Reducing our environmental impact
Human activities are changing the earth’s climate, disproportionately affecting historically marginalized and underserved communities, and impacting our health, wellbeing, livelihoods, and security.18
At Twilio, we believe business should leave society better than we found it, which requires us to be thoughtful stewards of our natural resources. We are committed to reducing the environmental impact of our own operations and advancing climate action through our product, capital, and people in order to build a more sustainable future.
At the end of 2023, Twilio’s sustainability ambitions reached a major milestone: we received validation for our near-term science-based greenhouse gas emissions reduction target by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).19 SBTi is a UN-backed global body that independently assesses companies’ targets and has validated that Twilio’s is aligned with 1.5°C trajectory across all three scopes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Our target focuses on reducing the emissions associated with our offices and data centers as well as per-employee business travel and commuting, and having the majority of our suppliers based on emissions set their own science-based targets (SBTs). Learn more about our target by clicking on the details to the right.
We prioritize transparent communication of our sustainability efforts to stakeholders through our Impact and DEI Report. Additionally, we engage with select ESG raters to benchmark our efforts against industry standards. When addressing customer sustainability inquiries, we share our progress privately through platforms like EcoVadis and respond to specific Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) questions. Through these efforts, we uphold our commitment to transparency, accountability, and dialogue, ensuring stakeholders are informed partners in our sustainability journey.
While we believe everyone at Twilio has a role to play, a few key teams are responsible for our environmental management and performance, including Workplaces, Sourcing, Finance, and Twilio.org. Each team tackles the sustainability opportunities in their respective domains, and all work together collaboratively towards our sustainability goals. Representatives of these teams are members of our ESG Management Committee, which is sponsored by our Chief Social Impact Officer and whose strategies and programs are subject to the oversight of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee of Twilio’s Board.
We actively assess, manage, and improve the environmental and energy performance of our workplaces through an environmental management framework and software solutions. We partner with Watershed, an emissions management and climate platform, to compile data for emissions tracking and management following the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s guidelines.
We believe that education about and awareness of our environmental management and sustainability efforts are important to further our progress. We aim to educate Twilions, our suppliers, and our customers about our sustainability efforts and related performance through our Impact and DEI Report, meetings, surveys, and training.
This report contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, which statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events and can be identified by words such as “may,” “can,” “will,” “would,” “should,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “could,” “target,” “projects,” “contemplates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “forecasts,” “potential,” or “continue” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions. Forward-looking statements contained in this report include, but are not limited to, statements about: Twilio’s plans, expectations, timing, and ability to achieve its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals, its science-based targets (SBTs), commitments and goals, its Sustainable Development Goals, and other goals discussed in this report; Twilio’s expectations regarding its ESG, DEI and SBT programs and initiatives; the future development of Twilio’s sustainable sourcing program; and plans, expectations and goals around the next decade of impact. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events.
The outcome of the events described in these forward-looking statements is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause Twilio’s actual results,
performance, or achievements to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, including, among other things: changes in economic conditions; changes in industry standards, laws, and regulations; changes to the operations of the social impact organizations we partner with; and the impact of social and environmental factors beyond Twilio’s control, including social unrest, natural disasters, and similar events.
The forward-looking statements contained in this report are also subject to additional risks, uncertainties, and factors, including those more fully described in Twilio’s most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including its most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, and subsequent periodic and current reports and other filings that Twilio makes with the SEC from time to time.
Forward-looking statements represent management’s beliefs and assumptions only as of the date such statements are made. Twilio undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made in this report to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this report or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.
Footnotes
18 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/resources/press/
19 Twilio received SBTi validation at the end of 2023. SBTi published Twilio’s commitment on its website on January 4, 2024 (https://sciencebasedtargets.org/target-dashboard).
20 This includes both utility sourced renewable energy and renewable energy certificates.
21 This includes both utility sourced renewable energy and renewable energy certificates. We recognize, like many companies, that achieving the needed reductions in scope 3 are challenging, and we will continue to work to address this area of our footprint. This target covers scope 3 GHG emissions from fuel- and energy-related activities and upstream leased assets, which account for only 1.2% of our 2023 emissions.
22 37% includes some suppliers that have commitments to set science-based targets but have not yet set them. Excluding commitments, suppliers that have set science-based targets comprise 25% of our suppliers by emissions.
23 For more information on our carbon footprint, see our detailed environmental sustainability data. We measured our 2019-2023 carbon footprint in partnership with Watershed. Watershed methodology follows guidelines from the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard and the Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard, inclusive of scope 1, 2, and all relevant scope 3 categories. Watershed’s methodology received third-party verification and uses the most recent and relevant emissions guidance. Watershed is a CDP gold accredited global software solutions provider. We received external auditing from Apex, who verified our 2022 and 2023 scope 1 and 2 emissions. Apex is a silver verification solutions provider accredited with CDP, and all of Apex’s lead auditors are either ISO 50001 or ISO 14001 Lead Auditor certified. Starting in the 2022 footprint, we incorporated region-specific power usage effectiveness values from one of our cloud computing partners into the cloud electricity emissions calculation, and we also collected access swipe data across key offices to estimate the percentage of employees commuting into the office. We now separately disclose optional scope 3.6 emissions from business travel accommodations
and optional scope 3.7 emissions from energy usage from employees working from home. We still share these categories for transparency, but they are not included in our science-based target per SBTi requirements. Scope 3.6 emissions from business travel include radiative forcing for flights. Optional scope 3.7 emissions from employees working from home are calculated using location-specific carbon intensity factors to account for differences in emission intensity of the energy sources where our employees are working from home. We acquired multiple companies between 2019 and 2022. GHG protocol requires that the emissions from each acquired company are included within our footprint prior to the acquisition close date as well as moving forward. Watershed estimated historical emissions for each acquisition using a proprietary machine learning algorithm, and the estimated historical emissions from applicable acquisitions are included in addition to our actual emissions for the applicable years. After the acquisition close date, these companies are folded into our systems, and their emissions appear in our carbon footprint using actual data. We have restated our 2019-2021 carbon footprints to better account for well-to-tank emissions in scopes 3.3, 3.6, and 3.8 as well as flight fare class for scope 3.6. Our 2023 market-based scope 2 emissions include Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). Our scope 3.6 business travel emissions increased between 2022 and 2023 in part due to increased UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) emission factors for 2023 that were primarily higher because of reduced flight load factors as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
24 Our 2023 market-based scope 2 percentage renewable electricity decreased relative to 2022 primarily due to an increase in grid-based electricity for our data centers. We aim to address our scope 2 emissions by increasing efficiency and shifting our electricity consumption to clean, renewable sources.
25 In this report and in related communications, the term “materiality” and similar terms, when used in the context of environmental, social and governance topics, are defined in reference to sustainability frameworks and are not meant to correspond to the concept of materiality under the U.S. securities laws and/or disclosures required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
