Adam is Uber’s global lead for electrification policy. He lives in Oakland and works in San Francisco. Sustainability and cross-disciplinary engagement are running themes throughout his work experience across the nonprofit, government, and business sectors.

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John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian, and I’m so honored to have with us today Adam Gromis. He’s the Global Lead for Electrification Policy at Uber. Welcome, Adam, to the Impact Podcast.

Adam Gromis: Thanks, John. Great to be here.

John: Adam, we were talking a little bit off the air, but before we get talking about all the great work you’re doing; electrification sustainability at Uber with your colleagues, let’s talk a little bit about your background. I know you and I actually have a little bit of a connection. I’m sitting here in Fresno, California, in my home office and studios. Adam, I know you’re in Oakland today, but talk a little bit about where you grew up.

Adam: That’s right, John. I live in Oakland, California, today, but I’m very lucky to have grown up in Fresno, California, where I went all the way through high school. I went to UC Davis after that, so I stayed in the greater Central Valley in California. Quite frankly, that’s how I got involved in the work. I’ve been working in clean air quality and clean tech for the last almost 25 years. My first job out of UC Davis was working for the California Air Resources Board. I worked in hydrogen and fuel cell technology after that, also with the Air Board and industry, and then was in the impact investing field after graduate school at NYU. Eventually, I ended up on the Goldman Sachs impact investing team, including looking at clean tech investments, and then made my way over to Uber as the first sustainability hire. For me, I’ve been so curious about how do we bring the best of industry innovation together with thoughtful policy frameworks that drive forward the at-scale solutions we need to tackle these unprecedented problems of environment, of our human interaction with our environment, and our social connections, which, to me, are just so critical. For me, that was shaped back in Fresno. In Fresno, I had an inhaler just like most kids because the air quality in Fresno, John, can be really challenging for a lot of kids. I think something like one in six kids in Fresno County have asthma or asthma-related diseases. I was one of those kids. I played water polo and was in the pool a lot. I was breathing a lot of that air, I was taking my inhaler all the time. That got me really interested in what I could do with my engineering degree from UC Davis to help contribute to the challenge. For me, transportation was the place. I love transportation. I love mobility, but mobility can be really painful. It’s the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases here in California. It’s the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases in the United States. Greenhouse gases is just one element. There’s also particulates and asthma-causing pollutants such as oxides and nitrogen and other things that come from transportation. I was so curious to ask, “What can I do to get involved with the solution side of the challenge?” That’s propelled most of my work over the years.

John: That’s so great. This is how old I am, Adam—they were just building Stern when I was at NYU. They were just building it.

Adam: Oh, we shared that in common as well. That’s fantastic. [crosstalk]. I was very pleased.

John: Yes [inaudible]. We’re both from NYU.

Adam: I went to NYU just for business and for policy. I did a dual degree because, again, I’m interested in that intersection of the best that industry can bring and the best of policy design.

John: You were the first hire in Uber’s sustainability division. What year was that?

Adam: 2017. I was the first hire that was focused on sustainability full-time. I joined our policy group to ask questions about what can we as a business do to make a more sustainable business, and what can we do to be a greater participant in the drive towards decarbonizing and electrifying transport, which in the process was what we identified. We came at it from a materiality perspective. What is material to Uber in terms of our impact, but what matters to our customers? What matters to our stakeholders? Electrification became the clear, low-hanging fruit where we can have the greatest impact because we work with millions, more than 7 million drivers and couriers around the world these days, doing trips all day long on Uber. And so, what can we do to help those drivers leapfrog into the electric revolution, which would so dramatically reduce not just the footprint of Uber’s business, but reduce the footprint of travel in the towns and for the customers that our drivers and couriers serve?

John: You and I know a couple of things to be true. Sustainability is a journey. There’s really no finish line. It can be read very wide or very narrow. Since you were ground zero in sustainability at Uber and had that proverbial blank page in front of you, how did you go about working with leadership on figuring out what the most important topics to tackle and what does your current role today, 7 years out, global lead electrification policy, look like on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, year-to-year basis?

Adam: It starts with ground truthing and measurement. That’s where we began 7 years ago because the Uber business is a remarkable marketplace where we connect those offering mobility supply—how to help people get from A to B and help things get from A to B—with those that demand those services. Uber is a marketplace. Back in 2017, the purpose of that marketplace was not to reduce emissions from the air while it also connected people with those goods and services. We had to build on top of that an emissions layer. We had to build on top of that an impact layer to start to understand what is the impact of the current activity, where are things like EVs and hybrids, alternative fuel vehicles on the platform. We had to build those information layers because once you have the data, then you can build that into your marketplace. That’s really where we began. The other thing that was so critical is ground truthing, what is the current status of the transportation sector and electrification? It became very clear from looking at external validated research that electrifying everything and reducing our reliance on personally owned and driven cars and car ownership are absolutely critical and fundamental to driving towards climate goals in the future of transportation. That’s not just for Uber, that’s for cities, countries, marketplaces around the world, and mobility. The science is very solid. Folks like UC Davis have shown this, my alma mater, that if we’re going to reach a decarbonized transport system by mid-century, about 75% of that needs to come from electrifying everything. And I mean everything—the big trucks rolling down 99 through Fresno, to the cars that you and I drive to get around, to the scooters that we can now take and bikes in more cities that we can take buses and trains. We have to electrify everything. That’s step one. Step two is shifting from a reliance on four-wheel passenger cars as our sole way of getting around to much more shared-use vehicles, shared-use transit, shared-use multimodal lifestyles within cities. The last quarter is emissions reduction needs to come from that multimodal switching. And that together, that’s the solution. The solution set is known. It’s now marshalling the political will, the consumer will, the corporate will to try and drive those solutions at scale to make them accessible and affordable for communities and consumers everywhere. That’s where we are today. We’re at implementation. We started with measurement. Where are we in terms of our interaction as a company with the challenge? And what’s the solution? We know the solution. So now how do we get started? And that’s where we are today in implementation mode. How do we support drivers getting into electric vehicles? How do we make it easier for riders to push a button and get an all-electric ride?

John: For our listeners and viewers who just joined us, we’ve got Adam Gromis with us today. He’s a global lead for electrification policy at Uber. To find Adam and his colleagues and all the great work they’re doing in sustainability, please go to www.uber.com. Now, Uber’s become ubiquitous with third-party travel. I’m a big user of Uber. Wherever I go in the world, I use it. I have only had great experiences. For our listeners and viewers, just to understand size and scope: over 30,000 employees, 137 billion in revenues last year, and you’re serving over 70 countries and 150 million monthly active users. Uber is a big company. Even though we can all remember pre-Uber, and it feels like it’s a startup, it’s a big company.

Adam: It’s so exciting to work for a global company too, John, because what I love about the work is getting to meet colleagues from all over the world every day and understanding that we have this ubiquitous marketplace, to your point, like this scale. But the context and the way that that marketplace is used is different from Fresno to Freiburg, out to London, down to Los Angeles. It’s a really remarkable thing in terms of the way that people move and the way that people consume goods is different everywhere. Understanding how we can adapt that marketplace to work with real communities and real places is just so critical. With many tech companies, they talk about how many people are present in a chat room at any given moment, but when we’re dealing with 156 million users all around the world, we’re talking about real people in motion. Any given moment around the world, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people at any given moment in motion, in a conversation, in a real moving vehicle. That, for me, is so exciting because it talks, if we can have even just incremental change at that scale, the change adds up to a really big impact.

John: Given the size of Uber, and now you’re at the implementation stage, how much is that a curse and a blessing? Of course, learning from one another and sharing the diversity and the cultures that you have to serve is both enriching and fascinating at once. But is it also massively challenging when you’re trying to implement and implement at scale and implement with success?

Adam: That’s right. It takes both top-down and bottom-up. On the top-down side, we’re racing to electrify, and that comes from the top. Dara Khosrowshahi, our CEO, in 2020, committed to setting a target for the company to reach. It’s a stretch target. It’s a tough one. It’s aggressive and ambitious, but that is so critical to galvanizing imagination, effort, and interest. In 2020, we committed to striving for 100% electric vehicle use on Uber in the U.S., Canada, and Europe by 2030. That’s very aggressive, very soon. Then by 2040, in all the 70 countries that you mentioned where we operate. 2030 is our ambitious goal for the U.S., Canada, and Europe. 2040, everywhere we operate globally. That’s the stake in the ground. A couple of years ago, we added delivery to that commitment by 2040, electrifying delivery and, in fact, adding a few additional waste reduction goals. How do we do it? How do we get there? There’s three areas that we’re making investments in and marshalling our resources in a matrix fashion across the organization. Those are electrification programs for drivers to help them reduce the barriers to access and entry for obtaining electric vehicles. Second—innovation. How do we use that Uber magic? Push a button, go somewhere, get something. How do we make it simple for consumers to push a button, get a green ride, consume a good in the cleanest, most efficient way? Third is partnerships. We recognized early on that we will never get there by ourselves and that so many others have other parts of the solution set that we need to be engaging with. We partner with social sector organizations and with a lot of industry leaders in order to drive the solutions. I’m happy to dive into more of those areas as we talk through the conversation.

John: Talk a little bit, you just had your second annual global sustainability product showcase called GO-GET Zero. What was that? What is that? Why did you decide to put that on an annual basis?

Adam: Yeah, that’s right. It’s so exciting to see the company making such a commitment, such a level of investment in product. At the end of the day, Uber is a software company. We make an app. Unless it’s in the app, consumers don’t know that it’s there, and users won’t use it. This was our second annual showcase, GO-GET Zero. It took place in London earlier this month. I had the great privilege of being with the team in London. Our CEO was there with many senior executives from across the company. It was a call to action for the industry that we need to be keeping the pressure on for electrification because we see a lot of places where there’s hesitation. There’s automakers pulling back from some commitments. There’s governments questioning whether the policies they have in place should be adjusted. There’s some governments that haven’t joined. We’re there to say, “Now is the time to act. This is the decade of action if we’re going to make a real dent in the climate.” Broadly speaking, transportation emissions keep growing because electrification is not happening fast enough and because consumer demand for mobility keeps increasing, which erodes all the efficiency gains. So, we were there to call the industry to action and show what we’re doing to make investments on the tech side, which is so exciting. I mentioned those three program areas: electrification for drivers, innovation for consumers and riders, and then partnerships. That’s where we focus on all of our announcements at GO-GET Zero. Just as a for instance, for drivers, we announced a new AI assistant for so many drivers who are considering, “Is an EV right for me?” It comes down to really idiosyncratic factors. Do I have access to home charging? What’s the vehicle I’m driving now? Is it costing me a lot to pay for gas? We developed an AI assistant where drivers can ask any question they want. “Hey, I’m interested in an EV.” “Oh, you are? Okay, great. Have you looked at these options? What’s your current situation? What’s the car you’re driving? How much do you think you’re spending on gas? Is an EV right for you today? If it is, we have many tools that then the AI assistant can connect you with: our vehicle marketplace, partnership, great deals on charging, and EVs through our partnerships.” So, we can help. Again, making that so much easier for drivers to just push a button, get access to the solutions, but also education. As I’m sure you know, John, and I’m sure you’ve discussed on your show many times, it’s just so critical for all consumers, for everybody everywhere, but especially for drivers who are trying to think to themselves, “I’m trying to maximize my monthly take-home pay. How do I do that by shifting to an EV? Is that right for me?” We really want to find those drivers that are in that sweet spot of being able to make more money or as much money as they do now in their gas car in an EV. When that’s true, drivers are the most rational actors on the road. They know how to maximize that money in their pocket at the end of the month. The AI assistant, we think, is going to be a great next leap forward in providing tech innovations that make it so much easier for drivers to engage with.

John: How do you get adoption of that among your drivers?

Adam: The drivers have a number of functions. There’s a whole driver app. If you haven’t driven on Uber—and I encourage you to be a driver on Uber if you haven’t done so—but you’ve probably been a rider on Uber. Riders use one app, drivers use another app. There’s a whole another app for drivers. On that app, there’s tools beyond just accepting the next ride. We have a vehicle marketplace for drivers. We have an EV hub where you can find out more information and put in your zip code to find customized information about what incentives can I get from local and state governments that are serving my area. What are the EVs on offer at local dealerships and through partnerships that Uber’s been able to broker? What do I do with charging? How do I access home charging? What are the deals that Uber can get me on charging network providers? In that driver app, drivers can find a lot of information. For instance, another thing that we’ve done is put charging into the driver map so that when drivers go on a break if you’re in an EV, you can see where charging is located. We have another feature that we announced last year called battery-aware matching. If some drivers in certain makes and models can opt into letting us know their battery state of charge through their phone, then that alters our matching algorithm to serve those rides that fit within the available battery state of charge down to the [inaudible] that the driver sets up to them in terms of what’s comfortable or when to determine to drive. Again, the more we can do to relieve those pain points for drivers, when we ask drivers, what are the two biggest pain points? Number one, it’s upfront cost. Number two, it’s charging. When we build features in the app for drivers, we think about: how do we make it easier for drivers to access more affordable vehicles? And second, how do we make charging less of a painful experience so that it doesn’t cost them the time and literal money away from offering ride service, which is what they want to be doing?

John: So part of the innovation is the app for the driver, which is constantly being updated with more information. So is that the cover number one then, the electrification? Is that how you then democratize the electrification?

Adam: That’s exactly right.

John: Okay, [inaudible].

Adam: We made a commitment to get 800 million in total resources out to drivers to, again, reduce those cost barriers to get into EVs and get into charging. That plays out through our partnerships and discounts, direct incentives from Uber. You can make more money in an EV on Uber. The second piece of that equation is innovation for riders. EVs, electrification, green, sustainability, has to be easy for people to use it. We live in this consumer economy. If it’s not easy, people don’t do it. And so we want to make that so simple for consumers to open up the app, select Uber Green, which more and more we’re changing. In fact, we announced at GO-GET Zero that that’s becoming an EV-only product. Price the same as Uber X, push a button, get an EV on Uber, same price as Uber X. That creates a flywheel effect because that means more demand for EV drivers. And the more demand that they have, the busier they stay, the more money that they’re earning, the more drivers want to be in EVs. So we’re trying to create that flywheel effect on the platform, using our marketplace to send those signals to both driver’s side, offering the supply, and the rider’s side, demanding the product. We have a number of products that also help riders get into low-emission or no-emission rides. So Comfort Electric is another product that we launched. Comfort Electric is available in 80-something metropolitan markets around the world. These are nicer cars than Polestar, Cadillac Lyriq, think Tesla Model S. You want a little more legroom. You want a little bit nicer experience. Consumers are willing to pay a little bit more, particularly our corporate customers who have business travel. Comfort Electric has always been an EV-only product around the world, battery EV-only around the world. We also have a number of other low-emission and multimodal products, whether it’s being able to book a bike or a scooter through our partners like Lime or Tembisi down in Brazil or UberX Share, where you’re going to meet a stranger on part of your journey. Both of you are going to use one car instead of two to get to the end goal and maybe have an interesting conversation about what brought you both together.

John: That’s so funny. It’s so fascinating. Some marketplaces you have done wonders in. I’ll give you an example. I was on a business trip earlier this year, actually twice earlier this year, in Kansas City. And every Uber I got into, which was at least two or three a day, was a Tesla EV. I almost thought I was being pranked that there was some sort of video going to come out at the end of my day because I couldn’t believe that every time I pulled up my Uber app, it was a Tesla EV, and it was a different person. And they were all like, “Yeah, everybody in this town…” [crosstalk].

Adam: Did you talk to the driver?

John: What did you say?

Adam: Did you talk to the driver? Ask him about the [crosstalk].

John: They were also chatting about it. They said these are the greatest buy they ever did.

Adam: Anecdotally, we hear from drivers, not only do they love the EV driving experience and not having to pay for gas, but they love the comments they get from riders. We know from our data that they’re more frequently tipped than non-EV drivers on the platform. We actually did a survey that we released data at the GO-GET event. We did a survey in September asking riders everywhere, riders all across Uber, “Did you get your first ever EV experience on Uber?” And 25% of riders around the world tell us that their first ever EV experience was on Uber. For me, I started my career working in government, actually promoting EVs, taking EVs to schools across California, and educating young people. This is in the early 2000s. And we know that exposure and awareness is so critical to driving adoption down the road. And so I’m so excited to leverage this platform as a place where people get to learn and experience because once you’re in the EV, you know that it’s not just green, it’s not just clean and quiet, it’s a better fundamental mobility experience. Getting from A to B in an EV is an absolute pleasure. And there’s more and more new models rolling off the line. We did a pop-up exercise with Rivian, where you could order Rivian in places like Miami to test it out. Or in fact, I think we did another one with Lucid, where you could try it out in London to see what it’s like. This gives people just a greater exposure to the bleeding edge of automotive design and technology, which gets a lot more people in the door. A lot of folks could care less about the emissions, quite frankly, but one can be amazed by the incredible technology that comes with EVs these days.

John: You mentioned inside the app, the ability to have a dashboard of the driver’s battery usage that was left. Talk a little bit about the worry of potential EV buyers and users of that range anxiety. Is that still a massively underserved market in America, putting up more charging stations? How underserved is it? And how is that rollout happening? Obviously, the simple answer would probably be not fast enough, but where are we in that rollout? And are we in the top of the first inning, bottom of the first? And how far do we have to go to really make the potential buyers get in the water because there’s enough charging stations seemingly to serve everybody who wants it when they want it?

Adam: The first thing here is that it’s difficult to understate how drivers feel about charging and drivers who are not yet in EVs tell us that charging is a number two worry. After costing the car, it’s charging[?] to be there. And a lot of it just comes down to awareness and familiarity. And then drivers of EVs tell us that charging can be a pain point because the charging infrastructure is still rolling out. Many drivers who participate with us may not have access to home charging. Maybe they rent an apartment or they live in a collective parking situation where charging is unavailable or might be out of reach. So that’s really critical. So we’re very focused on charging. In fact, we’re very pleased to have joined our team in September. Rebecca Cianucci, who used to run the charging program for Tesla, which has the largest fast-charging network in the world. She used to run that program for them, and now she’s going to run our electrification sustainability program at Uber. She joined in September, so we’re so pleased to have her on board. But just a couple of comments here. One, I’m a policy guy. There’s more funding for charging both from government and industry than ever before. And so much of it is just starting to get out the door in places like the United States, United Kingdom, many cities and states in Europe. We’re going to see a lot more charging in the next 3 years. In fact, somebody was telling me that in the last year in the UK, they put in double the charges. 100% of the charging that had been built in London in the last 10 years was put in last year. So they doubled their supply. We’re seeing that starting to happen in markets around the world. That matters. Second, for us, we’re really interested in charging in cities, urban charging. That’s where most travel happens. That’s where most emissions happen. And so we’re really interested in putting charging investments that can see a return on investment because of utilization. And that’s what we bring to the equation. We want to see more fast charging in urban areas, and more home charging in areas that have historically been underserved by charging. These are areas often overrepresented by lower-income households and families who live in multi-unit housing. That’s where a lot of drivers who participate in our platform—working drivers—that’s where they live. If we believe that if you put clean energy tools in the hands of the people that want to use them and want to power that clean energy economy, you get a greater return on investment both in terms of dollars through utilization and in terms of emissions benefits. In fact, UC Davis research shows that EV drivers on Uber can save up to four times the emissions when they switch to EVs versus a member of the general public who’s a driver because of higher utilization. So we believe that this high-mileage segment of drivers who represents a small portion of the driving community, but an outsized portion of the mileage, is going to have a much bigger impact when we focus on them. The last thing I’ll say here is that I’m a policy guy at the end of the day. That’s what I focus a lot on, and so I’m always thinking about what can we do to leverage our platform for the greater good and for thoughtful win-win policies that benefit everybody, raise all boats. So one of the initiatives that we’ve started doing is we take Uber data, all the trips that happen, where they happen, where drivers live based on driver’s license information, aggregated, of course, to reveal no one user’s identifying information. We generate a heat map. Where do we believe drivers will demand fast charging and slow charging tomorrow as we get above where we are today? We’re at 10% of all miles on Uber in the U.S. and Canada are in battery electric vehicles. That’s about five times faster than the general public in terms of adoption. But by tomorrow, in the next couple of years, we’ll be at 30%, 50%, aiming for 100%. So, what does that kilowatt-hour demand look like in space and time? So, we generate heat maps of cities around the world, and we share that data with those governments because they’re making investments in that infrastructure. We want to see that those investments get a return on investment and that they’re located in areas where working drivers can use those assets and power this next generation of electric mobility revolution. So, we’re sharing our data with governments that are applying for federal funding. We’re sharing our data with our charging partners. We partner with charging companies around the world who are actively making those investments in new charging assets. That’s one of the things that we can do to help the chicken-and-egg problem of where to locate charging so that it’s put in the best, highest-use places.

John: That makes so much sense. Number three on your list of sustainability goals, besides electrification, innovation, is partnerships. Can you talk about your recently announced EarthShot Prize partnership and how that really works? And why did you join as a founding member with all those other climate innovators?

Adam: We’re so pleased to be joining the EarthShot Prize. For those that haven’t heard of it, this is a global prize that Prince William from the United Kingdom started a couple of years ago to try and put a call to action out to support the innovators and emerging entrepreneurs around the world who are producing environmental and climate solutions that nobody’s ever heard of. And so, from our standpoint, it was so critical to partner with EarthShot so that we could be bringing our size and scale to both refer new solutions that we were seeing in the field, but also to work with some of the emerging awardees of the EarthShot Prize. For instance, in London a couple of weeks ago, we announced that we’ll be working with a really fascinating tire company called Enzo. Enzo’s out of the United Company. Tires might not be the first thing you think about when you think about environmental impact, but once you’ve electrified everything, tires are one of the key places where there’s still a ton of pollution. An individual tire can produce something like a kilogram or so of small, fine particulate microplastic waste in the air and on the ground. Globally, tires represent something like 6 million tons of waste every year into our environment. Most, half of that ends up in waterways in the ocean. It’s a real problem. The other thing that people don’t think about with tires is that’s where efficiency of your car is partly coming from. It’s the resistance of the tires on the road. And so, Enzo not only makes a tire with a much better performing, lower pollution, lower particulate loads over the life cycle of the tire, but it’s a low rolling resistance tire, which is so critical for electric vehicles to have that smooth, seamless, highest, best energy-use ride that is very energy efficient. And so, we are so thrilled to work with Enzo, who’s an Earthshot Prize winner from a couple of years ago with Earthshot Prize, to see what we can do to leverage our scale and attract drivers to their offering, so drivers can be taking advantage of these low rolling resistance, high-efficiency tires that are also reducing the load of microplastic waste into the environment.

John: As you and I know, you said partnerships is part of your DNA. Collaborations, partnerships, why are they so important for us to race to this important issue of reducing the climate of the planet fast? Because it seems like the acceleration of climate change has happened at a much quicker pace than even the scientists had predicted. Talk a little bit more about collaborations and why that’s really part of the DNA at Uber to make the greatest impact and make the greatest change that will hopefully have an everlasting beneficial effect to this planet Earth.

Adam: That’s so right, John. When we announced our goals for 100% EV adoption on Uber, Dara Khosrowshahi, our CEO, uses a term: climate’s a team sport. And I think it’s so well said because we humbly recognize that the road alone might be slightly quicker, but it won’t be successful nor comprehensive. We don’t have all the answers. We are one part of the solution. We have to work with other solution providers, not just from industry, but from government as well. Like I said, my background and biases towards how we can bring the best of government innovation and policy to create a floor and then work with the industry to raise the ceiling about what’s possible. That’s my hypothesis for how we tackle unprecedented problems that keep becoming more unprecedentedly big with every passing year. And so, from my standpoint, it’s so spot-on to say, “What can we do to sit at a much larger table with the coalition of the willing and the innovators that are leading the solutions for tomorrow?” So, Uber partners with dozens and dozens of industry leaders around the world, both on the EV supply side, automakers. We announced a partnership with BYD earlier this year to bring 100,000 additional EVs from BYD onto the platform, starting in Europe and Latin America. We partner with the charging supply side. Like I said, charging is the number two pain point for drivers. So we want to address that. We partnered with a small startup called Itselectric. Uber made a strategic investment into Itselectric. They have a fascinating curbside charging solution that connects straight to the building adjacent, and it doesn’t require utility-level authorization. So, you can deploy it quickly. We’re really interested in that, particularly for those harder-to-reach, dense urban areas where drivers need home charging. We partnered with another really innovative company in New York called Revel. Revel has the largest fast-charging hub in New York City. It’s based in Brooklyn. We developed a first-of-its-kind partnership with Revel to provide a utilization guarantee. So, I mentioned that data that we’re producing these heat maps. We put that into action in a deal structure with Revel to say, “Look, as you develop charging in these areas that are hotspots for our drivers of the future switching to EVs, we will provide a utilization guarantee for what we think the use of those locations will look like.” So, it was an innovative way to risk-share, to promote new infrastructure development. At GO-GET Zero in London, just as the last example, we launched a first-ever partnership between Uber, an energy company, and an automaker together. It’s us, Octopus Energy, and BYD, and we’ll together co-fund a charging bundle for the first 1,000 Uber drivers in the UK to get the cheapest possible charging in the whole United Kingdom. That includes a free home charger. So, we’re really excited to leverage our data and our scale to bring to bear what’s possible from other solution providers and ultimately deliver those solutions to our users, particularly drivers for whom the whole game is how do we lower those barriers of access and affordability to EVs and charging?

John: Every year, Uber puts out an impact report or sustainability report?

Adam: That’s right. Yeah. We’ve put out an ESG report ever since 2020. We report on all three scopes of emissions—scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3. Scope 3 includes the emissions from trips. We also have an online dashboard that we developed early on. It’s called the Climate Assessment and Performance Report, CASPR for short. It’s on uber.com. And there you can see up to quarterly updates of all the drivers using EVs on Uber around the world, all the trips that we’re doing, the percentage of mileage that is transforming to EVs. In fact, today, where we are there’s 182,000 active battery EV drivers on Uber globally. And in the third quarter of this year, they did more than 85 million trips in just the third quarter of this year alone. That’s about 10 zero-emission vehicle trips every second, which is just staggering scale. And like I mentioned before, in the US and Europe, drivers are converting to EVs on Uber about five times faster than the general public. So, we’re really pleased with that direction of travel. We have a long way to go to 100%, but we believe very strongly that an EV on Uber is more powerful than an EV in the general public. We want to be doing everything we can to try and leverage that utilization engine and marketplace that we bring in order to propel electrification and decarbonization of the transport sector.

John: And that ESG report lives in perpetuity up on uber.com?

Adam: That’s right.

John: So, talk a little bit about—you’ve had a fascinating background, Adam, in that you came from the public policy side, so it’s still ingrained, and that’s part of your DNA. But also, you’re on the commercial side now. You get to actually, as you say, take the convergence of both policy and commercial needs and put them into action to make real, great impacts. Looking backwards now and sharing some advice with other organizational leaders that are on their sustainability journey, what are a couple of actionable steps you would suggest to or mentor other sustainability leaders to help make the greatest impact at their organizations?

Adam: I think it starts with measurement. It starts with measurement, understanding, baselining where you are today. What impact does the climate and biodiversity have on your business? What impact is your business having on the climate and biodiversity? And what’s really critical in that is polling your consumers and the communities where you work, because the perception of your impact is as important as whatever numbers you would come up with. Early in our journey, for instance, there was some of the GHG protocol and GHG accounting types that said, “Technically speaking, the emissions from rides on Uber wouldn’t be in your side of the balance sheet because it’s a couple of arm’s length removed from Uber’s business. Drivers own the car.” But we said, “Our consumers would never buy that,” and polling reinforced that. Uber is a mobility company. We help connect you with a car going from A to B or bring a thing to you going from B to A. And so, we knew that we had to go straight for scope three and think of where the impact is. Not only that, but that’s an opportunity for our business in an electrifying sector. The transport sector is electrifying, whether we like it or not. And soon, it will be automating as well. So, if we’re going to build for a shared electric and automated future and develop a marketplace and platform that is future-proof for that, we need to be anticipating where the puck goes and skating to where it goes, as they say in hockey. So, that’s where we were. It starts with measurement. It goes to materiality, what impacts your business and your stakeholders. And then ultimately, it’s a management commitment that is reinforced by a bottom-up structure across the organization to compel action. And so, for us, that was so critical. The last point that I’ll make here, and that was so important for me, particularly in the policy space, is transparency. Once you measure it and you share it with your organization, share it with the world, that helps increase accountability on your actions, but also engages more people into the conversation to bring help, to ask questions, to help you become smarter in your field. And then engage, of course, with policymakers who are trying to think of this from a community and an impact on the citizenry perspective, which is so critical. So, for us, transparency has been a key part of the work. I mentioned we launched our first ESG report and the online dashboard for the climate assessment and performance report. We launched that on day one of our goal-setting for 100% EV. So, for us, that’s been critical, and it’s really helped open a lot of doors with external partners and parties that wouldn’t have been open before. So, we’re so pleased to do it. We really encourage other companies to join us in this effort because it’s going to take all of us. Climate’s a team sport, and we have to be rowing in the same direction together. So, we’re really interested in partnering with the most innovative and ambitious firms and public organizations out there that want to drive to a fully decarbonized future.

John: I love it, Adam. To find Adam Gromis and his colleagues that are making the world a better place in the sustainability sector at Uber, please go to www.uber.com. Adam, thanks for the hour today with us because it was really fascinating and enjoyable to speak with you. But more importantly, thank you and all the people at Uber who are truly making the world a better place.

Adam: Thanks so much, John. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you, and I look forward to further engagements in the future.

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