Listen: Exploring Intuit's approach to supplier engagement, AI and just transition

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Lindsey Hall: Hi. I'm Lindsey Hall, Head of Thought Leadership at S&P Global Sustainable1.

Esther Whieldon: And I'm Esther Whieldon, a Senior Writer on the Sustainable1 Thought Leadership team.

Lindsey Hall: Welcome to ESG Insider, an S&P Global podcast, where Esther and I take you inside the environmental, social and governance issues that are shaping the rapidly evolving sustainability landscape.

Esther Whieldon: Last week I was in Phoenix, Arizona, at the annual GreenBiz conference,   hosted by GreenBiz Group, and S&P Global Sustainable1 is a sponsor of the event. Over the course of a few days I sat down with more than a dozen panelists and attendees including today's guest. 

In our last episode we heard from Mars, one of the largest food and confectionary companies in the world, about how it is redesigning its supply chains to make them more sustainable.  Supply chains were a common topic at GreenBiz and later this week I'll be bringing you more interviews and key themes from the conference.  

Lindsey Hall: In today's episode, we're talking with Intuit, that's a multinational  company that specializes in financial software. We'll hear from Debbie Lizt, Head of Global Sustainability for Intuit. She talks about how the company is engaging with suppliers on decarbonization and it's approach to Generative AI. That's a type of artificial intelligence technology that can produce a variety of content including text, imagery and audio.  

Esther Wheldon: And we'll also explore another topic that we focus on quite a bit on this podcast -- that is, how to ensure a just and equitable transition.  

As you'll hear in this episode, Intuit has  projects in local communities. These are aimed at things like reducing food waste and insecurity, lowering emissions, and providing jobs, workforce training and STEM programs.  

Ok let's turn to my interview with Debbie.

Debbie Lizt: I'm Debbie Lizt. I'm the Head of Global Sustainability for Intuit. We are a global financial technology platform, makers of TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma and MailChimp. And in my role, I'm responsible for really overseeing Intuit's holistic sustainability strategy, which includes setting and making progress towards our sustainability and climate-related goals, reporting and disclosure and really working cross-functionally with the company and with the various partners that we work with beyond our 4 walls to really drive progress and have a positive impact in the communities we serve. 

As a company, we've evolved. I mean we've been committed to climate action for over a decade now. And as we've moved from CDs to do taxes and to run your business and move more into the software platform, obviously, our footprint has changed. And so really where our priorities as a company in terms of reducing our emissions operationally, have evolved and changed as well. We recently set science-based net zero targets. So we aim to be net zero by 2040. 

And in addition to that, we've also looked beyond our 4 walls into the communities that we serve. And in 2019, we set a goal to reduce 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions through partners, our employees, customers, communities that we serve. 

And so we also look at that program as a way that we can have not just an emissions impact in those communities, but also create multiple co-benefits. So even though we are a software company that doesn't have a hardware or manufacturing presence, we still take a very holistic approach to sustainability. And we still look at it through the lens of both internal operations reducing our carbon footprint as well as accelerating action beyond. 

Esther Whieldon: So you've been here for a little over a day now. What are some themes or some of the conversations you've had that are really interesting to you, noteworthy? 

Debbie Lizt: So I think the themes that have resonated with me, and it's interesting because I've chatted now with a few of our partners and a few of our supplier partners. And it really has struck me. One, there's always been a sense of urgency around taking action and at this particular event. I think the evolution that I've been seeing in the conversations that I'm having is really more expensive. So the fact that we're talking about things like Generative AI in the climate space. 

Esther Whieldon: How are you thinking about the governance and security side of that component, right? Like how are you factoring that in? 

Debbie Lizt: So we as a company have viewed whatever technology we're exploring or investing in carefully, ethically and thoughtfully. And generative AI is no different. So we are certainly approaching it through a very methodical lens and ensuring that we have the appropriate governance around that. I mean we're a financial technology perform. We deal with individuals and small business' sensitive financial data. So that is what we build trust on. 

And so as I said, with any of the technologies that we are exploring as a company, we look at it through that same lens of sensitivity and ensuring that whatever we're investing in has those types of safeguards. It's something that's just embedded in the DNA of Intuit. 

Esther Whieldon: Debbie went on to give some examples of how Intuit is working on a just and equitable transition, including in communities in Virginia and West Virginia, whose economies once relied on coal-related jobs.  

Debbie Lizt: Internally as a company, we made the commitment to power our operations using 100% renewable electricity. We decided to leverage our scale and influence and resources to ot just making sure that our operations were powered by renewable energy, but that the communities that we serve also have equitable access to renewable energy as well. And so we recently launched the Coalfield Solar Fund, or CSF, which is an example of one of those projects that is beyond our value chain. So this is an investment that doesn't directly impact Intuit's operational footprint, but really is a catalyst in the communities in West Virginia and southwest Virginia. 

So CFF is a partnership between ourselves Secure Solar futures, which is a developer in that area that has always looked at opportunities to develop solar mainly on school rooftops to provide not only the schools with affordable renewable energy, but also the students in those schools, access to STEM education. So pulling together financial resources, solar expertise, educational expertise in this space. We saw incredible opportunity to connect with school districts in southwest Virginia and West Virginia, where there hadn't been much access to renewable energy. To really go into these communities and provide that source of renewable energy that source of job creation because Secure Solar Futures is sourcing the workforce from these communities rather than bringing in, I mean, so much of these projects are hyper local. 

And so by sourcing jobs in these communities by providing workforce development opportunities for people in these communities and also layering in the educational aspect so that students in these communities can be exposed to the math, the science, the technology that goes into developing these types of projects and the fact that they can look at their school's own rooftops and see these projects as they're being developed as they're going on to the roofs of their schools. -- monitoring the energy that's created, hopefully will inspire that next generation of, whether they're solar entrepreneur for methodic or even if they do nothing in that space, at least they will have that understanding of this type of energy.

Esther Whieldon: So we've heard how Intuit is working to partner with nonprofits and community organizations, but what is it doing to meet its own decarbonization targets. As one example, Intuit aims for 80% of its suppliers to have science-based targets by 2027, and this is part of Intuit's broader goal of achieving net Zero emissions by 2040. Here's Debbie explaining how the company is setting out to reach that supplier target.

Debbie Lizt: So inside our 4 walls, well, first of all, the fact that we set science-based net zero targets in line with SBTi's science-based target initiatives, requirements for net zero that's really inspired conversation and dialogue across our business units and our companies to really understand how we're going to reach that 2040 target. This is a space where we've certainly started already to try to engage with our customer communities and our small businesses, our entrepreneurs and really think through how we can leverage our tools and our resources to help them in their journeys both to provide savings as a small business, because they have a myriad of other priorities, but to also help educate and inspire them to take action. 

We are being very thoughtful and deliberate in how we go about engaging with our suppliers. So we have a number of suppliers that make up the bulk of our Scope 3 emissions, our indirect emissions from our supply chain. And so many of those suppliers are already on sustainability journeys have set climate targets. 

So we're really being thoughtful well, in 2 ways. One, we're engaging those suppliers who do make up a larger percentage of our Scope 3 emissions who haven't disclosed any type of climate-related goals, emission-related goals to really one learn where they are in their journey. And so we launched last fiscal year, what we call our suppliers emissions reduction program. And that's where we're creating these cohorts where we're really doing one-to-one conversations with these suppliers. So we can learn from them what pain points they might have in terms of setting goals, creating road maps to reduce their emissions, to reduce their environmental impact. 

We see this very much as a collaborative experience, right? I mean while we have these goals, we want our suppliers to join us on this journey. And so that's why we want to learn from them what would make it challenging for them so that we can identify opportunities to help remove some of those barriers. 

Esther Whieldon: So we heard today about Intuit's approach to decarbonization. Debbie talked about how the company is working to build renewables and jobs in low-income communities as well as in communities that are previously dependent on fossil fuel-related jobs. 

Lindsey Hall: That's a good example of a theme we've been covering a lot on this podcast. The growing understanding that credible and just transition plans will incorporate the needs and voices of local communities. We'll be back later this week with more coverage of key themes out of GreenBiz. So please stay tuned. 

Lindsey Hall: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of ESG Insider. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe, share and leave us a review wherever you get your podcast.

Esther Whieldon: And a special thanks to our agency partner The 199. See you next time.

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