Letter from our President and CEO Table of contents Customers 4 Climate change 8 Employees 10 Philanthropy 12 Ethics 14 UNGC index 15 By all measures, the next decade will be pivotal. The challenges we face—a global pandemic, a warming climate, rising inequality, and political instability—will continue to test the resilience of businesses, countries, ecosystems, and our global community. While few of us predicted that the global economy would be shut down by the novel coronavirus, it’s easy to argue we could have, and perhaps should have, seen this coming and been more prepared. This pandemic has been a wake-up call to leaders around the globe. As we look ahead to the next decade, it is more clear than ever that we need to design for resilience—in business, infrastructure, manufacturing processes, and political systems. It is equally important that we sharpen our collective ability to forecast business, market, and societal drivers, especially the unexpected ways these forces amplify and accelerate one another. As the CEO of Autodesk, I am grateful for the work we’ve done this past decade to prepare our business for today’s realities—moving to the cloud years ago, shifting most of our business to be recurring, and delivering products and platforms that enable distributed workforces to collaborate on data-driven decisions that create positive impact. I am equally humbled by the magnitude of opportunity that lies ahead as we and our customers future-proof our businesses to align growth with positive impact, as articulated by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our success this decade will be measured by our customers’ ability to deliver sustainable outcomes. Our platform must automate and power decisions with insights and intelligence that catalyze industry innovation and deliver positive outcomes in three key areas. First, our technology needs to help customers design and make products, buildings, and entire cities that foster healthy, resilient communities. We envision a future that is equitable, safe, and free from preventable illness and injury. We will continue to focus on technologies such as Construction IQ, which uses machine learning to make construction sites safer and healthier for workers, helping to prevent the hundreds of thousands of construction injuries that occur annually. Second, we must help designers and engineers understand the impact of everyday decisions about materials and energy use in the context of other goals. Technologies such as generative design and the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) enable customers to use resources more efficiently and productively, thereby saving money and reducing carbon emissions. Third, we have to continue delivering technology that helps people adapt, grow, and prosper alongside increasing levels of automation. Our cloud tools must support and enable human creativity, not replace it, in an increasingly remote workforce. Autodesk customer The Industrial Sewing and Innovation Center (ISAIC) in Detroit, Michigan, is focused on upskilling workers in the era of automation—just one example among many that illustrates how Autodesk tools are accelerating a better future. With these focus areas top of mind, we continue to lead by example within our own business. Ten years ago we set one of industry’s first science-based greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. We’re proud to announce we achieved that goal and set an even more ambitious target to make our entire business climate neutral beginning in fiscal year 2021. We are equally committed to building a resilient, diverse, and equitable culture at all levels of the organization. To that end, I’m proud that every Autodesk employee is now an owner of the company through stock grants deployed this spring. And finally, we have committed to invest 1% of our annual operating margin in Autodesk Foundation, to support entrepreneurs and innovators who are at the forefront of creating positive impact. The coming decade demands the very best of each of us. We need courage to confront and accept the unprecedented challenges we face. We need new levels of conviction, and the confidence to believe that an economically inclusive, socially just, and environmentally restorative future is possible. To achieve this, we’ll need to collaborate in ways previously unimaginable across sectors, industries, and disciplines. Please join us in working to shape a thriving future for billions of people. This is our decade to deliver—to make the impossible inevitable. Sincerely, Andrew Anagnost President and Chief Executive Officer Autodesk 2
Autodesk FY20 Sustainability Report Page 1 Page 3