Tag: emissions

Mauricio Portilla and His Team’s Hack Week Project Aims to “Green” Spotify’s IT

March 22, 2022

Earlier this month, more than 2,400 Spotify employees took part in our annual Hack Week. For five days, employees from across the business stepped away from their regular work and focused their energies on projects or initiatives they’re passionate about. And just as last year’s Hack Week encouraged Spotifiers to “make space,” this year’s also served as a larger call to action, challenging individuals to think critically about ways of better using our platform to “make the planet cooler.” What’s more, Hack Week 2022 encouraged a greater number of employees outside of engineering to hack than ever before.

Though Hack Week was again held virtually, employees came together on Slack, Google Hangouts, real-time note-taking, and our virtual Hack Week platform to push each other on ideas related to amplifying the company’s climate action, sustaining justice for people and the planet using our platform, helping Spotify reach net-zero emissions, and more. Each individual chose a project that personally excited them, though these are not projects that Spotify is currently pursuing—or that even relate back to each person’s work. This year, the For the Record team spoke to five hackers who worked across these themes on four climate-related projects. 

Mauricio Portilla started his full-time role at Spotify approximately four weeks before Hack Week. But the five-day opportunity to dive into questions of sustainability and recycling on the tech side couldn’t have come at a better time for the Stockholm-based product designer, who quickly realized there was a great opportunity around updating the company’s Green IT processes. He started asking questions based on his background in design thinking: What are the challenges? The possible solutions? What teams are already aware of the issue and working on it? 

Then, he posted his hack, saw interest in the topic, gathered a team of six or seven people, and set to work. 

First of all, what does “Green IT” mean? 

Green IT is an effort in sustainability that focuses on initiatives around handling devices and data within a company in a way that reduces the environmental impact of those items. There are different layers of Green IT for different companies, but in many cases, Green IT includes efforts on reusing and recycling refurbished devices. 

How did it work throughout the week?

We started on Monday with an “understanding” meeting. We had a virtual mural board where we explored—kind of a brain dump—everything we wanted to know going into this hack. And then we prioritized the possible ideas that we wanted to just explore the first day.

And that was really interesting. Because our initial objectives were very general. But then we landed on more concrete objectives where we wanted to focus. Having everyone’s different approach—a lot of members of my group were from legal, others were from engineering, and others were backend developers, and then another person worked on tech procurement—was essential because together, we were able to address different sides of the same questions. The result was a problem statement and a list of contacts we wanted to interview during the week. 

The second and third day, we met with people behind the idea of Green IT. That gave us a strong validation of our hypothesis. We learned that there are legal challenges and how those would impact our plans down the road. Thursday and Friday were basically packaging everything we had learned from different people. We had the IT approach, the sustainability and leadership approach, and the tech procurement approach. With that, we created a presentation. We didn’t have time to work on a prototype, but we did come to the conclusion that we should focus on a program that helps employees reuse or recycle their devices at Spotify.  


Why is it important for Spotifiers to hack on making the planet cooler?

For a technology company that’s focused on designing products and services for people, I think it’s important that we also engage in the question of sustainability from that type of angle. The scientific discussion is very much focused on the climate change adaptation and how we reduce the impact of CO2 emissions, but industries and industry processes and industry management of how we handle things is something that we need to reinforce from within the organization. We should not only look at the effects of the things we do in terms of products, but also in the way that we work with the end user or with our clients.

What from Hack Week do you want to bring back with you into your everyday work at Spotify?

I would love to bring back the mindset of trying to find a solution to a problem in one week. Most of the time, we work over hours and months and we don’t get the time to really think and reflect back on what we learned every day. And I think that was super interesting. To see each day’s outcome, understand how it fits into the bigger problem, then ask, “Was this the thing I really wanted? No, actually. OK, so let’s try to find another way of solving that.” 

And I also felt that teamwork was extremely important for our hack. They were really engaged, really passionate. Overall, I think having different views on the team was really important. Having different people from different backgrounds in different countries sitting with me, trying to find why there’s a common interest in this idea, was something that I am taking with me. 

This year, the For the Record team spoke to five hackers who worked across four climate-related Hack Week projects. Check out each story from Meredith, Serah, and Gary and Stephan.

Spotify’s Next Step on Our Path to Net Zero Emissions

September 28, 2021

Technology is all about interlocking systems that work together efficiently, and we often think about iterating on these systems to make them better. Climate change is one of these interconnected issues—making it vitally important for companies to disrupt old systems when it comes to combating the effects of global warming. That’s why, in September 2021, Spotify joined the Exponential Roadmap Initiative and the UN Race to Zero, a first step on our more ambitious climate action journey. 

The Exponential Roadmap Initiative consists of a network of selected innovative companies, scientists, and NGOs that commit to exponentially reducing greenhouse gas emissions,  educating and inspiring others to do so though their platforms and businesses, and engaging with the wider community to push the climate action agenda forward. 

“Climate change is one of the most pressing global issues of our lifetime,” says Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s Chief R&D Officer. “Spotify has a responsibility to combat the effects of climate change, which is why we’re aiming to reach net zero emissions within the next decade.” 

Over the next days, months, and years, we’ll look to disrupt our ways of working and curb our emissions over a variety of ways:

  • Making our workplaces better: We continue to redesign, remodel, and run our offices with an eye toward environmental efficiency, accessibility, and renewable solutions.
  • Stream green: A percentage of our emissions is generated by streaming, downloads, and device battery usage. We are measuring this impact and aim to generate lower energy consumption from different devices, while offsetting any remaining emissions.
  • Partnering with suppliers who share our goals: Our biggest source of emissions is the goods and services we purchase. We are focused on collaborating with like-minded suppliers to reduce emissions in this area.

“We are delighted that Spotify joins other front-runners in climate action within the Exponential Roadmap Initiative,” says Johan Falk, Head of Exponential Roadmap Initiative and lead author of the “Exponential Roadmap and the 1.5°C Business Playbook.” “Spotify has a unique reach and opportunity to inspire people around the globe to take climate action.”

We’re already on our way to create climate-conscious solutions and use our platform to spread awareness and amplify action. Our Sustainable Sonics provide a low-carbon alternative to other forms of advertising. Our curated podcast playlists and Climate Action hub provide important information on taking climate action for our listeners. And finally, check out the Life at Spotify website climate section for the latest actions and reports. 

But there’s so much more to be done, and we need to do it now. Joining the Exponential Roadmap Initiative demonstrates our commitment to taking action, and we look forward to collaborating with our partners, incorporating feedback, and sharing more updates on this crucial journey.

Looking to learn more about the Exponential Roadmap and greenhouse gas-reducing solutions? Stream “The Scientific Case for The Race to Zero with Johan Rockström” or “Nigel Topping Racing to Zero.”

 

Forward-Looking Statements

We would like to caution you that certain of the above statements represent “forward-looking statements” as defined in Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The words “will,” “aim,” and similar words are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our net zero emissions target, the anticipated timing of achieving such target, and the actions we plan to take to curb emissions and push the climate action agenda forward. We intend such forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and include this statement for purposes of complying with the safe harbor provisions. Such forward-looking statements involve significant risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from our historical experience and our present expectations or projections, including but not limited to the risks as set forth in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date hereof.

Sustainable Sonics: Carbon-Neutral Advertising Takes Root on Spotify

April 22, 2021

Digital audio consumption has taken off in recent years as consumers spend more time listening to music and podcasts as part of their daily routines. From Songs to Sing in the Shower to help pump you up for the day, to an episode of Crime Junkie to zone out with on your morning walk, time spent with digital audio increased 8.3% in 2020, with the average consumer streaming 1 hour and 29 minutes per day (eMarketer). Advertisers have taken notice and have tapped into Spotify and our streaming intelligence to reach these highly engaged audiences. 

As Spotify’s reach with advertisers continues to grow, we’ve started to examine ways we can offset the environmental footprint of our ads. One of Spotify Advertising’s teams, the Creative Collective, was formed earlier this year to cultivate some of these new opportunities for advertisers. Amanda Hoyle, a Creative Strategist on the team, dug into her own lifelong passion and interest around sustainability and environmentalism to help lead the charge in creating Spotify’s newest ad offering: Sustainable Sonics. 

Sustainable Sonics enables brands to make their music and podcast advertising fully carbon neutral (or in other words, to have net-zero carbon impact by balancing out the carbon emissions by funding an equivalent amount of carbon savings elsewhere in the world) on Spotify for one year. 

For the Record grabbed time with Amanda to learn more about her role in creating the offering, how it works, and the larger opportunity around environmentally conscious options in the audio advertising world.  

What is the role of the Creative Collective advertising team at Spotify?

We essentially work with advertisers to unlock, create, celebrate, and inspire ideas worth listening to—and that’s really our guiding principle and mission statement. The Creative Collective team is a network of strategists around the world focusing on creative excellence in advertising, with a particular interest in audio. The way we see it, the creative potential of audio is endless, and we’ve only just scratched the surface so far.