Insights

December 18, 2015

SR Inc Names Intuit as SBER Outstanding Corporate Leader of 2015

Sustainability Roundtable, Inc. (SR Inc), the leader in shared-cost research and consulting on best practices in more sustainable business, hosted a 4^th quarter Sustainable Business & Enterprise Roundtable (SBER) symposium on December 3^rd at Member-Client Intuit’s Headquarters in Mountain View, CA. During the symposium, SR Inc presented on key findings from our continued investigation into management best practices for the Internet of Everything (IoE) and renewable energy in Corporate Real Estate (CRE). Slides and a discussion summary for the IoE portion of the presentation are available here and for the renewable energy segment, here.

SR Inc was pleased to host leading sustainability thought leader Paul Hawken, influential author and founder of Project Drawdown, who offered a keynote contribution on the important and innovative work his organization is doing to move the planet towards climate drawdown – the point at which greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere begin to decline on a year-to-year basis. Multiple SR Inc Member-Clients have begun to collaborate with Project Drawdown to help develop and leverage Project Drawdown’s definitive, rigorous, modeling of what existing technologies can do to help advance towards climate drawdown.

Also during this symposium, SR Inc recognized Intuit Inc. as the SBER Outstanding Corporate Leader of 2015 for its leadership in developing and driving optimization efforts towards more sustainable real estate and operations globally. Specifically, SR Inc cited Intuit’s leadership in increasing water and energy efficiency and reducing waste throughout its leased portfolio while also identifying innovative ways to directly source renewable energy.

“Intuit’s years-long leadership in more sustainable operations has been underreported from employee transportation to water efficiency and energy management” noted SR Inc CEO and Chairman Jim Boyle. He continued, “Intuit regularly leads and is especially impressive in the leased environment where many claim they can’t make substantial progress toward greater sustainability. Intuit proves that they can.”

“We’re proud of our sustainability results, and are striving to do even better,” said Sean Kinghorn, Intuit’s Senior Sustainability Program Manager. “We have incredibly intelligent and passionate employees and leaders who care deeply about our customers, communities and the planet. Ultimately we’ll succeed as sustainability becomes a greater part of our culture and gets embedded in all of our decision-making processes.”

This past year, sustainability highlights at Intuit have included:

• Taking significant strides toward reducing Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 20 percent from 2012 levels by 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050.
• Reducing emissions from all facilities by 36 percent from 2012 levels, with a goal of 50 percent by 2020.
• Consolidating data center operations to a facility that is 90 percent powered by renewable energy.
• Beginning to scale intelligent building software across the company’s sites around the world, including leased space.
• Installing sensors to provide real-time energy monitoring and automatically adjust lighting, HVAC and video teleconferencing technology based on occupancy.
• Signing a power purchase agreement for Texas wind power to meet 100 percent of its Dallas-area site’s electricity demand.
• Installing solar arrays on carports to meet approximately 37 percent of the Tucson site’s electricity demand.
• Achieving carbon neutrality by investing in carbon offset projects that support small businesses around the world while providing environmental benefits.
• Reducing total waste while increasing the percent of waste diverted from landfills; piloting innovative waste reduction initiatives at the San Diego campus.
• Launching a highly successful solar discount program for employees.

View full Press Release here: Sustainability Roundtable Inc. Names Intuit as SBER Outstanding Corporate Leader of 2015

About Intuit:

Intuit Inc. creates business and financial management solutions that simplify the business of life for small businesses, consumers and accounting professionals.

Its flagship products and services include QuickBooks® and TurboTax®, which make it easier to manage small businesses and tax preparation and filing. Mint.com provides a fresh, easy and intelligent way for people to manage their money, while ProSeries® and Lacerte® are Intuit’s leading tax preparation offerings for professional accountants.

Founded in 1983, Intuit had revenue of $4.2 billion in its fiscal year 2015. The company has approximately 7,700 employees with major offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India and other locations. More information can be found at www.intuit.com.