Emma Stewart - Sustainability Officer - Netflix

Emma Stewart, Ph.D., is Netflix’s first Sustainability Officer, where together with teams from across the company, she seeks to bring Netflix's carbon footprint to net zero, raise environmental awareness through film and television series, and spur conversation on climate action among our hundreds of millions of members in 190 countries.  She previously led World Resources Institute’s global work on urban efficiency, climate, and finance. She served on the Board of the U.S. Green Building Council and software company Ecomedes.  She has been a member of the professional faculty at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Stanford Graduate School of Business where she taught “Intrapreneurship for Sustainability”.

Emma was rated a “Badass Woman in Sustainability” by GreenBiz, a "top 3 speaker" by The Economist Summits, and has been named a “one of the most powerful women under 45” and an “urban pioneer” by FORTUNE Magazine, a “sustainability insurgent” by MIT Sloan Management Review, and one of the “Top 10 Women in Sustainability” by American Builders. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, Reuters, L.A. Times, and Environmental Law Journal, among others.

She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Management from Stanford University and a B.A. with Honors in Human Sciences from Oxford University.

Emma Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Netflix's Net Zero + Nature strategy
• Balancing reduction of emissions with offsets
• Netflix's 5 step screening process for carbon credits
• Netflix's greatest sources of emissions are strategies to address them
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals

Emma's Final Five Questions Responses

What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?

Always look for ways to become a profit center. I remember in a past company I worked for, and also those that I've had the privilege of advising, there's often an assumption that this is a cost center. It's maybe a cost of doing business, it helps the company maintain its license to operate. But I think that's often a lack of creativity. When you look at the product portfolio of most companies, there's a way to make money, to delight your customers, and to align with environmental needs. My advice is always find that journey from cost center to profit center.

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?

There's been a real global awakening as to how this touches every living thing, humans of course, as well as non-human species. It's now front page news in every region of the world. Unfortunately, often because it's taking the lives of the most vulnerable with a heat wave or a climate fueled natural disaster or grid outages or sea level rise. But it's not just the impacts that are making headlines. It's now also the fact that companies are mainstreaming this as a way of doing business. The largest financial institutions in the world are setting targets and starting to align their investment portfolios with climate science, and it has become a political dealbreaker. In many parts of the world. You see elections hinge on this topic in many countries. So for better or for worse, it has become front page news, which means there are many more voices in the room.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

My team and I just finished a book called Generation Dread, which I can highly recommend. It's written by Dr. Britt Wray. It's a survey of the latest research on how climate is manifesting as anxiety among the majority of the population, with the most vocal being gen z and the millennials, but it turns out they're not alone in feeling this dread. On the flip side, they are harnessing that anxiety and that helplessness into action as voters, as consumers, as employees. We found it very helpful and we actually had a team meeting with the author to unpack what it means for us as individuals and how we can better serve our consumers and members.

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?

I am an avid reader of Bloomberg News. They cover the intersection of business technology and climate with real sophistication, and they also had the wherewithal to acquire new energy finance. The BNEF outlooks as they're called, on electric vehicles on the energy sector on carbon pricing, you name it, those are excellent. On a more regular basis, I read updates from Fortune. They have a CFO Daily that often touches on sustainability and ESG topics. Carbon Brief is very good. Ceres and NRDC are strong on policy related developments. Energy Weekly and Climate Tech Weekly are really good on the clean tech side. The Hill I find to be quite useful also in terms of the politics, at least in the United States. And lastly, Project Drawdown’s work, which was so seminal in a multi-year multi-scholar model of the top climate solutions and how they could be executed. Project Drawdown continues to produce research that we rely upon.

Where can and our listeners go to learn more about you and your work at Netflix?

Sustainability.netflix.com and also LinkedIn.