It’s only been a few months since Autodesk created the role of Chief Sustainability Officer. The Company appointed Joe Speicher, who had previously led the Autodesk Foundation, to take on the role and oversee the firm’s sustainability function.
When we sat down with Joe, he explained how Autodesk is working to fulfill what he sees as a unique opportunity to support decarbonization in its primary markets – the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and media & entertainment sectors.
Can you tell us how your sustainability role has evolved at Autodesk?
Almost a decade ago, I was brought in to lead the Autodesk Foundation, where we were exploring low carbon innovations. That paved the way for us to invest some of our philanthropic dollars – initially in funds, and then increasingly in Seed and Series A funding – toward the innovators enabling a low carbon future. That’s how I got into sustainability.
We have seen a significant shift in the market dynamics favoring sustainable outcomes in the last year or two – and Autodesk is responding to these shifts. So, we’ve updated the mandate for our sustainability team and expanded our focus to include the company, our customers, and the ecosystem in which we operate. I now oversee our corporate sustainability strategy that is three-pronged: (i) improving our own operations, (ii) partnering with our customers to deliver on their own sustainability commitments, and (iii) (where we can) influencing the long-term trajectories of our industries toward more sustainable outcomes.
You report to the CFO, which is unique – what is the thinking behind Autodesk merging the sustainability function into the finance function?
Our executive leadership took a thoughtful approach as they decided where to place sustainability at this point in time, given its relevance to all our business units and direct relation to our overall goals. There are several examples where there’s a clear integration with the finance function, such as our voluntary climate disclosures that will become statutory; connecting our capital financing and sustainability outcomes via a sustainability bond; and the increasing importance of sustainability to investor relations.
When thinking about the long term, I believe the sustainability function needs to be biodegradable, in that it will just enter through the roots of the organization and permeate across the business. That said, we are still intentional about where sustainability shows up – and where it doesn’t. At this stage, the ability to have centralized coordination and collaboration within the company makes the most sense for Autodesk. That said, every company is unique in how its sustainability function evolves.
“When thinking about the long term, I believe the sustainability function needs to be biodegradable, in that it will just enter through the roots of the organization and permeate across the business.”
In 2021, Autodesk issued its inaugural Sustainability Bond. Could you tell us more about what drove that decision?
The decision to pursue a sustainable financing option was really driven by our finance leadership – and it was an opportunity to further align our sustainability strategy with our financial strategy. Given the investments we’ve made in our capabilities, we issued our inaugural $1 billion Sustainability Bond in 2021.
Proceeds of the financing were allocated to green and social projects ranging from our acquisition of Innovyze, a global water infrastructure software company, to investments in manufacturing apprenticeship programs that help address the global skills gap across industries we serve. We also used a portion of the proceeds toward investments in certified carbon mitigation and removal projects across two categories: (i) greenhouse gas mitigation technologies focused on the built environment, and (ii) nature-based carbon removal solutions.
How does Autodesk’s technology enable better sustainability outcomes?
The customers using Autodesk‘s Design and Make Platform are changing the world, so investing in their ability to reduce their carbon footprint has a significant ROI. Some of the primary industries we serve (architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing) are together associated with roughly 60% of total global CO2 emissions every year. They’re coming under increasing pressure to manage emissions, and our technology and access to the right data can help our customers both minimize risk and maximize opportunity.
Sustainability is a data problem. We believe that when you have the right tools, the right data and a fully connected ecosystem - you have the power to transform both what is made and importantly, how it’s made.
One of our products, Revit, includes capabilities that allow our customers to model the energy usage of a building and to actually improve it. Now we’re coupling that with the ability to look at the bill of materials and optimize the selection of inputs to a building (or product) to reduce carbon intensity. We are calling this whole life carbon or total carbon. The ability to access this data upstream in the design process to inform decision-making, is astounding. And ensuring that same data flows downstream and is used in the construction and operation of the building, is revolutionary.
“Sustainability is a data problem. We believe that when you have the right tools, the right data, and a fully connected ecosystem - you have the power to transform both what is made and importantly, how it’s made.”
Do you believe Artificial Intelligence (AI) could support better sustainability outcomes? How do you view the ESG risks associated with it?
I think of AI as both a headwind and a tailwind – the tailwind being its ability to solve complex problems and deliver optimized solutions. Typically, when someone designs a building with a focus on sustainability, it subsequently goes off to the sustainability consultants for a couple of weeks to figure out how to optimize the energy and material usage of the building. The ability to do that using machine learning, algorithmic, and subsequently generative AI tools, will be a huge win to delivering more sustainable projects across industries.
The headwind is the energy consumption associated with large language models, and the frenzy of data center building that will need to happen to address the incredibly high demand associated with generative AI. Right now, we’re operating under the assumption that the benefits of AI will significantly outweigh the costs – but we need to be intentional about that and continue to monitor progress.
How do you see Autodesk’s proactive engagement on sustainability driving value creation, now and in the future?
It’s really through the full cycle of project delivery in architecture, engineering, construction and manufacturing. One example of that is through datacenters. As a technology company, we are heavily reliant on datacenters to deliver our products and run our core business operations. We must deal with the decarbonization issues and residual emissions associated with that activity. Our customers are using our tools to build datacenters – so if we’re helping them to design more energy-efficient datacenters, that’s a top-line benefit to us as a company, as well as a bottom-line benefit in terms of our climate commitments.
We take a long-term view because of our tenure and history as a company. When Autodesk started out roughly 40 years ago, we were trying to bring to the masses what were at the time incredibly complex drafting tools. This continues today: we are democratizing access to complex technologies and data for industries that are carbon-intensive, as this is the only way we’re going to solve climate change.
Moses Choi
Director, Sustainable Finance
Joe Speicher
Chief Sustainability Officer, Autodesk