Texan by Nature is excited to recognize IBM as a 2024 TxN 20 honoree for their leadership in conservation and sustainability. IBM‘s commitment to conservation, their projects, programs, best practices, and lessons learned are an example and inspiration for us all.

Honoree Name: IBM

Honoree Industry and Size: Technology, Enterprise

Company Overview: IBM is a leading provider of hybrid cloud and AI solutions, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs, and gain the competitive edge in their industries. More than 4,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications, and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions, and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, environmental sustainability, inclusivity, and service. IBM has had a strong local presence in Texas for over 50 years.

IBM Austin, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2017, is using 100% renewable electricity.

What is IBM’s conservation and sustainability mission and why is it important to your culture?
IBM’s commitment to environmental sustainability was first formalized over five decades ago under a Corporate Environmental Policy calling for environmental leadership across all aspects of IBM’s business activities. Since that time, we have made significant progress in conserving energy and water, managing waste, using renewable electricity, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, establishing a responsible supply chain, and helping our clients build sustainable futures. 

IBM has been a member of the Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) for more than 30 years and in 2023, 4 IBM sites (IBM Corporate Headquarters, New York; IBM Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; IBM Almaden Research Center and IBM Silicon Valley Laboratory, both in California) held WHC Conservation Certifications for their wildlife habitat management and conservation education programs. Also, recognizing the positive impact we could have on ecosystem health, in 2021, IBM established a global program focused on creating, enhancing, and restoring pollinator habitats. We set a goal to plant 50 pollinator gardens at IBM locations globally by year-end 2023. IBM successfully surpassed this goal by establishing 70 pollinator gardens at 54 IBM locations across 26 countries. The gardens consisted of rewilded meadows, terrace gardens, ground-level flower beds, containers, and pots, and the establishment of drought-tolerant landscaping with pollinator-friendly plants and flowers. Collectively, the gardens and meadows covered roughly 735,300 square feet.

IBM has sustained its commitment to environmental protection regardless of economic cycles, changes in business and technology, and even changes in the topic’s popularity. We believe that the power of science, technology, and innovation can help tackle key environmental issues. By uniting experts and technology, we have the potential to make a lasting, scalable impact.

What steps is IBM taking to address global natural resource challenges, and how are these efforts integrated into IBM’s overall business strategy?
At IBM, sustainability is not treated as a separate initiative but is deeply integrated into our corporate strategy. We have a long-standing track record of driving environmental progress alongside business growth, demonstrating that these two imperatives are interconnected rather than mutually exclusive. Our global environmental management system (EMS) covers all of IBM’s environmental intersects and we continually update our EMS to reflect changes in our business. We are proud to have been the first multinational company to earn a single global registration of our EMS to the ISO 14001 standard for environmental management systems back in 1997 and have retained it ever since. 

Goal setting has long been a strategic part of our EMS. We use goal setting to drive performance and continuous improvement.  We currently have 21 environmental sustainability goals that address a broad range of environmental matters including energy and climate change, conservation and biodiversity, pollution prevention and waste management, supply chain and value chain, and our EMS.

However, IBM’s greatest opportunity to contribute to the environmental sustainability of our planet comes from the innovative technologies and solutions that we deploy to help our clients and society address environmental challenges. 

IBM’s sustainability technology, consulting, and research capabilities can help make data more visible and actionable. By leveraging AI and automation we can help accelerate clients’ business objectives and sustainability goals; increase productivity; reduce costs, waste, and emissions—and help them meet their regulatory requirements. In addition, the IBM Sustainability Accelerator is a global, pro bono initiative providing IBM technologies and expertise to non-profits and governments addressing climate change impacts on vulnerable populations. To date, the IBM Sustainability Accelerator has supported 15 global projects across three active cohorts focused on sustainable agriculture, clean energy, and water management.

Who in IBM is leading your conservation and sustainability efforts and what are some examples of employee engagement in conservation and sustainability at your company?
Christina Shim is IBM’s Chief Sustainability Officer. In this role, she leads the company’s sustainability and client-zero strategy, implementing in-house technology solutions that harness the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and hybrid cloud. The company’s environmental programs are implemented by environmental professionals at manufacturing, development, office, and research locations around the world. 

IBM’s environmental programs and performance are overseen by the Directors and Corporate Governance Committee of the IBM Board of Directors. IBM’s Chief Sustainability Officer meets with the board committee annually to discuss IBM’s environmental programs, performance, challenges, and emerging issues.

The IBM Board of Directors oversees IBM’s long-term business strategy and is actively engaged in ensuring that IBM’s culture reflects its commitment to integrity, trust and transparency, and inclusion. Under the guidance and supervision of our Board and its committees, IBM senior management is responsible for the company’s environmental and social performance and regularly reports to the Board and its committees on IBM’s ESG activities. 

While some IBM employees are assigned work responsibilities that directly involve managing IBM’s intersections with the environment, many more employees are passionate about environmental sustainability and interested in volunteering their time in the pursuit of sustainability projects at IBM. In support of this practice, IBM has established EcoTeams@IBM to engage employees and harness their interests toward contributing to IBM’s environmental goals and programs. 

What conservation and sustainability programs and projects does IBM lead and participate in?
Energy conservation and addressing climate change
In 2021, IBM announced its commitment to achieve net zero operational GHG emissions by 2030.  In addition, we established other shorter-term energy and climate targets in order to support transparency, execution, and accountability. Today, we are working towards fulfilling this commitment and have reduced our operational GHG emissions by 68.5% against base year 2010, meeting our 2025 target two years early.  Further, in 2023, IBM implemented 675 energy conservation projects across more than 130 locations globally, avoiding 95,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy consumption and 33,000 metric tons (MT) of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and saving $11 million. We also increased our use of renewable energy, procuring over 70% of our electricity worldwide from renewable sources.  

Pollution prevention and waste management
Reducing the generation of waste at its source has been a basic tenet of IBM’s pollution prevention program since the 1970s. Our current nonhazardous waste goal encompasses all IBM-owned locations and leased locations of 100,000 square feet or greater worldwide and includes two parts: 

• Divert 90% or more (by weight) of our total non-hazardous waste from landfill and incineration by 2025, through reuse, recycling, composting, and waste-to-energy processes.
• Use waste-to-energy processes for no more than 10% (by weight) of the diverted waste. 

In 2023, our operations generated 16,500 metric tons of nonhazardous waste worldwide. We diverted 94.2% (by weight) from landfills or incineration, meeting the first component of our goal. Of the total amount diverted, 10% (by weight) was sent to waste-to-energy processes, meeting the second component of our goal.

Water conservation and Biodiversity
IBM has comprehensive programs and goals that help conserve natural resources and protect biodiversity. 

• Our water conservation goal prioritizes efforts to reduce water use where it will have the greatest potential environmental impact. Conservation efforts in 2022 and 23 consisted of replacing irrigated turf areas with native drought-resistant plants, expanding water system leak detection and repair programs at our locations, upgrading humidifier equipment, and installing waterless urinals and faucet aerators in washrooms. 
• In 2023, 99.8% (based on spend) of our paper and paper/wood-based packaging IBM directly procured worldwide came from suppliers that warranted that the source was derived from sustainably managed forests.
• From 2021-2023, IBM established 70 pollinator gardens at 54 IBM locations across 26 countries. Collectively, the gardens and meadows covered roughly 735,300 square feet.

IBM Sustainability Accelerator
The IBM Sustainability Accelerator, launched in 2022, is a global pro-bono social impact program supporting populations facing environmental threats. It applies IBM technology, such as IBM watsonx and hybrid cloud, and an ecosystem of experts to enhance and scale technology projects with nonprofit and government organizations globally.

Each year, IBM selects a cohort of 5 projects focused on a sustainability topic that aligns with the sustainable development goals, working with each for 2 years. Cohorts have launched on sustainable agriculture (2021/2022), clean energy (2022), and water management (2023) with 15 engagements across six continents. At the beginning of 2024, IBM held an RFP process to select a fourth cohort on resilient cities.

IBM Accelerator cohort on sustainable agriculture with Texas A & M AgriLife researchers. Photo: IBM

“We’re honored to be named among the Texan by Nature 20. It’s a testament to our team’s dedication and innovation in creating solutions that not only drive our business forward but also contribute to a more sustainable Texas and beyond.”

– Dr. Brooke Tvermoes, Director, Environmental, Energy and Chemical Management Programs, IBM

What strategies does IBM use to educate and raise awareness among employees, customers, and stakeholders about the importance of conservation and sustainability?
At IBM, we are taking a collaborative approach to drive progress toward conservation and sustainability.
Employees:

• EcoTeams@IBM provides employees worldwide an opportunity to voluntarily lead and participate in local environmental initiatives that are meaningful to them and support IBM’s environmental goals and objectives. 
• In 2023, there were 23 active EcoTeams spanning 58 IBM locations across 16 countries. EcoTeams supported over 70 activities such as learning events, tree plantings, beach and park clean ups, bike to work events, as well as providing plant kits for employees to use at home, and maintaining bird boxes. EcoTeams also actively participated in global events such as Earth Day, International Day for Biological Diversity and Zero Emissions Day.

Suppliers: 

• Since 2010, we have required our first-tier suppliers to implement environmental management systems, set quantifiable goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and waste, and publicly disclose their results.  
• Since 2021, we have required our key suppliers in emissions-intensive sectors to set their own emissions reduction targets aligned with the IPCC’s 1.5°C pathway. 
• We also convene an annual Sustainability Leadership Symposium to recognize supplier achievements and facilitate peer learning on best practices for areas like waste reduction. 

Advocacy:  

• IBM is a founding member of advocacy organizations like the Climate Leadership Council, or The Climate Pledge, where we collaborate with other companies and stakeholders to drive impactful, systemic changes in sustainability. 
• We also proactively engage a wide range of partners – from NGOs to government agencies – to tackle environmental challenges. 

Social Impact: 

• Forming partnerships that help communities vulnerable to climate challenges, through programs such as IBM Sustainability Accelerator. 

Research:  

• IBM continues to invest in corporate-academic partnerships. Through a collaborative membership ecosystem, we work with our partners to radically redefine what’s possible in business and science. 

Clients: 

• By leveraging AI and automation we accelerate clients’ business objectives and sustainability goals; increase productivity; reduce costs, waste, and emissions— and help them meet their regulatory requirements.

Can you share specific examples of successful partnerships or innovative collaborations IBM has formed with other organizations to enhance sustainability and conservation outcomes?
IBM actively collaborates with a wide range of stakeholders, including NGOs, government agencies, businesses, industry associations, and academia, to address environmental issues. Key partnerships include:

• European Green Digital Coalition (EGDC): IBM’s Flex Platform was selected by EGDC to develop tools for assessing the environmental impact of digital solutions across six sectors. The tool was showcased at the Digital with Purpose Global Summit in 2023.
• NASA: IBM and NASA expanded their collaboration in 2023 to include geospatial analytics and large language models, resulting in the open sourcing of a geospatial foundation model and a new AI foundation model for weather and climate. These models support applications like natural hazard detection and renewable energy forecasting and were presented at COP28.
• Technip Energies (TEN): IBM’s VolCat Technology, designed for recycling PET, was further developed into an industrial-scale process with TEN. In 2023, TEN launched Reju, a company dedicated to polyester regeneration using this technology.
• The Green Grid (TGG): IBM has been a member since 2007, contributing to data center energy efficiency and advocating for the optimization of data center energy and resource efficiency.
• U.S. Department of Energy (DOE): IBM joined the DOE’s initiative which aims to increase computing energy efficiency by 1,000 times over two decades.
• U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF): IBM Research is leading PFACTS, an NSF funded project to find alternatives to PFAS..
• Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC): IBM has been a member for over 30 years and has four sites in the U.S. who in 2023 held WHC Conservation Certifications.

Pocket pollinator garden at IBM campus.

How does IBM quantify investment and return on conservation and sustainability?
IBM has long believed that environmental protection and conservation are good for its business. For example, IBM established its global energy conservation program in 1973, and it has led to significant energy and cost savings for our business ever since. From 1990, when we first began reporting on our energy conservation results, through the year 2023, IBM conserved 10.1 million MWh of energy—equivalent to more than four times IBM’s current annual energy consumption—saving $691 million and avoiding 4.66 million MT of CO2 emissions.

However, even more important than those direct cost savings, integrating conservation and sustainability into IBM’s business has become a differentiator, enabling sales, increasing client and employee satisfaction, and driving greater shareholder value. Conservation and sustainability are now business imperatives for all types of businesses.

How do you see the future of conservation and sustainability evolving, and what role will IBM play in that progress?
As the IBM Institute for Business Value Report “Beyond Checking the Box” highlights, organizations that embed sustainability into their operations report 16% higher revenue growth and are 52% more likely to outperform their peers on profitability. In addition, they are twice as likely to attribute great improvement in operating costs to their sustainability efforts.

Generative AI can be a game changer for data-driven sustainability, enabling organizations to turn trade-offs into win-wins, identify improvement opportunities, and drive innovation at speed and scale. And 64% of executives agree that generative AI will be important for their sustainability efforts, while 73% say they plan to increase their investment in generative AI for sustainability.

When we think about the future, our overarching mission is to innovate and scale further our environmental sustainability initiatives leveraging hybrid cloud and emerging AI technologies. Our efforts span across many areas, from embedding sustainability into how we build our products to driving sustainability globally across all aspects of IBM’s business operations.

What is the one lesson that IBM has learned from your conservation and sustainability efforts that others can take back and think about applying within their own space?
Sustainability can’t be siloed – it needs to be integrated into every aspect of your operations and decision-making because conservation and environmental sustainability improvements are more readily realized when environmental responsibilities are embedded into the operational requirements of a business. Much of IBM’s success in conservation and environmental sustainability can be directly attributed to its global environmental management system (EMS). IBM’s EMS ensures internal integration of the environmental imperative into our business practices, wherever in the world they may take place. It engages people whose day-to-day job is not the environment per se (e.g., product development engineers, material scientists, procurement, and operational managers in real estate organizations), but whose decisions and work can impact the environment. It institutionalizes environmental responsibility into the fabric of our business and our company’s culture. It has been and continues to be an enabler for IBM’s environmental progress.

We have such a strong belief in the benefits of a well-defined and documented EMS that in 2010 we made it a requirement that all IBM suppliers implement such a system, establish environmental objectives and targets, and report on their progress.  We believe all businesses, large and small, can implement and benefit from these practices.  

In addition, we have found that a powerful way to build a culture of inclusion and belonging is to provide employees with opportunities to shape and participate in causes that matter to them. Environmental sustainability is top of mind for many employees. IBM EcoTeams have provided an avenue by which employees can engage in local environmental initiatives that are meaningful to them. Employees also have enjoyed being able to volunteer in local environmental volunteer events and have utilized IBM’s offer to help identify local opportunities.

Why is Texas an important home or base of operations for IBM?
Texas is an important hub for the high-tech industry and as such Texas is an important base for IBM’s operations, both for the companies that it hosts as well as for the abundance of top talent eager to apply innovative technologies to advance the sustainability for our clients. IBM has had operations in Texas for over 50 years. We opened our Austin campus in 1967. Today, that site today employs many IBMers across multiple IBM organizations. IBM also operates multiple cloud data centers in Dallas and across the state of Texas. 

IBM has a strong legacy of environmental leadership in Texas. For example, in 1993, IBM Austin became one of the earliest business locations across the United States to receive a Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for voluntarily eliminating the use of chlorofluorocarbon compounds in manufacturing. Among its many missions, IBM Austin houses significant software development activities. The work performed by IBM Software contributes to IBM’s core business focus of delivering software products and services to help clients improve business workflow and operational efficiency to meet their sustainability objectives.   

Is there anything else you’d like to share that makes IBM’s strategy and approach to conservation and environmental sustainability unique?
As a leader in AI technology, IBM recognizes the critical importance of developing and using these technologies sustainably. We are keenly aware of the potential environmental impact of AI systems and are taking proactive steps to address this. By focusing on the sustainability of AI, we’re not only reducing our environmental footprint but also creating more efficient and cost-effective solutions for our clients. One example of our commitment to sustainable AI is our development of AI chips that are 14 times more energy-efficient than previous models. This innovation drastically reduces the power required to run AI workloads, allowing us to expand our AI capabilities while minimizing energy consumption.

Find out more about IBM’s conservation and sustainability efforts here.