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Case Studies | Friday June 3, 2011

BSR Membership: A Global Network of Sustainability Leaders

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BSR is proud to support and partner with our powerful network of member companies, who share with us a focus on building a just and sustainable world. We work every day to provide our member companies with value based on the insights, expertise, and relationships we’ve built through years of hands-on work in the field.

In recent years, we have invested in becoming a more global organization to be closer to our member companies and to secure the expertise and network to serve our members well. In 2010, we continued on this path, and, as such, our member network has become more geographically diverse. The highest levels of growth in BSR membership in 2010 came outside the United States, with our membership base in Asia growing by 47 percent, and our base in Europe and the Middle East growing by 29 percent. Our U.S. membership grew by 6 percent. Globally, we ended 2010 with 285 companies in our membership, and our annual retention rate remained high, at 90 percent. A full list of BSR members is available at www.bsr.org/members.

Membership by Industry Sector

• Consumer Products
• Energy
• Financial Services
• Food, Beverage, and Agriculture
• ICT
• Media and Entertainment
• Mining
• Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology
• Transportation and Logistics
• Travel and Tourism
• Other

2010 BSR Member Survey

In June 2010, we conducted a member-satisfaction survey to improve our understanding of the value and quality of BSR membership. Results indicate that a strong majority of members is satisfied with membership. Respondents indicated that they highly value two particular benefits: our insight and analysis on sustainable business, and the network and collaboration opportunities that BSR provides. In 2011, we will take steps to reach more people in our member companies and to individualize the member experience on our website.

In 2011, our member events—including webinars, meetings, and working groups—covered a wide range of topics, including:

• CSR and Government Affairs: Conflict or Convergence?
• Climate Adaptation
• The New Frontier in Sustainability: The Business Opportunity in Tackling Sustainable Consumption
• ICT and Human Rights
• Local Content in Emerging Markets

Blog | Thursday September 28, 2023

BSR’s Climate Journey Toward Net Zero

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With 2030 quickly approaching, global climate commitments must move toward swift action to halve emissions and reach global 2050 net-zero goals. At BSR, we work with our membership network to deliver credible action to keep 1.5°C within reach, while also maximizing synergies with nature; human rights; and equity, inclusion, and justice.

While we focus on sustainability impact in all the work we do with our members, like all organizations, our day-to-day operations have an environmental impact. It is important we hold ourselves to the same standard we expect from members, and recognize this opportunity to share openly about our climate journey. We have therefore set a climate target for our organization and embarked on a journey to deliver on it. 

Our Climate Target

Using BSR’s 2021 GHG footprint as the baseline, BSR commits to: 

• A near-term (2030) target, to reduce total Scope 1 (own operations) Scope 2 (energy source) emissions by 50%, and our top emitting total Scope 3 (value chain) emissions by 42%. 

• A long-term (2040) target, to reduce total Scope 1&2 emissions by 90%, our total Scope 3 emissions by 90%, and to reach net-zero by neutralizing residual emissions with permanent removals. 

Starting in 2023, we are applying a carbon price to our Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, and using the funds to invest in climate solutions that contribute to global net zero beyond our value chain. In 2023, we have decided to use the US Government Social Cost of Carbon as a reference. 

For more information on BSR’s GHG emissions data and climate targets, please visit Sustainability at BSR. 

Climate Goal Development Process 

We believe impactful work and a credible climate target and implementation plan go together. The SBTi Net Zero Standard is the most robust standard currently available, and although as a non-profit we cannot officially commit to the SBTi, we are committing to a target that follows SBTi’s guidance.

BSR’s climate goal and implementation plan are grounded in four key principles: 

1. A clear vision on transformative climate leadership. 

2. Learning from peers’ climate ambitions to ensure alignment with best practices. 

3. Aligning with the recommendations provided to BSR members and demonstrating a commitment to “walking the talk”. 

4. Leveraging the transformative power of BSR’s unique membership network model as a catalyst for broader change. 

BSR’s climate goal development process began with a comprehensive greenhouse gas footprint from an external expert. We then participated in one-to-one discussions on the learnings and challenges of developing a climate strategy with non-profit peers, and benchmarked industry counterparts and partners before forming and testing the feasibility of multiple climate goal options in alignment with the SBTi Net Zero Standard. The creation of the implementation plan included a review of our emissions data to understand BSR’s leverage to influence and reduce Scope 3 emissions, our largest source of emissions—largely due to our contractors and professional services use.

The whole process was validated by BSR’s internal experts, leadership team, and the CEO to ensure 1) internal operational and financial support and 2) alignment with business needs to continue our mission. 

Implementation and Beyond 

Climate commitments have true value when accompanied by a robust implementation plan with specific milestones. The delivery of our climate targets starts in 2023 and is supported by three timebound task forces: 

• Renewable energy, heating, and green offices: Propose strategies to reduce offices’ GHG footprint and engage staff in sustainable practices at the office—including green IT and waste reduction—both with considerations for the impact of home working. 

• Policy development: Include climate considerations in travel and contractor engagement policies to reduce emissions from two of our largest sources of Scope 3 emissions—business travel and purchased services. 

• Beyond value chain mitigation strategy: Develop and deliver BSR’s strategy to invest in climate solutions from now and define parameters for our long-term strategy to invest in carbon removals. 

A key aspect of our implementation plan is the use of the social cost of carbon to fund our investments in climate solutions that contribute to global net zero beyond our value chain. We hope that this unique approach can inspire others to ground climate investment estimations in amounts that reflect the real-world damage to people and the environment.

Although BSR is a small organization with a small GHG footprint on a global scale, we believe that our current climate goal will bring positive impact and help us take responsibility for our impact. In parallel, we are working on ways to activate the great potential for GHG emissions reduction with our members. 

BSR’s implementation plan consists of collaboration across departments, engagement with partners and BSR members, and continuous iteration. We have climate goal implementation taskforces involving different functional teams on climate action and will work with partners and BSR members to reduce GHG emissions together. While we are still figuring out how to address our main Scope 3 hotspots, such as our contracted services and partners and business travel, we are not waiting until we have a perfectly developed strategy to act. 

Leading by Example 

BSR acknowledges the ambitious nature of our net zero target. As a small organization, we have limited leverage on our Scope 3, and do not have all the solutions now nor the resources of the large companies with which we work. However, we remain steadfast in our commitment to playing our part in achieving global net-zero and being an example of how SMEs can prioritize sustainability.

This pledge reflects BSR's core identity as a sustainability organization, the urgency of the climate crisis, and our attitude to “walking the talk” with transparency, humbleness, ambition, and a commitment to sustainable business practices.

Achieving climate goals is a journey, and BSR remains dedicated to regularly reviewing our climate strategy, open communication on our progress, and continuous improvement, including expanding our sustainability efforts to address other important issues in the future. 

Audio | Wednesday January 8, 2025

A Conversation with Darsh Myronidis, Group Director of Sustainability, Virgin

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Darshana Myronidis, Group Director of Sustainability at Virgin Group, chats with BSR Managing Director, Transformation Christine Diamente, and host David Stearns about of the evolution of her role at Virgin, strategies for embedding sustainability within a company, how to maintain momentum in the face of externalities developments like the recent outcome of the U.S. election, and where the greatest opportunities for significant progress lie.

Blog | Monday November 20, 2017

How Do We Measure the Impact of Our Membership?

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In mission-driven work, it’s important but incredibly challenging to measure impact. Do you focus on the specific measures that can be quantified in the short term and directly attributed? Or do you identify longer-term, systemic impacts that are more difficult to quantify?

As there aren’t commonly agreed-upon answers to these questions, measurement tends to focus on specific project outcomes and intended impacts. BSR evaluates our project work, publishes case studies, and releases research. Yet, at our core, BSR is a membership organization, and it’s much harder to articulate the direct impacts of our membership. Even without numbers that explicitly “prove it,” I believe that our membership model enables BSR’s impact overall to be exponentially scaled at a global level. Why?

BSR has more than 250 member companies in nearly 30 countries spanning 10 industry sectors. These members represent more than US$2.6 trillion in revenue and more than 15 million employees worldwide. They are some of the world’s largest and most influential companies and constitute nearly 20 percent of the top 50 companies in the Forbes Global 2000. Because of this, some of the changes we help inspire reach people all over the world: For example, I love pointing out that helping a giant global food company change one policy on how they purchase one ingredient could have a larger impact on more peoples’ lives than working individually with more than 100 small organic food companies.

The reach and diversity of this membership means that BSR’s activities and insights are spread across these organizations and their broader value chains. By sharing knowledge, best practices, and new ideas, BSR’s impact is amplified well beyond one-to-one engagements, across sectors and regions. For example, when we worked with telecommunications firm Telia Company to integrate human rights into its business decision-making, we shared the process and broad learnings so that other companies can learn from it. Another recent example is the Playbook for Sustainable Business in the United States, which we published this fall. We engaged our members to shape the ideas in the playbook, and we then discussed these recommendations at our recent annual Conference. It is our hope that the dissemination of this Playbook will help sustainable business leaders succeed in the current U.S. economic and political context—both as individual businesses and in collaboration with each other and stakeholders.

With less than 130 staff around the globe, BSR cannot do individual projects with every member on every major sustainability issue. We must rely on the amplification of impacts through our membership if we’re going to achieve our ambitious mission. When we help a company devise a new climate strategy for its supply chain, the program that results is likely to impact not only that company, but also its suppliers and industry peers. When we work to help integrate human rights into business decision-making, we are hoping to shift industry practices toward a new normal.

Membership impacts are also multidirectional. Our impact is maximized because our relationships further help to inform our research and grant-funded activities to ensure that our insights and recommendations are relevant to and build on global businesses’ practices or challenges. This means that when we receive support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to develop Gender Equality in Codes of Conduct Guidance, for example, we base our work on our decades of experience working with companies, and we engage our members to further inform and refine our recommendations.

Our recent Marketer’s Guide to Behavior Change also illustrates this: It shares the perspectives of a small group of members—AT&T, eBay, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., McDonald’s, and Walmart—to show how companies can trigger behavioral shifts that enable more sustainable lifestyles, grow demand for more sustainable products, and create business value. When we create something like this, it is our hope that our member companies can then share this tool with their marketing teams, who may use the techniques and inspire other companies to do the same. Thus, an engagement with five companies has the potential to change marketing practices at hundreds!

Finally, our membership provides built-in networks that enable BSR to address systemic challenges that require a collective business response. When we see an opportunity to convene companies on a topic like the use of renewable energy to power data centers or the future of sustainable fuel, we begin by reaching out to those of our member companies that have expressed an interest in the issue. Sometimes, this works in reverse, and our member companies bring ideas to us and ask us to convene others.

We may never know exactly what practices are changed as a result of a member reading a report, participating in a workshop, or talking to a BSR expert; let alone the exact impact that new practices we helped shape might have. But we can be proud that we do our best to magnify our impact across 250 of the world’s largest and most influential companies as we all work to create a more just and sustainable world. 

Blog | Wednesday May 17, 2017

Registration Now Open for the BSR Conference 2017: How Business Leads

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BSR’s 25th annual Conference—taking place October 24-26 in Huntington Beach, California—is happening during a critical time in the field of sustainability, with disruptive change affecting every dimension of business.

Our 2017 theme of “How Business Leads” will set the stage for three days of vital conversation, collaboration, and action. We are excited to gather our community together to explore how business can take the lead during this crucial moment.

I’m pleased to announce that registration is now open, and our best rates are available through June 30.

As we finalize the Conference agenda over the next several months, we will look to our theme to explore business leadership in its many forms. We will present topical examples of business leading on climate change, human rights, inclusive economy, supply chain sustainability, sustainability management, and women’s empowerment. Our 30 breakout sessions will dive deep into today’s most important issues, from achieving the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals to using climate resilience to build strong and inclusive supply chains. In recognition of our anniversary, our “Fast Forward 25” sessions will look at the future of sustainable business, with vibrant conversations on topics such as generating quality livelihoods in the era of automation and the ethics of artificial intelligence. 

Our trailblazing plenary sessions are the most talked-about parts of the Conference, and the conversations this year promise to be more thought-provoking and motivating than ever. We are thrilled to share a quick preview of our plenary lineup to date: Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, will highlight her work leading a movement to build a healthier and safer world for women and teens. And Google.org President Jaquelline Fuller, Mercy Corps CEO Neal Keny-Guyer, and TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer will engage in a candid discussion about the business response to the refugee crisis.

From our unrivaled content to our integrated networking events, #BSR17 will be the place to be this October. And did we mention our new location? On the beach? You can’t beat fresh air, conference rooms with natural sunlight, and immersive experiences taking advantage of the incredible Huntington Beach. We hope you will join us and our global community to take business leadership to the next level. We can’t wait to see you this October!

Register for BSR17 by June 30 to receive the best rates. Check the BSR Conference website often for more exciting announcements, including additional plenary speakers.

Blog | Wednesday March 18, 2020

An Update from BSR on COVID-19

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Dear BSR Members and Valued Partners,

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is presenting the world with a fast-changing and unprecedented global health situation. 

We hope that you and your families and communities are staying safe and healthy, and applying the values that underlie our collective work on sustainability to see us through this challenging time.

In addition, as a global business network dedicated to advancing sustainable business, we remain focused on our work while also adapting to address the ever-shifting environment in our offices around the world.

We remain very much open for business, with our teams working remotely (though in Hong Kong, some have been able to return to the office safely), at as close to regular capacity as the situation permits, and in accordance with the guidelines provided by relevant national, regional, and local health authorities. You can find us online, with all meetings conducted remotely via video teleconferencing platforms. 

Our work with you, our member companies and many partners, matters now more than ever. At moments like this, we welcome and encourage more dialogue with you, and more collaboration amongst our network.  

This week we will be rolling out new platforms and opportunities for engagement with BSR issue and industry experts, and for networking with other BSR member companies, partners, and thought leaders.  

We’ll also be offering a series of perspectives from our industry and issue experts, with the latest thinking on how business can continue to advance the sustainability agenda while navigating the challenge of the coronavirus. Our new COVID-19 content hub already features insights from BSR staff, including business lessons from the first phase of the pandemic, how to protect human rights while protecting public health, and the pandemic’s impact on workers and supply chains in China. We will be adding content in the days and weeks to come.

Finally, we will be encouraging additional engagement from you, our members, as we navigate this crisis together. This includes:

1. Information sharing and problem solving: We want to hear from you if you have perspectives to share on how this pandemic is affecting your business and your sustainability efforts; or support in solving particular challenges you face throughout your business, whether arising from the impacts of the pandemic or the long-term objectives that remain crucially important. In addition, as part of your BSR membership, you have access to high-level insights on how the coronavirus is impacting your digital (online and social media) profile through BSR’s reputation intelligence partner, Polecat. Please reach out to your relationship manager to learn more.
2. Project support: We will continue to support and work with members on one-on-one projects, using all of the remote tools at our disposal.
3. Networking: We will be looking at additional ways to enable you to share your experiences with other BSR member company contacts through online webinars or examples of responses to the pandemic via contributions to the new content hub. Reach out to your BSR relationship manager if you have ideas for a webinar, or an idea for a blog that you think may be of interest to the broader BSR network.
4. Collaboration: Our collaborative initiatives continue to operate with an immediate shift to virtual gatherings. If the systemic failures made apparent during this pandemic have inspired you to think more long term about how you can collaborate to build a more resilient business and a more resilient system, our collaborations offer a powerful platform. BSR’s CoLab, our incubator and accelerator of private-sector collaboration, works with companies and other partners on a range of sustainability issues, including global health. And BSR’s Healthy Business Coalition is a great resource for collaboration with private-sector peers on public health issues that affect companies and workers. Please reach out to your BSR contact if you’re interested in more information about this.
5. BSR Conference 2020: The Decisive Decade: The BSR Conference 2020 is still set for October 27-29 in New York, and the program will be launched formally later this spring. We will of course be monitoring the situation and re-evaluating the feasibility of hosting an in-person event as the pandemic situation evolves. We will provide updates as we learn more.

We are all facing a monumental challenge, which will undoubtedly have both short- and long-term impacts on the economy, and on the health and well-being of businesses, workers, and communities around the world. Our movement for resilient, sustainable business has never been more relevant, or important.

Our collective ability to achieve a world in which everyone can live a prosperous and dignified life within the planet’s natural boundaries remains fundamentally important. It is up to all of us to redouble our commitments, with urgency and kindness, to unlock the capabilities, ingenuity, knowledge, and resources of the private sector to achieve that vision.

Please stay tuned for further updates and visit this website and our social media channels for the latest information.

All of us at BSR wish you, your colleagues, and your families good health and safety during this challenging moment.

With thanks,

Aron Cramer
President and CEO, BSR

Audio | Thursday February 6, 2025

A Conversation with Mario Abreu, Group VP, Sustainability, Ferrero

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Mario Abreu, Group VP, Sustainability at Ferrero chats with BSR Managing Director, Transformation Christine Diamente, and host David Stearns about the cross-functional role of sustainability at Ferrero, how he maintains a focus on ambition, and why the nexus between climate change, people, food, and planetary limits should be humankind’s top priority.

Blog | Thursday November 2, 2017

Reflections from the BSR Conference 2017 (And How to Review Highlights)

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It’s been one week since the sun set on our 25th anniversary celebration at the BSR Conference 2017 in Huntington Beach, California. Since our 2016 Conference, which took place right before the U.S. election last November, a lot has changed in the world: Political volatility has increased, nationalistic sentiments are on the rise, we’ve experienced increased economic and technological disruptions, and policy changes around the globe are reshaping the path forward for business.

At the same time, in the past year, hundreds of businesses and leaders from the private sector, NGOs, U.S. local and state governments, and civil society have stepped up on an unprecedented scale and raised their voices on issues ranging from climate action to diversity and inclusion.

Last week at BSR17, we convened our member network and community to discuss how business can continue this momentum on sustainability leadership. Inspiration, positivity, and action-planning set the tone throughout our three days in Huntington Beach—in between sunrise yoga and al fresco meal functions, participants gathered to hear from changemakers on the plenary stage: Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore encouraged businesses to continue to take climate action, Microsoft’s Brad Smith described the company’s experience raising its voice on political issues and bridging the digital divide, and Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards urged companies to support women’s empowerment and health, specifically by committing to provide birth control regardless of regulatory changes in the U.S.

Breakout sessions on topics like engaging on public policy in uncertain times, futures thinking, and harnessing technologies for supply chain sustainability brought the brilliant minds of the BSR community together to discuss best practices and new ideas.

Here are five ways that you can re-live the highlights of our event—or catch the things you missed:

1. Watch plenary session videos: Almost every plenary session is now live on our YouTube channel, from Richards’ standing-ovation-receiving speech, to Morgan Stanley’s Audrey Choi’s presentation on inclusive growth, to a panel on how corporations can help solve the global refugee crisis, to National Geographic Photographer Annie Griffiths’ inspiring talk on the power of photography as a tool for telling stories and creating empathy.
2. See the social media highlights: Follow @BSRnews, @BSRherproject, and BSR staff on Twitter, and see what you missed on the #BSR17 hashtag. You will also find photo highlights on our Instagram accounts, @bsrorg and @herprojectbsr.
3. Find yourself in photos: We’ve uploaded photos from the week onto our Flickr account—head on over to see whether we captured you, or your favorite moment, in our BSR Conference album.
4. Share your thoughts: If you were with us in Huntington Beach, please take a moment to complete the Conference survey (available in the mobile app under “Surveys”). If you weren’t there, you can always tweet at us or email us your perspective.
5. Read our new insights: We launched several new publications last week, including our new report on The Future of Sustainable Business. And we published blog posts about a new UN Foundation report on how business can support women’s health and empowerment and Morgan Stanley’s new framework on embedding inclusive growth. Our new Climate Policy Tracker tool with We Mean Business is also now live.

Thank you for participating in our 25th anniversary event, whether you were stage-side in the ballroom with us or tuning in via Twitter and the livestream. You make our community strong, and the BSR Conference wouldn’t be as enlivening and inspiring without you—as Levi Strauss & Co. Vice President of Sustainability Michael Kobori proclaimed on stage during our BSR Alumni panel, “The BSR Conference has converted me from an optimistic pessimist to an optimistic optimist.”

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for November 6-8, 2018, when we head back to the East Coast for the BSR Conference 2018 in New York. We hope to see you next year!

Blog | Monday November 6, 2017

Top 10 Reasons to Be a BSR Member

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I’ve recently had a number of conversations with my colleagues and sustainability leaders at long-standing member companies about the value of BSR membership—why is it that more than 250 of the world’s largest and most influential companies have chosen to work with us on the business of building a better world? There are a wide range of answers. Different people, even within the same company, have different reasons that they most appreciate their BSR membership. Here’s a “Top 10” list of the reasons to be a member that I hear the most:

1. Access our global network: With a network that spans eight offices around the world, includes more than 10 major industries, and convenes issue experts on a range of sustainability issues, BSR offers members personalized access to our community. We help make connections and leverage trusted relationships across regions, functions, sectors, and issues. In fact, we often introduce colleagues within the same company who don’t yet know each other. Companies love how we can connect them not only to businesses across industries, but also to key NGOs and other noncorporate stakeholders. As one member put it, "You (BSR) can call Shell, and you can call WWF, and they both pick up the phone." 
2. Draw upon our expertise: Members benefit from our deep expertise in specific issues, as well as our ability to draw connections across issues.  For example, we don’t only view climate from a climate lens—we also understand the implications of climate change on human rights and women’s empowerment, and this is true across issues. While many organizations offer deep expertise in one or two topics, your company can use BSR’s knowledge across most of the issues you focus on—meaning we can serve as a one-stop shop for your sustainability needs. Moreover, our diverse backgrounds help us “speak the language” of your colleagues in other teams and translate your sustainability priorities across departments.
3. Participate in business-focused convenings: BSR brings together the leading sustainable business voices in a variety of formats so that you and your colleagues can learn, engage, and walk away with practical insights. BSR organizes more than a dozen webinars per year as part of our Sustainability Matters series. These webinars (and their recordings) feature thought leaders discussing trends and best practices and are usually made available exclusively to BSR members. BSR also convenes member companies for regular regional networking and best-practice-sharing events, including breakfast presentations, workshops, and executive-level dinners. We host one of the world’s leading sustainable business events in the form of our annual BSR Conference, which just celebrated its 25th year. 
4. Collaborate for systemic solutions: At BSR, we know that an individual company cannot solve systemic sustainability challenges alone. Through structured platforms, we bring together peer companies, stakeholders, and whole industry value chains in search of shared solutions—from sharing best practices to changing business norms and working with multiple partners to implement change on the ground. We provide members the opportunity to shape, develop, and scale these action-oriented collaborations.  
5. Phone a friend (us): We are there to support our members as individuals in their efforts to advance sustainability in their organizations. Whether you have a large team or a team of one, BSR is your extended team—we are in your corner providing resources, support, and advocacy. We don't just tell you want you want to hear: We are constructive partners, but we also bring credibility and stakeholder perspectives to the conversation. You can call on us to meet with one of your executives, help answer day-to-day questions (e.g. investor questions, preparing for executive meetings, etc.), or identify off-the-shelf resources before you spend time starting from scratch (e.g. examples of good policies, slides on topics, etc.). I always tell members to reach out more; after all, you don’t know if you don’t ask.
6. Take advantage of formal membership benefits: We’ve structured a number of ways to make sure you benefit from our experience—through your member engagement option, quarterly check-ins, and an annual member meeting, you can find out about our latest learnings from the field. In addition to responding to ad-hoc questions, BSR provides practical, regular support across sustainability issues informed by our decades of work with companies.
7. Stay ahead of trends and emerging issues: BSR members also benefit from the opportunity to stay ahead of emerging issues and plan for tomorrow. The biweekly BSR Insight provides an overview of BSR’s most recent thinking, research, and events. You can share this with multiple contacts across your company, so everyone can learn about sustainability topics relevant to their roles. Our new Sustainable Futures Lab will also provide you with even greater ability to anticipate how future changes might impact sustainable business.  
8. Drive visibility and gather input for your company’s sustainability efforts: BSR provides a well-respected, credible platform to showcase innovative practices and gather feedback on challenges. Our members speak at BSR events; they share practices and develop partnerships via our collaborations; and they are highlighted as case studies in BSR’s research, website, social media, blog, and reports and publications. 
9. Find your next colleague: This is perhaps the simplest but most underrated benefit of BSR membership—our jobs board: We’ve posted more than 1,000 job opportunities since 2001. Given that we have such a fantastic network, BSR members often tell us that they find the best job candidates via their (free) postings on our careers page. We all know how overwhelming the hiring process can be and how hard it is to find the right people, but we aim to simplify this for BSR members with our website.
10. Shape the future of sustainable business: We view our members as real partners as we work together to shape the future of our field. Over the past 25 years, our members have been central to defining our work, and as we look ahead, we invite you to collaborate with us on creating a new agenda, a new approach, and a new voice for business. We’ve recently launched a paper on "The Future of Sustainable Business" to initiate this dialogue, and we hope our members will join us in articulating, and then achieving, a new vision together.

Why is your company a BSR member? Are there any reasons that are missing from this list? Let us know on Twitter @BSRnews using the #BSRmember hashtag, email us, or join us for our upcoming webinar about BSR membership. 

Blog | Thursday November 7, 2019

Sustainability at AT&T: Q&A with John Schulz, Director, External Affairs, Sustainability

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For years, the impact of a company’s sustainability strategy has been reported through footprints or isolated examples. In today’s new climate for business, the expectations are higher: stakeholders are looking to understand the sustainability impacts of the entire company—including the products and services that generate its revenue.

BSR member AT&T is an example of a company driving greater impact by making sustainability part of its revenue model. John Schulz, director of sustainability integration at AT&T, will be joining the BSR Conference 2019 next week in San Jose to speak on this topic further during the session Beyond Case Studies: Measuring and Communicating Total Impact.

We had a few minutes to catch up with John to discuss AT&T’s sustainability efforts thus far and what it’s focused on as we enter the 2020s.

As we approach 2020, what is one sustainability achievement that you are proud of at your company?
I’m very proud of AT&T’s 10x Carbon Reduction Goal to enable greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) savings for our customers 10 times the footprint of our operations by 2025. It’s ambitious at a time when we need that kind of spirit. It requires us to work two sides of the equation: reducing our own emissions and developing technology that helps our customers do the same. Our renewable energy purchases—which will surpass 1.5 gigawatts of clean energy—are also helping us advance our goal and accelerate the transition to the low-carbon economy.

I’m extremely proud that since launching our goal, we’ve reduced our scope 1 GHG emissions by just over 24 percent from our 2008 baseline. Even more, our customer solutions have enabled GHG savings just over two times the footprint of our operations. This is great progress, but we will continue to stay focused on our goal to help advance global climate goals and address climate change.

It’s been four years since AT&T launched its goal to enable carbon reductions for our customers ten times the size of its own footprint. What have you learned in that time?
It’s all about the customer. Every time we talk to customers, we’re finding new challenges that they’re facing and learning how AT&T technology can be part of their path forward. Urgency is critical— to meet the goal and to address climate change—so it’s more important than ever that we get to know our customers’ business and dig in with them to identify ways that new technologies like 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) can transform their business and drive efficiency and sustainability.

How is the work towards the 10x goal related to the transformation of AT&T’s business and services? 
AT&T is focused on delivering services to several key verticals. We’re developing technology solutions across industries that present big opportunities to drive emissions reductions. Technologies like IoT, 5G, video analytics—all backed by AT&T’s highly secure network—have the potential to greatly reduce the environmental footprint of the key industries we serve.

What has been the response from colleagues in the business and AT&T’s customers?
Initially, our 10x goal was met with some surprise. It’s an audacious goal. And it’s not necessarily obvious how AT&T can play a role in greenhouse gas emissions reduction for our customers. But as soon as we started telling real-world stories via the 10x case study series, people started to understand it.

By transitioning from a concept to an actual implementation story, complete with calculated impacts, the light went on for customers and AT&T employees. Once that started to happen, surprise changed into excitement. The ability to collaborate with a company with the scale and expertise of AT&T can give a sense of optimism to a project. Climate change is daunting, so knowing that a company like AT&T is in the fight with our customers can help give a sense of hope that we’re going to be able to figure this thing out.

What is the biggest evolution you have seen in corporate sustainability in the last decade?
The businesspeople are becoming more and more engaged in environmental issues and solutions. They are doing this because business can play a role in helping to solve environmental challenges and because investors, employees and customers are looking to business for action and solutions. At AT&T, we’ve seen significant business engagement in our connectivity and IoT solutions that are helping our customers reduce emissions and meet their sustainability goals. In this case, it’s an example of how environmental stewardship and economic opportunity can go hand in hand.