GreenBiz

Emma Stewart, Ph.D., is the Netflix Sustainability Officer where she is responsible for the company’s climate and environmental strategy and execution. She joined Netflix officially in late 2020, having helped design the program while a consultant at ENGIE. She oversees all company-wide work to decarbonize Netflix corporate and production operations, to further raise environmental awareness through TV and film titles, to engage the 200+ million Netflix households on sustainability, and to partner with key influencers including researchers, investors, employees, NGOs, and the media. 

She previously led World Resources Institute’s global work on urban efficiency, climate, and finance, including the Institute’s research and technical assistance to cities and companies worldwide on climate planning, urban financing, zero carbon buildings, and electric mobility.

Prior to joining WRI, she spent a decade leading software and sales teams creating and delivering sustainable design software for cities, architects, engineers, and contractors. In that capacity, she founded and directed design software giant Autodesk’s Sustainability Solutions department, where she led a product and go-to-market team to make sustainable design a “no-brainer” for millions of engineering and design customers.

In 2009, she founded Autodesk’s Sustainable Design Living Lab program, which uses Autodesk facilities as a testing ground for new software to rapidly green existing buildings. In 2008, she founded its Sustainable Operations program, which was named best-in-class by the Carbon Disclosure Project. She is an architect of the now mainstream Science-Based Targets movement (now 1000+ companies strong), having created the first open-source methodology (“C-FACT”) back in 2009, a methodology which was ultimately named #1 of 100 public company targets by Climate Counts. In 2005, Emma founded and directed the Environmental R&D Division at Business for Social Responsibility, where her team designed corporate initiatives to analyze and adapt to horizon issues such as payments for ecosystem services and water footprinting. 

She has served as a member of the professional faculty at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Stanford Graduate School of Business where she taught “Intrapreneurship for Sustainability”. 

She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Management from Stanford University and a B.A. Honours degree in Human Sciences from Oxford University.