Following recent news that Amazon AMZN +0.6% had become the world’s largest purchaser of renewable electricity, growing focus on the need for sustainable operations continues to drive the market in corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs). In 2020 corporations bought nearly 24GW of clean energy.

Research published by BloombergNEF (BNEF) showed that corporations purchased a record of 23.7GW of clean energy in 2020, up from 20.1GW in 2019 and 13.6GW in 2018. According to its 1H 2021 Corporate Energy Market Outlook, clean energy contracts were signed by more than 130 companies in sectors ranging from oil & gas to big tech. Amazon was the leading buyer of clean energy in 2020, announcing 35 separate clean energy PPAs in 2020, totalling 5.1GW.

Kyle Harrison, BNEF senior associate and the lead author of the report, said: “Corporations faced a wave of adversity in 2020 – internal corporate functions were disrupted on the outset of the pandemic, and many companies saw revenues plummet as global economies buckled. Question marks before – and after – the U.S. election further complicated long-term decision-making for companies. To not only maintain, but grow, the clean energy procurement market under these conditions is a testament to how high sustainability is on many corporations’ agendas.”

While the US has dominated the market for some time, the need to implement sustainability strategies across operations is seeing an expansion in other markets.  While companies announced 11.9GW of corporate PPAs in the U.S. in 2020, corporate PPA volumes in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region nearly tripled, from 2.6GW in 2019 to a record 7.2GW in 2020.