Sustainability affects all aspects of Autodesk and is fundamental to our business moving forward.
Our single greatest area of influence is through customer use of our products. Our mission is to simplify and democratize sustainable design, so the 9 million architects, designers, and engineers around the world who use our products can make smarter, more sustainable decisions—whether designing a building, highway, car, utility network, or consumer product. We’re working to expand on many of the sustainability-accelerating products described in the Products & Industries sections of this report, and also add new ones.
We’ll also remain keenly focused on how we manage our business. We will continue to hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards and work to optimize the environmental impact of our operations. Building on the environmental policy and management system we established this year, we’re improving our understanding of and determining how to best improve our operational performance.
And we’ll continue to amplify our positive impacts through partnerships with leading innovators such as the American Institute of Architects, Designers Accord, and U.S. Green Building Council, and our sponsorship of the documentary series e2: the economies of being environmentally conscious.
Now more than ever, addressing the complex, multifaceted challenges of sustainability requires new levels of collaboration across industries and disciplines. For example, Digital Cities is Autodesk’s collaborative web service platform that enables stakeholders from the public, city government, construction and business communities to visualize, simulate, analyze, and share highly detailed 3D data from multiple sources. Digital Cities combines AutoCAD® software and building information modeling in a geospatial context to foster the creation of rich 3D applications that help customers understand and plan their complete urban environment and assess projects on a city and regional scale.
With Digital Cities technology, an urban planner could determine how a skyscraper or housing complex might impact natural light for surrounding structures and public spaces, or how the water usage patterns of a new development might affect local reservoirs and waterways. Using this information, public agencies, developers, and design professionals could communicate, collaborate, and deliver sustainable development projects more effectively. Private citizens benefit as well, from increased access to information about their communities and surroundings.
We have started working with our first Digital Cities pilot city, the city of Salzburg, Austria, and expect to have additional cities to announce in our next report. This initiative is just one example of the innovation we envision in the coming years.
Design is an iterative process, both for our customers and for us, and one innovation often leads to another. We’re proud of our progress, but we’re only beginning to tap the potential of our products to help customers integrate sustainability into their businesses.
During the coming year, we plan to improve our understanding of our customers’ evolving concerns and requirements, and identify how our unique combination of products, industry expertise, and creativity can address unmet needs. This knowledge will help us determine how we can best help shape a more sustainable future.