliant grounding in the world of technology and I feel like the world’s my oyster.”

22 Goal 8: Good Health and Wellbeing

Goal 8: Good Health and Wellbeing As the country emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to focus on health and wellbeing has never been more important. Both through the pandemic and before it, Amazon has shown a strong contribution to Goal 8: Good Health and Wellbeing. During the pandemic Amazon took extraordinary measures to support employees, customers, communities and the UK government.

From a partnership with Magic Breakfast that provided over five million free meals to school children, to boosting the UK governments testing capacity through its logistics network.

Supporting Amazon’s employees through COVID-19 The safety of all Amazon employees remains the company’s top priority as the pandemic continues into 2022. Since March 2020, Amazon has taken a number of measures to ensure the health and wellbeing of its employees. More than 150 significant process changes and preventative health measures were implemented at Amazon sites in the UK and around the world and there was a general increased frequency of and intensity of cleaning and regular sanitisation

of frequently touched areas. All employees have access to PPE, safety equipment and a range of other tools and processes to ensure social distancing. Amazon also ramped up onsite COVID-19 testing for employees and invested in its own testing capabilities through a new lab in Manchester. The lab is proactively implementing new variant analysis technology to support UK health authorities in tracking and slowing the spread of new variants. Beyond testing, Amazon wanted to find more ways to support its employees and contractors through the pandemic. It established the Amazon Relief Fund with a $25 million initial contribution focused on supporting its independent delivery service partners and their drivers.

Supporting the UK Government through COVID-19 One of the strongest tests of any company’s purpose and capacity as a force for good is how that company reacts to a crisis. In March 2020, the Government asked Amazon to provide logistics support to deliver at-home PCR test kits to homes around the country. This initiative was designed to add new testing capacity and ensure those not able to travel to a test centre can still take a test. In a matter of days, Amazon’s logistics experts helped the Government establish an entirely new process for delivering these kits, test the ordering system and end-to-end process and it opened a fulfilment centre a month early to help store the kits. In total, Amazon delivered over 7 million COVID-19 testing kits to homes around the country, waiving all fees and providing this service free of charge. As part of a new study looking at the long-term effects of COVID-19, Amazon also delivered over 100,000 antibody test kits to volunteers on behalf of UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database and research resource. The tests were delivered through Ship with Amazon and the support was provided free of charge. Amazon Web Services (AWS) helped NHSX – a joint unit between the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and NHS Improvement - to launch a COVID-19 response platform for critical public services. The company also created a public source for critical COVID-19 data to enable virus research and help accelerate vaccine development.

Goal 8: Good Health and Wellbeing 23

Tackling child hunger with Magic Breakfast In 2020, as the impact of the pandemic hit families, homes and schools, and some children could not access healthy meals at schools, Amazon and Magic Breakfast expanded their partnership to provide schoolchildren at risk of hunger with a healthy breakfast. Magic Breakfast helps schools educate children on healthy eating and reaches out to parents to improve nutrition in the home. Research from YouGov highlighted holiday hunger as a key issue in learning development, as 57 per cent of surveyed teachers noticed disadvantaged pupils falling behind academically after the summer holidays. Magic Breakfast and Amazon worked together to tackle ‘holiday hunger’ and continued to provide free breakfasts to children at home over the summer holidays. As part of this partnership, Amazon has delivered five million free, healthy breakfasts to children across the UK since the delivery initiative started in May 2020. Along with funding daily breakfasts, Amazon’s donation provides for a dedicated support worker who works with the school to improve nutrition, spot the signs of hunger and target hard-to-reach children.

Supporting children’s wellbeing through COVID-19 with Barnardo’s Children’s charity Barnardo’s supports around 300,000 children, young people, parents and carers through more than 1,000 services across the UK. These focus on achieving safer childhoods, stronger families and positive futures. During COVID-19, charities like Barnardo’s faced unprecedented new challenges such as fundraising shortfalls, volunteer shortages and a surge in demand for their services.

Amazon expanded its existing partnership with Barnardo’s to ensure they can keep doing their great work. Amazon worked with Barnardo’s to map out children’s services corresponding to Amazon corporate sites and fulfilment centres across the UK. Amazon offered a variety of support mechanisms for vulnerable children in the selected areas including counselling, after school education support and mentorship.

24 Goal 8: Good Health and Wellbeing

So far, the initiative has supported up to 40 local services as they reopen, helping to buy materials, invest in technology or to create more welcoming – and socially distanced – spaces for children and families. This builds on Amazon’s long-term commitment to supporting local communities and providing unique learning opportunities for young people. This has previously been carried out across eight Amazon sites across the UK, including Dunfermline, Doncaster and Swansea, all opening their doors to hundreds of children from the Barnardo’s network.

Supporting those most affected by COVID-19 with the British Red Cross In 2020, Amazon announced its pledge of £3.2 million to support those most affected by the COVID-19 crisis in the UK, which included a substantial donation to the British Red Cross. The charity has used this donation to help extend the capacity of the NHS, support its logistics network in more than 150 NHS hospitals, provided over 20,000 care packages for the elderly and isolated, and collected and delivered medicine to people who were unable to leave their homes in lockdown. It has also helped the British Red Cross to provide loans for mobility equipment, funding for psychosocial support networks and contributed to temporary housing for 1,500 asylum seekers. Amazon also encouraged customers to become local British Red Cross volunteers, which contributed to 81,000 new sign-ups across the country.

Amazon Small Business Accelerator In response to the impact of the pandemic, Amazon worked with Enterprise Nation to create a major support package for anyone who wants to start a new online business or grow an existing one.

Goal 9: Extending Enterprise While Amazon is sometimes viewed as one large online enterprise, the reality is that more than 65,000 small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) across the UK are selling professionally on Amazon’s online stores and many of those are exporting around the world. To date, these SMEs have created 175,000 jobs across the UK. The Amazon story is fundamentally one of creating opportunities and extending enterprise; helping small businesses thrive, grow, employ more people across the UK and ‘level up’ in the most organic way that is possible. SMEs continue to account for more than 50% of everything Amazon sells in its online stores, and Amazon is always innovating to help them grow their businesses. Amazon recognises that its own success depends on their success. In 2020, Amazon spent approximately £2.6 billion in Europe on logistics, tools, services, programmes, and training our team to help small and medium-sized businesses selling on Amazon succeed. Amazon has delivered more than 250 new tools and services to help them launch new products; sell across the UK, Europe and around the world; analyse and optimise their businesses; and protect their intellectual property.

The Amazon Small Business Accelerator is a free, online educational programme that has now helped more than 400,000 small businesses and entrepreneurs. The Accelerator is tailored to individual’s experience levels, with a comprehensive curriculum covering website building, selling online, social media, marketing, managing cash flow, selling on Amazon, and identifying growth opportunities. It is boosting jobs across the UK and, for many, may be the beginning of their exporting journey. In 2021, Amazon Small Business Accelerator launched online bootcamps with the Department of International Trade which provided startups and SMEs businesses with free advice to help them sell their products globally on Amazon stores. Amazon has also hosted sustainability workshops to help businesses operating on its platforms to consider how they can operate sustainably. This encompasses a range of areas including sustainable logistics, sustainable packaging options and how to communicate sustainable messages in marketing strategy. As part of the bootcamps, participants benefit from advice from a dedicated group of experts and advisers.

Goal 9: Extending Enterprise 25

AWS helping startups with scaling AWS provides startups with access to programmes, guidance, and community that increase their chances of success. AWS recently launched the Startup Loft Accelerator, a 10-week, virtual, equity-free acceleration programme for early-stage startups in the UK and across EMEA. Participants receive tailored personal training with access to experienced advisors, subject matter experts, investors, and some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, who have built their businesses on AWS. They can also join a large community of entrepreneurs to share knowledge, experience and advice, and are eligible to join the AWS Activate programme, which includes up to US$25,000 in Activate credits to spend on AWS services, a one-year free AWS Business Support subscription for up to US$5,000, access to the pre-built infrastructure templates, and exclusive member-only offers. AWS helps startups when they reach the next stage of maturity. For example, through AWS Connections, a programme that introduces startups to enterprise customers with specific technical and business challenges. The AWS Partner Network (APN) Global Startup Programme is built to support mid-to-late stage startups that have raised institutional funding, achieved product-market fit, and are ready to scale. While AWS Marketplace is a digital catalogue that helps startups grow at scale by giving them access to millions of AWS customers and the visibility they need to gain traction in the market, allowing more time to focus on their core business.

AWS helping SMEs scale up SMEs are also adopting new working models and shifting to flexible IT platforms. This enables them to respond faster to customer needs and proactively improve products and services while reducing costs and freeing up resources for critical projects.

AWS empowers businesses across the UK to create value and drive innovation through low cost, on-demand cloud solutions. AWS supports small and medium sized businesses through programmes like the AWS Digital Innovation Programme, and the AWS Think Big for Small Business Programme, which offers small and/or minority-owned public sector organisations unique access to business, technical, and marketing enablement support.

26 Goal 9: Extending Enterprise

Goal 9: Extending Enterprise 27

Goal 13: Harness the Energy Transition The issues of people and planet go hand in hand - and the preservation of the environment through harnessing the energy transition is a fundamental pillar of levelling up sustainably for the long-term. Helping the UK, its communities and the businesses which operate here on their journey to reach net-zero carbon has become a hugely important aspect of companies’ purpose and practice. Amazon has demonstrated leadership on the issue of the energy transition.

CREDIBLE OFFSETS - take action to neutralise any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent and socially beneficial offsets to achieve net-zero annual carbon emissions by 2040.

In order to meet these goals, Amazon is taking a broad, science-based approach to measuring, reducing, and eliminating carbon emissions in its operations. As part of its commitment to The Climate Pledge, it has joined the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), a collaboration between CDP, World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC); it is one of the We Mean Business Coalition commitments. Amazon also launched The Climate Pledge Fund in 2020 to support the development of sustainable and decarbonising technologies and services. This dedicated investment programme – with an initial US$2 billion in funding – invests in visionary companies whose products and solutions will facilitate the transition to a lowcarbon economy. In 2021, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Amazon announced that it helped mobilise US$1 billion to protect the world’s tropical rainforests as part of the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance (LEAF) coalition. Amazon is working with the governments of the United Kingdom, Norway and the United States to purchase verified emissions reductions from countries tackling tropical deforestation.

Committing to and delivering on Net Zero In 2019, Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge – a commitment to be net-zero carbon across its business by 2040, ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement. As part of this pledge, it has made ambitious commitments toward reaching this goal. As signatories to The Climate Pledge it committed to: n

REGULAR REPORTING - measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis.

CARBON ELIMINATION - implement decarbonisation strategies in line with the Paris Agreement through real business change and innovations, including efficiency improvements, renewable energy, materials reductions and other carbon elimination strategies.

28 Goal 13: Harness the Energy Transition

AWS Clean Energy Accelerator Addressing climate change requires innovation and collaboration across industries, startups and businesses. Clean technology investment and innovation is surging to solve the world’s biggest energy challenges and to foster this innovation, AWS launched the AWS Clean Energy Accelerator in 2021. AWS Clean Energy Accelerator helps startups working in clean energy to accelerate their impact, access additional resources and expand their reach. Startups receive technical, business and go-to-market mentorship from AWS clean energy experts, collaboration opportunities with AWS energy customers and members of Amazon Partner Network (APN) looking for clean energy solutions.

Circular economy Managing product returns and unsold goods is a challenging question for all online and offline retailers. The company has a priority to resell, donate and recycle items. They have built extensive circular economy programmes to reduce product disposal with many ways to give products a second life, and they have extended this to support businesses selling their products on Amazon. For Amazon-owned products, the company uses a set of programmes to keep returned, damaged in the logistics process, or unsold products in the cycle of goods – from Amazon Warehouse for used or repaired goods, to liquidators, to donations to local food banks. Amazon provides a range of options for customers through the Amazon Second Chance website, and customers can recycle electronics through pre-paid postal return and home collection services on the Amazon Recycling website. Initiatives like the Frustration-Free Packaging Programme encourage manufacturers to package their products in easy-to-open packaging that is 100% recyclable and ready to ship to customers without Amazon boxes. To date, Amazon has reduced the weight of outbound packaging by 36% and eliminated more than 1 million tonnes of packaging material, the equivalent of more than 2 billion shipping boxes. In 2019 Amazon launched the Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) Donations programme, which is an automatic way for independent sellers using FBA to donate their overstock or returned items. Last year, Amazon helped these businesses donate more than 11 million products to charities across the UK. In 2021, Amazon also introduced two new Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) programmes, ‘FBA Grade and Resell’ and ‘FBA Liquidations’, designed to make it easier for businesses selling on Amazon to resell customer-returned items or overstock inventory while also giving more products a second life. In addition, since 2007, through Amazon retail and Fulfilment by Amazon programmes, Amazon and In Kind Direct have donated over £8 million worth of products to more than 4,800 charities across the UK.

Renewable energy Amazon is on a path to powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five year ahead of its original 2030 target, as part of its goal to reach net-zero carbon by 2040.

In 2020, it had already reached 65% renewable energy across its business, putting it on track to hit its ambitious target. This has been possible through Amazon’s many investments in renewable projects both in the UK and globally. In 2021, globally Amazon procured 5.6GW of electricity production capacity, a 40% increase on the 4GW procured in 2020. Amazon is the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the UK and the world, with 274 global projects including 105 utility-scale wind and solar projects and 169 solar rooftops on facilities and stores worldwide. In the UK, Amazon has installed large-scale rooftop solar systems on 11 fulfilment centres and has launched one of the largest unsubsidised onshore wind farms in operation in the UK at the Kintyre Peninsula in Scotland, which is now delivering clean energy to the grid. Amazon has also announced plans for a new wind project in Northern Ireland at Ballykeel, which will bring Amazon’s portfolio to 245 MW on Ireland’s allisland grid and its total UK portfolio to more than 545 MW of wind energy.

Shipment Zero Amazon is looking to make the way it operates intrinsically sustainable. As a result, it has set out the bold ambition to make all Amazon shipments net-zero carbon, with 50% of all shipments netzero by 2030. It aims to do this through sustainable process improvements, recycled materials, investments in electrification and renewable energy initiatives. At the end of 2021, Amazon had over 1,000 electric delivery vans on the road in the UK and delivered more than 45 million packages by more sustainable transportation methods, such as electric vans or cargo bikes. Amazon is also looking for collaborations with others in the industry. One such initiative is the Cargo Owners for Zero Emissions Vessels (coZEV), a pledge to which Amazon is a cofounder and one of the first signatories. The pledge includes other signatories such as Unilever and Ikea, and seeks to ensure that all cargo shipping used by these firms is carbon neutral by 2040. This includes all operations involved in delivering a customer’s order, from the fulfilment centre where an item is picked off the shelf, to the materials used to package items and the mode of transportation used to get the package to the customer’s door.

Goal 13: Harness the Energy Transition 29

Concluding Remarks Amazon has demonstrated how a business can generate positive impact across the key areas outlined within the Levelling Up Goals framework. It is committed to the Levelling Up Goal’s aim of driving equality of opportunity for people in the UK.

The Goals and the impact report have been an insightful framework to assess Amazon’s role in levelling up the UK more effectively and also identify the gaps for improvement in the future. Amazon’s economic, social and sustainability goals are aligned with at least five of the Levelling Up Goals, including Goal 2: Successful school years, Goal 3: Positive destinations post16, Goal 8: Good health and wellbeing, Goal 9: Extending enterprise and Goal 13: Harness the energy transition. Amazon delivers on Goal 2: Successful school years through Amazon Future Engineer, Maths4All and AWS programmes as part of its commitment to prepare individuals from low income backgrounds for future careers in the technology industry. During the pandemic, it became clear that many UK students do not have access to the devices and technology required for learning. Throughout periods of home schooling, Amazon and Teach First worked together to donate over 11,000 Fire Tablets to young learners in underserved communities, helping to remove the barrier to online learning and educational resources. Expanding that activity and as part of the company’s mission to improve the technological literacy of the next generation, Amazon is now working with the Digital Poverty Alliance an organisation that aims to end digital poverty by 2030. The company is also working effectively on Goal 3: Positive post-16 destinations, most notably

30 Concluding remarks

through its Apprenticeship Programme which will welcome 1,500 new apprentices in 2022 and continues to incorporate flagship schemes, such as the Amazon Health, Safety and Environment Technician role and the Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability apprenticeship. Amazon is addressing Goal 8: Good Health and well-being by working with organisations like Barnardo’s, In Kind Direct and Magic Breakfast amongst others. Amazon will continue to work with Magic Breakfast to deliver healthy meals to school children, providing students with the proper fuel for learning. Amazon delivers on Goal 13 through The Climate Pledge and its renewable energy commitments but is also committed to ensuring that the transition to a net zero UK brings new opportunities and roles. It recently launched the Amazon Launchpad Sustainability Accelerator programme with European climate innovation hub EIT Climate-KIC to support early stage startups working on sustainability focused products. The programme will provide founders with virtual workshops, specialised mentorship services, a tailored curriculum and access to a network of like-minded founders. The company, therefore, has a proven track record of starting, building and scaling programmes, developing new ways in which the business can work with local communities, charities and leaders to bring wealth, health, stability and hope back to the communities that Amazon employees and customers work and live in.