Episode 212: Emma Stewart, Netflix Sustainability Officer

Today's guest is Emma Stewart, Sustainability Officer at Netflix. Emma is working to bring the company's carbon footprint to net zero, raise awareness through their film and television content, and engage their millions of members on climate and environmental change. Emma brings a rare combination of domain expertise (environmental strategy, climate change accounting and policy, green buildings), strategy (start-up executive and corporate "intrapreneur"), and inventiveness (e.g. an architect of the original "science-based target" movement now 1000+ companies strong) to the field of corporate sustainability. I was excited for this one because Netflix is a pillar company. They've got a big footprint and swing a big bat as it relates to their content, storytelling and audiences. We talk about Netflix's journey and how they got to be late to the game, what motivated them to get into action, what Emma's charter was coming in, where she started, and how she went about prioritizing. Some interesting tidbits come out in this discussion in terms of where the actual emissions are coming from, how they think about emissions they are directly responsible for versus the content production outside of the walls of their originals, how they think about things like offsets and carbon removal, and also Emma's general theory of change for what role companies play and what else needs to happen as it relates to policy, activism, government, and other things that are required to make this transition as quick and as efficient as possible. Enjoy the show! You can find me on Twitter @jjacobs22 (me), @mcjpod (podcast), or @mcjcollective (company) and via email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests. Episode recorded April 26, 2022.