Autodesk’s Carbon Footprint

In order to model sustainability best practices across our business, Autodesk is committed to measuring and reducing our carbon footprint. We became more carbon efficient in fiscal year 2009 compared to 2008: we decreased carbon emissions per revenue dollar by 5 percent, per square foot of facilities by 19 percent, and per employee by 9 percent.

While we have made progress in both measuring and reducing our carbon footprint, we continue to strive for further improvements. Our Sustainability Report outlines our operational impacts and environmental management practices.

Scope of Footprint

In fiscal year 2009, our carbon footprint was 83,100 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). This is equivalent to 15,225 vehicles on the road per year or 1,110 tankers of gas burned.

Autodesk includes a large range of business activities in its footprint—including those that result in indirect emissions such as employee travel on commercial flights and customer travel to Autodesk conferences. While we do not have direct control over these emissions, they would not exist without our business activities or purchases.

Expanding the Scope of Data

As published in Autodesk’s first Sustainability Report, our carbon footprint from calendar year 2007 was 64,000 metric tons of CO2. This year we’ve been able to capture more data which gives us a broader and more accurate carbon footprint. For example, we’ve added emissions data from major Autodesk conferences and data centers. We also captured energy data from a larger percentage of our worldwide facilities.

Expanding the scope of data measured is a typical practice among companies that are gaining experience and knowledge in carbon accounting. In light of the new data, we retroactively adjusted the previous footprint and shifted it from calendar year to fiscal year. The adjusted fiscal year 2008 footprint is 82,000 metric tons of CO2. So, between fiscal years 2008 and 2009, our overall carbon footprint increased by about one percent. Expansions in our facilities square footage and employee headcount contributed to this increase, while successful efforts at company-wide travel reductions counter-balanced it.