RATING

Neutral

SECTOR

Social Media

Chief Sustainability Officer

Kimberly Buncle

Contact Details:
LinkedIn

Stock Exchange and Ticker

NYSE: SNAP

Website

Snapchat

Contact

T: +1 (310) 399-3339

E.mail: N/A

Listing

#1622 Global 2000 (2022)

Awards

Dow Jones Sustainability Indice (DJSI)
Sustainalytics – ESG Risk Rating – Medium Risk

Revenue

$4.4B

Market Capitalisation

$16.51B

Employees

6,000

Content source

Snapchat Sustainability Report

Evaluation of Snapchat

Overall, Spanchat’s sustainability activity is satisfactory, but there is still a lot to work on. We were glad to see a detailed carbon emissions breakdown, explaining how much carbon footprint comes from different sources and where it went down. The carbon neutrality goals set by Snapchat are consistent with the science-based reduction targets, and they have succeeded in achieving 100% renewable electricity. By pledging to achieve Net Zero and then go beyond Net Zero to make Snap net negative by 2030, they are significantly advancing that strategy.

The certificates they received attested to the success of their work toward fulfilling this commitment. They were not almost involved in any scandal, according to third-party sources as well. Overall, they are making good progress toward being fully sustainable and are in the transitional phase, but we would advise implementing more targets and addressing waste and water reduction and recycling.

Sustainability Scorecard

Snapchat Company Activity

Snap, Inc. engages in the operation of its camera platform. Its products include Snapchat, using the camera and editing tools to take and share Snaps, Friends Page, which lets users create and use Stories, Groups, Video and Chat, Discover for searching and surfacing relevant Stories, Snap Map, which shows friends, Stories and Snaps near the user, Memories, for saving personal collections, and Spectacles, wearable sunglasses capable of taking Snaps and interacting directly with the Snapchat application. The company’s primary source of revenue is advertising. Snap was founded by Frank Reginald Brown IV, Evan Thomas Spiegel, and Robert C. Murphy in 2010 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA.

Snapchat Sustainability Activity - As per company declarations

At Snap, their mission is to contribute to human progress by empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together.

Even as Snap grows and faces new opportunities and challenges, they remain grounded in kindness. Their engineers, designers, product managers, and other team members build their products and services to serve people. The well-being of the community informs their decision making, which in turn creates more value for their business over the long term. Just as they encourage their users to embrace authentic self expression in our products, Snap embraces honesty and transparency in their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting.

Certificate & Labels, Standards and Frameworks

The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD)
Science Based Target Initiatives (SBTi)
The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)
Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs)
Energy attribute certificates (EACs)

Snapchat in the news: Press Reviews and Social Media

Snapchat Outlines Progress on Social Good Initiatives in New CitizenSnap Report

On Snapchat’s future plans, the most recent CitizenSnap report has been made public. The company has discussed how important environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues are to it and how it plans to address them. Due to the app’s audience’s skew toward younger users, these initiatives are essential for the app. They will support civic engagement and societal awareness while supplying these audiences with more information on important focus topics. As was already mentioned, environmental initiatives are also a focus in this regard.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/snap-cut-emissions-achieves-carbon-neutrality-new-climate-strategy-2021-05-17/

Snap Inc., the company that owns Snapchat, recently unveiled a climate strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions. By 2025, Snap wants to cut the number of emissions produced by its business operations by 25%, in part by upgrading the energy efficiency of its buildings and investing in renewable energy. The plan, which Snapchat’s owner explained in its yearly “CitizenSnap” report, comes as tech companies are becoming more involved in climate change discussions. After offsetting emissions going back to its launch, Snap will only buy renewable energy going forward and continue to be carbon neutral. Snap aims to reduce emissions from its business operations by 25% by 2025, in part by increasing the energy efficiency of its buildings and acquiring renewable energy. said Perella.

Additionally, the company wants to cut emissions from purchased goods and services and business travel by 35%. Snap claimed that it came up with the reduction levels after consulting with a coalition that offers business advice on how to cut emissions in order to meet the Paris Agreement’s climate change goals. In order to become retroactively carbon neutral, it also calculated its emissions going back to Snapchat’s launch in 2011 and offset those emissions.

Snap Plans To Be Carbon Net Negative By 2030 | The Drum

By 2022, Snapchat promises to have net-zero carbon emissions, and through 2030, the company will invest at least $1 million annually in carbon sequestration. Snap has joined more than 200 other companies in pledging to go net zero, report on climate change frequently, eliminate carbon emissions, and use credible offsets.

UK Gender Pay Gap: Snap Pays Women in Britain 53% Less Than Men – Bloomberg

When comparing median hourly wages, Snap Inc. claimed that it paid women 53% less than men. Among the top tech companies, that is one of the worst numbers. Every U.K. company with more than 250 employees has been required to disclose its pay gap since 2017. When companies were first required to report the data in 2017, the gap was 9.2%.

Highlights from Snapchat Sustainability Report

Achievements

Sourced 100% renewable electricity in their workplace
50%+ reduction in absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions
40% reduction in intensity-based Scope 3 emissions
Conducted their first scenario analysis in line with The Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations
Satisfactory achievements in the social sphere (although the UK gender gap is extremely alarming)

Weaknesses and Setbacks

Gender pay gap
Not many targets in general and lack of social ones

Targets vs Progress Reported

Target	Results reported
Make their products more energy efficient	- Reduction in total global energy consumption by 17% per user - Foreground session power usage reduced by 12% on iOS and 9% on Android
Committed to achieving Net Negative carbon emissions by 2030	- Reduction in their absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by over 50% and its Scope 3 emissions by 40% per unit of revenue - Joined 200+ other businesses in signing The Climate Pledge to act on the climate crisis and take actions to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 — 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement
Aim to seamlessly preserve the security and privacy of their user data, whilst enabling innovation and growth at Snap	- Rolled out Safety Snapshot, new safety and privacy-focused channel on their Discover Platform - Joined other online platforms in testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security about Snap’s approach to protecting young people on their platform

UN SDGs Compliance Analysis

Progress made toward SDG targets
As reported by Snapchat

They continued their programs to reallocate resources and over $300,000 from the Snap food budget to serve multiple organizations focused on food security
They distributed over 100,000 meals to marginalized members of their community
Donated all excess food from their cafes

Worked to ensure that our community had access to accurate, credible information about the COVID-19 pandemic through partnerships with government agencies and health organizations
Snap increased parental leave to 16 weeks globally for birthing and non-birthing parents, introduced a one-month return to work for returning parents, and launched a global fertility support program
They improved their mental health benefits by increasing the number of sessions covered from 16 to 25 for each US Snap team member and for their family members

Launched Heads Up — an in-app education portal that surfaces trusted information and resources to Snapchatters who search for common drug-related terms and slang
Donated over $9 million dollars in Snapchat advertising to nonprofits and $4.5 million more to organizations focused on equitable access to education and exposure to career pathways for underserved youth
They devoted more than 6,870 volunteer hours to Snap Philanthropy projects, supporting 162 community organizations in 61 cities across 21 countries
Snap has expanded its training and development offerings, rolling out more offerings across everything from leadership to allyship. More than 650 team members have been offered 1:1 coaching through BetterUp, with unlimited coaching being offered to Snap team members. The company’s team members participated in more than 55,000 combined hours of training over the past year

Maintained representation of women at 50% and increased representation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) to 25% of their Independent Directors on Snap’s Board

Sourced all renewable energy for their office’s electricity

They have had to pivot and innovate their programs throughout the pandemic to meet the evolving needs of their students and through this time, Snap has approached their partnership with flexibility and creativity, allowing them to build new and impactful program offerings that involve the Snap community in powerful ways
SuitUp is a career readiness nonprofit that provides students from under-resourced communities with exposure to tech industry leaders through innovative business pitch and hackathon competitions.
Battery efficiency and cloud storage improvements

They created opportunities for historically underrepresented groups through our Snap Academies, Yellow Accelerator, career exploratory events, and mentorship programs
Snap and Catalyze Tech spent a year looking at what it would take to transform diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) outcomes in their industry. Drive key initiatives focused on inspiring empathy, redesigning their systems, and driving accountability across Snap and across the tech industry

To ensure that their products are being made responsibly and the workers who make them are treated well, they require their suppliers to agree to a stringent Supplier Code of Conduct, and they monitor adherence through third-party audits and remediation support
The EU’s Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations govern the collection, treatment, and recycling of electronics at the end of their life. Other regulations place responsibility on producers to ensure that their products are managed properly. To ensure compliance, they partner with approved recycling programs and pay fees, based on sales, for recycling their products

While they increased their daily active users by 20%, their carbon emissions for data storage remained neutral thanks to their partnership with their cloud storage providers to lower their carbon emissions
They purchased carbon removal credits and renewable energy to reach Net Zero Carbon for their Scope 1 and 2 emissions
Eliminating 20% of animal protein by introducing Plant Forward Wednesdays at offices

Released the Run for Office Mini, an in-app tool that empowers Snapchatters in the US to run for elected office in their local community based on the issues they care most about
Published their Safety and Impact blog as a helpful resource for anyone who wants to better understand how young people experience their product, or the many stakeholders and advocates who seek to better understand how they approach critical issues around safety and trust
Made several additions and improvements to their Transparency Reporting by offering new detail on the amount of content they enforced against drug-related violations and by creating a new category to share data on reports related to instances where their teams determined that a Snapchatter may be in crisis

They partnered with their cloud storage providers to optimize how their data is stored on their network to lower their carbon emissions
Continued to avoid operating in tax havens, and avoid having any stateless or “nowhere” income that is not taxed

Sustainability Certificates, Awards and Listings

Snapchat Sustainability Report

RATING

SECTOR

Chief Sustainability Officer

Stock Exchange and Ticker

Website

Contact

Listing

Awards

Revenue

Market Capitalisation

Employees

Content source

Snapchat Sustainability Report

Evaluation of Snapchat

Sustainability Scorecard

Snapchat Company Activity

Snapchat Sustainability Activity - As per company declarations

Certificate & Labels, Standards and Frameworks

Snapchat in the news: Press Reviews and Social Media

UK Gender Pay Gap: Snap Pays Women in Britain 53% Less Than Men – Bloomberg

Highlights from Snapchat Sustainability Report

Targets vs Progress Reported

UN SDGs Compliance Analysis

Sustainability Certificates, Awards and Listings

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