Eco-Warriors Greening Big Tech

[There is no way that climate action and economic growth can be compatible. And once it seemed true. Carbon emissions declined and spiked with the economy for decades. Today, with innovations in recycling and enough clean energy to support and offset the trucking, air travel, and manufacturing that accompany economic growth, companies can do the right thing for both their shareholders and the planet. In fact, according to a recent report by the World Commission on the Economy and Climate, aggressive climate action could have an economic impact of more than $26 trillion by 2030. As businesses adopt a greener economy, women are leading the way.

Globally, women are increasingly occupying the majority of leadership roles in the corporate responsibility and sustainability sectors. This cannot be a coincidence. A wealth of research shows that companies with more women in leadership roles are more successful in shifting their focus from maximizing short-term profits to achieving long-term goals of growth and environmental sustainability. And the larger the company, the more important it becomes. We tend to associate sustainability with felt sneakers and hipster startups touting eco-friendly products, but the most impactful changes are happening in the places we least expect them: in giant global corporations. [Sarah Chandler, Apple's senior director of operations and environmental affairs, is a good citizen of such companies. She first knew she wanted to work for the planet when she was a high school student in the early 90s. Growing up on a maple syrup farm in western Massachusetts, she saw firsthand how the weather affected production. [After earning an MBA from Stanford University, Chandler joined Apple as an intern. Back then, in 2006, Greenpeace gave Apple a 2.7 out of 10 for sustainability, noting the company's use of toxic chemicals, inadequate recycling programs, and lack of transparency. But since then, especially under the leadership of Tim Cook, who took over as CEO in 2011, Apple has changed course and reduced its carbon footprint by 64%. Today, 100 percent of Apple's operations, from data centers to offices to retail stores, are powered solely by renewable energy. And the ripple effect starts here: Chandler and her team successfully lobbied 44 Apple suppliers to use 100 percent renewable energy for Apple's load as well.

Still, there is much work to be done. Apple sent 36.5 million pounds of waste to landfills in 2018, not to mention the hazardous manufacturing waste that landfills won't take (which nearly doubled from 2017 to 2018). Given the increased demand, the company is looking for innovative ways to minimize this waste. One such project is two Apple robots (both named Daisy, one in Austin and the other in the Netherlands) that disassembled and recycled 1 million used iPhones last year. The recycling has resulted in nearly 8 million devices being reclaimed and more than 150 million pounds of material avoided from landfills in 2018. Chandler says of the duo, "You can hear the pride in my voice."

Like Apple's Chandler, Google's sustainability officer Kate Brandt has been working on environmental issues since early in her career; in 2014, she was appointed the nation's first federal chief sustainability officer. A year later, Brandt moved to Google. In Washington, D.C., she saw how much influence she could have in the private sector; on her first day in 2015, Google launched the American Business Action Pledge on Climate with President Obama and other companies.

Since 2007, Google has been carbon neutral (using as much renewable energy as possible and purchasing carbon offsets for the rest). However, these offsets do not technically negate the massive amount of energy required to perform an estimated 5.5 billion Google searches daily and upload over 500 hours of YouTube video every minute. No wonder one of Brandt's most pressing concerns at Google is promoting a "circular economy" that eliminates waste and pollution through the company-wide use of renewable materials. She says, "Since the industrial revolution, our entire economy has been built on the idea of taking something out of the ground, manufacturing it as a product, and ultimately throwing it away." So Google now resells millions of used parts, saving millions of dollars and recovering materials from landfills.

Brandt's strategy is not only to incorporate sustainability into internal practices and products, but also to use tools like Google Maps and Project Sunroof to help the public make sustainable living choices. 'There is a great sense of urgency. The science says it will take another 10 years to turn this around," Brandt says, citing a 2018 UN report on climate change. That sense of urgency is growing every time the Trump administration rolls back environmental protections, from drilling and emissions regulations to energy efficiency standards.

Google and Apple launched in 2017, shortly after President Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. Along with leaders of nearly 4,000 public and private organizations, they signed the "We Are Still In" declaration, pledging a global effort to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, with or without federal support. [Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos also signed the declaration. Last fall, perhaps under pressure from some 2,000 employees united as Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, he committed to a plan to meet the Paris Agreement goals 10 years ahead of schedule. [An Amazon spokesperson said the "Climate Pledge" has been in the works for years and the company has thousands of employees around the world working on sustainability programs.] And in February, Bezos announced that he would dedicate $10 billion of his personal wealth to addressing the climate crisis; a key player in the development and implementation of the Climate Pledge, which commits to achieving net zero carbon through innovation and investment by 2040, was Amazon's worldwide sustainability head was Carla Hearst. [As the former CEO of the Sustainability Consortium, Hearst said, "I'm totally geeked out about solving this challenge. Hearst is helping Amazon, which has been widely criticized for filling landfills with shipping materials, increasing congestion and heat-trapping gases on roads and in the skies, solve challenges such as how to choose the best ways to conserve energy and resources. Wasting little time in achieving such ambitious goals, Hearst's team has pushed initiatives such as the purchase of 100,000 electric delivery vans. The company also launched a lightweight recyclable mailer (opens in new tab), more than 100 million of which have been sent to customers, and its overall packaging reduction program has eliminated the equivalent of more than 1.4 billion shipping boxes. In addition, as part of its climate commitments, Amazon aims to use 80% renewable energy by 2024 and 100% by 2030.

Hearst's goal is not only to help Amazon go green, but also to share the secrets of Amazon's success with thousands of other vendors. He says, "If Amazon can't mechanize a strategy that other vendors can emulate, then it stops with us. And that is not success." "

CORRECTION: The print version of this article contained unclear information regarding Tim Cook's tenure at Apple and did not include a statement from Amazon regarding "The Climate Pledge."

CORRECTION: The print version of this article incorrectly stated the number of shipping boxes reduced by Amazon's packaging reduction program.

This article originally appeared in the April 2020 issue of Marie Claire magazine.

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