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By Debbie Clifford, Chief Financial Officer
Autodesk is in business to enable a better world designed and made for all.
Customers across our industries rely on Autodesk to help solve challenges big and small. This presents a profound and urgent opportunity; we can empower innovators with technology to harness their data and unlock insights to fuel innovation and create new paths to efficiency, sustainability, and growth. Providing tools to help our customers reveal actionable insights to improve the impact of design and make decisions, at scale, is central to our sustainability efforts.
To accelerate these efforts, I’m excited to share that we issued our first sustainability bond offering totaling $1 billion to further align Autodesk’s impact strategy with our financial strategy. The proceeds from the sustainability bond will fund existing and future projects in alignment with Autodesk’s impact strategy, which aims to advance positive environmental and social outcomes in areas most important to our business and the needs of our customers and other stakeholders.
I am also acutely aware that our impact starts with us. I believe it’s imperative for us to set a good example and I’m passionate about the powerful role finance can play in driving sustainability issues forward. I’m proud that, as of our 2021 fiscal year, Autodesk is net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across our business and value chain, enabled through the introduction of the Autodesk Carbon Fund and an updated price on carbon.
Of equal importance is our continued work with our customers and industries to advance a more sustainable future. We know that to solve the challenges we face today, we need collective action.
We believe the investments from our sustainability bond will benefit our customers and other stakeholders, while accelerating our collective progress toward Autodesk’s vision of a better world designed and made for all. This sustainability bond enables our investors to join us in in our efforts to address issues in alignment with key environmental, social, and governance (ESG) indicators and the internationally recognized UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
We intend to focus on projects related to both environmental and social initiatives, including:
- Eco-Efficient Products, Production Technologies, and Processes – Developing and improving software capabilities to deliver insights that optimize the energy, waste, and water efficiencies and resilience of building, infrastructure, and industrial projects.
- Sustainable Water and Wastewater Management – Providing technology to enable more cost‑effective and sustainably designed water distribution networks, water collection systems, water and wastewater treatment plants, and flood protection systems.
- Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency – Advancing initiatives to build on our achievement of net-zero GHG emissions across our business and value chain, continuing to reduce the carbon footprint of our operations through efficiency and renewables.
- Green Buildings – Developing and improving technology to support the design, construction, maintenance or refurbishment of buildings to tackle total carbon impacts of the building lifecycle.
- Pollution Prevention and Control – Supporting carbon mitigation and removal projects in the areas of GHG mitigation technologies, products, and projects focused on the build environment, GHG capture and sequestration technology projects, and carbon removal and avoidance projects.
- Socioeconomic Advancement and Empowerment – Activating initiatives to advance economic opportunity and equity for underrepresented communities, promote greater diversity and inclusion, and improve access to quality education.
Autodesk’s Sustainability Financing Framework will guide our investments, and we’ll report back annually on our progress. This is another milestone in our journey to design and make a better world for all.