The global inequitable impact of climate crisis

As a company headquartered on the Florida coast, we are keenly aware of the consequences of the climate crisis, and we are committed to decreasing our environmental impact, and crucially, the impact of our customers.

The recent wildfires in California, Oregon and Washington State are just the latest example of the volatile, changing world that the scientific community predicted decades ago. Recent analysis¹ found that climate change plays an unequivocal and pervasive role in increasing the intensity and length of fire conditions.

The consequences of climate change, however, go beyond the physical, intersecting with people’s lives in profound ways, resulting in significant social and economic costs. A 2017 study published by the United Nations Department of Economic & Social Affairs that outlined how “initial inequality causes the disadvantaged groups to suffer disproportionately from the adverse effects of climate change, resulting in greater subsequent inequality.”²

This year, we have witnessed firsthand the inequity of climate change, and how the impact on the most marginalized groups in our society is exacerbated when disruptions wreak havoc on people’s lives disproportionately. A 2018 study by researchers from the University of Washington and the Nature Conservancy³ found that low-income neighborhoods and immigrant communities often lack the resources to prepare for wildfires, pay for adequate insurance, or cover rebuilding costs, increasing their overall vulnerability. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has worsened conditions even further for many, increasing inequality amongst groups who were already suffering.

The need for action is immediate. As a trusted technology partner with hundreds of thousands of customers globally, spanning nearly every industry around the world, we believe our biggest opportunity is to enable greenhouse gas emissions reduction at scale. We do this by helping our customers dramatically improve their energy efficiency, resulting in a positive impact on the living conditions of people around the world. Our technology can enable economic opportunity and sustainability more broadly—a powerful and motivating combination.

¹Science Brief Update ²United Nations Paper ³PLOS ONE Paper

Enabling customers to reduce energy consumption and emissions

At Citrix, we understand that our role in reducing energy consumption starts with our products, which enable anyone to work from anywhere—reducing transportation emissions from commuting and enabling a shift to more energy-efficient devices.

For example, our Citrix Workspace product eliminates the need for applications and data to reside on endpoint devices. This puts product sustainability into practice, allowing customers to transition away from more energy-intensive desktops with large screen displays and high-performance processors toward more energy-efficient laptops. And because no data is required to live on these devices, it can extend the useful life of an individual device by up to 40 percent⁴. This can significantly decrease an organization’s energy demand and reduce waste. Citrix Workspace—combined with flexible remote work policies—can drive down corporate office space needs and reduce employee commuting, further reducing a company’s carbon footprint.

According to a recent PwC survey⁵, the majority of CEOs believe that COVID-19 pandemic-driven shifts towards remote collaboration and fewer people working from offices are likely to stay.

Citrix Workspace allows customers to transition away from more energy-intensive desktops with large screen displays and high-performance processors toward more energy-efficient laptops.

When organizations deploy Citrix Workspace and manage client devices to optimize for energy efficiency, they can—depending on the size of their employee base—dramatically decrease the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) associated with client computing. That’s because giving employees the ability to work on any device, on any network anywhere, can decrease reliance on fossil fuels and lessen the burden of traffic congestion.

As an example, emissions from transportation account for 14 percent of global GHGs and 28 percent of GHGs in the United States⁶. In the U.S., transportation is the largest contributor to GHG emissions⁷, and prior to the pandemic, over 75 percent⁸ of Americans commuted to work by private car. Work from home employees in the U.S. avoid emitting 3.6 million tons of commuting-related GHGs, which is the equivalent of 91 million trees planted⁹.

Reduced GHGs from transportation also contributes to better air quality, a reduction in chronic health issues, less dependency on fossil fuels, a healthier natural environment, and more livable cities. Likewise, reduced energy use overall can reduce pressure on aging utilities infrastructure.

⁵PwC Survey ⁶ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ⁷ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ⁸U.S. Census ⁹Global Workplace Analytics

Our efforts to reduce Citrix’s carbon emissions

Like many of our customers, we too are committed to decreasing our environmental footprint. We calculated Citrix’s Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 (business travel and employee commuting) greenhouse gas emissions footprint and will be setting reduction targets over the near-term now that a baseline has been formulated.

We design our offices and facilities to minimize energy consumption and waste and encourage our employees to reduce their ecological footprint.

This year, Citrix has submitted corporate climate data and strategy information to CDP, the voluntary global environmental disclosure platform.

Some of the ways we are minimizing our impact on the environment are:

Renewable energy

We are working to reduce our energy and waste across our facilities. Renewable energy is now the source of over 75 percent of electricity consumption at our main data center location, and 90 percent of energy consumed at our India operations is from renewable sources, avoiding 7,050 tons of carbon emissions.

Sustainable design

Investments in sustainable design features and green operations go into the development and expansion of our offices. Our real estate team identifies and addresses opportunities to reduce our carbon footprint, use alternative energy, and source green furniture, fixtures and equipment. When we build or complete full-scale renovations of our larger offices, we follow Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) principles where appropriate. We have also explored and reduced building system run times/peak utilization in certain sites to avoid excessive cooling/heating, thus lowering our utility consumption.

Global renovations include sustainable design elements such as maximizing natural light, adding motion sensors, installing light dimmers and timers, converting to LED fixtures, using low-flow faucets with aerators, decreasing shipping materials to the least possible amount that protects the shipment, automating controls to reduce consumption and waste, and optimizing HVAC and lab equipment for minimal power draw. Larger offices include photovoltaic electricity and water heaters that run on thermal solar.

Waste and recycling

We reuse, recycle and/or divert landfill items like plastic bags, packing foam, cardboard, wood, metal, electronic waste, fluorescent bulbs and batteries. Most recently we have removed single-use plastics in our consumables for café break rooms and office supplies, cutlery and utensils, and are now using primarily plant-based products. We’ve switched to the most sustainable items that we can, covering over 90 percent of single-use items in these areas.

In the near-term, COVID-19 impacts our ability to eliminate items that are not truly sustainable, such as individually wrapped cutlery in the break rooms. We are committed to supporting our ongoing efforts to decrease our carbon footprint and look forward to continuously improving this area when it is appropriate to do so.