Atlassian Corporation released its second annual Sustainability Report for the fiscal year 2020 and announced ambitious goals to combat global climate change.
This report, which covers our progress from July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020, details Atlassian’s progress and trajectory across four sustainability pillars: planet, customers, people, and community.
The report includes deeper disclosures and data across all pillars and includes Atlassian’s diversity, equity, and inclusion reporting, instead of having two separate documents. We believe any sincere sustainability efforts must acknowledge the interlocking impacts of climate change, structural racial and gender inequality, and widening social and economic gaps – and this reflects how our team works. We can’t treat these issues as siloed challenges; they influence and amplify one another.
As we state in the report, we have a long-standing commitment to being a company focused on the long term. This is why we’re as just as committed to sustainability as we are to our products. We think about it as embedding the goal of social and environmental progress in everything we do.
As part of our commitment to combat climate change, Atlassian set a goal to reach 100 percent renewable power across all our operations by 2025, which we achieved in the fiscal year 2020, five years ahead of schedule.
“We are setting ambitious climate goals because we believe in matching our words by stepping up and taking action, said Jessica Hyman, Atlassian’s head of sustainability. “It’s what our staff want. It’s what our customers expect. It’s what our politicians should be doing. And it’s what we must do for the future sustainability of our business.”
In September 2019, at UN Climate Week, we committed to set a target to reach net-zero emissions by no later than 2050. We aligned our goals with a 1.5°C trajectory as part of our commitment to the Business Ambition for 1.5°C campaign, reflecting the most ambitious objectives of the Paris Agreement.
Last week we announced that these goals have been approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative steering committee. It’s incredibly important to go through the process of figuring out exactly how much we need to reduce carbon emissions to meet our commitments.
“We congratulate Atlassian Corporation for setting emissions reduction targets consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement, said Alexander Farsan, global lead for Science Based Targets at World Wide Fund for Nature. “By setting targets that are grounded in climate science, Atlassian is setting themselves up for success in the transition to a net-zero economy.”
We were one of the first Australian companies to sign the 1.5 campaign, making a massive commitment to transform our business. And with 5,000 Atlassians in multiple offices, countries, and continents, we will have to make big changes to our direct and indirect operations to reach this goal. We’re doing this because we believe in reinforcing our words with action and leaving the planet in a better state for future generations.
Our SBTi validation is an important step in our climate leadership and commitment to science. Here are the key ways we believe we can get there by 2050:
Scope 1-2 – Absolute Emissions Reduction of 50 percent by 2025: This will mostly be achieved through procurement of 100 percent renewable energy and is therefore directly aligned with our RE100 commitment. The other critical element is ensuring any of the buildings we own and operate run on electricity for heating and cooling (as opposed to natural gas or diesel).
Scope 3 – Reduce absolute emissions from business travel 25 percent by 2025: This will be achieved by reducing emissions from business travel, with a big focus on air travel. We’ll need to consider how to shift travel policy and team behavior, in the context of Team Anywhere, in order to achieve our goal. There is also an opportunity to work with airlines to advocate for more renewable aviation fuels.
Scope 3 – 65 percent of suppliers by emissions will have SBTs by fiscal year 2025: This will be achieved through supply chain management. We’ll need to engage with our top suppliers and encourage them to set science-based climate targets. We are in the middle of mapping out our priorities here with our internal teams, and we’re looking forward to the opportunity for innovation in this space.
One of our values at Atlassian is “Open Company, No Bullshit.” One thing we know for certain: we aren’t going to get this right the first time. But we are committed to being open and honest about our journey and sharing what we learn with the business community.
“Our hope is that more companies see this is possible, and take the leap, said Mike Cannon-Brookes, Atlassian co-founder and co-CEO. “The latest climate science says we need reductions to keep warming to 1.5 degrees to avoid the most damaging effects of climate change. Australia needs to do its part. Our future depends on it.”
Image licensed by Upsplash.com
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