Ellen Jackowski is Chief  Sustainability Officer at Mastercard, where she is spearheading the integration of the company’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy into the organization. As part of this work, she is driving climate leadership for Mastercard-wide programs and commitments, such as reaching net-zero emissions by 2040, and helping accelerate the company’s impact in climate action initiatives like Priceless Planet Coalition. Mastercard’s ESG efforts, established more than a decade ago, are rooted in a belief of doing well by doing good in order to have true impact and enable both people and the planet to thrive.

John Shegerian: Get the latest Impact Podcast right in your inbox each week. Subscribe by entering your email address at impactpodcast.com to make sure you never miss an interview. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States, and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com. This episode of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and impact partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian. I’m so honored to have with us today Ellen Jackowski. She’s the Chief Sustainability Officer at MasterCard. Ellen, welcome to the Impact Podcast.

Ellen Jackowski: Thanks, John. Excited to be here today.

John: Well, we’re honored to have you. You’re sitting up in Northern California today. I’m here in Central California. Technology makes us feel almost like we’re having a fun conversation together, and it’s going to be a great conversation. Ellen, before we get going and talking about all the important things you’re doing with your colleagues in sustainability at MasterCard, can we first talk a little bit about your background? Where’d you grow up, and how’d you get on this fascinating and important journey that you’re on?

Ellen: Sure. Well, I grew up primarily on the East Coast, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. Being so close to our federal government, that’s where I thought my career was headed. I was very involved in student government in high school. I was an intern for my US senator, then I interned for the US mission at NATO. That was the path I was on. As I came close to graduation, I decided to take another look at my path and ended up joining the private sector. I joined a consulting firm, but it was a firm that had some really unusual ideas, things like open compensation, where you knew what everyone from the top partners in the firm all the way down to the administrative assistants made. Everybody knew my salary increases every year, how much bonus did I get, and of course, the question of why. Why are people paid what they were? This was a company that brought light to things, increasing transparency to some topics that traditionally didn’t have a lot of exposure. I think I learned some very interesting lessons there, which of course can apply to sustainability today, especially when you start looking at some of the new regulations coming out of Europe and the US. Transparency and light in sustainability is really important. Anyway, I was a management consultant. One of our clients was HP, and the gentleman we were working with on the project was then asked to take on sustainability responsibility for HP. He wanted a strategist to come in, so I joined that company many years ago and grew up in sustainability at HP. That’s a company that really embedded sustainability into its DNA from its founders, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. They had eight corporate objectives, things like revenue, profit, but also the word global citizenship, which now our language is modernized. We call it ESG or sustainability, but I grew up there for 15 years in sustainability, eventually becoming their chief impact officer. Then, just recently, about a year and a half ago, made the jump over to MasterCard.

John: Wonderful. I’ll tell you what, HP has been on the show a bunch of times, and we do a lot of business with them. They were one of the first OEMs to purchase our recycled plastic to put back into their new electronics, new printers, and things of that sort. HP has led the way on sustainability. Like you said, it was really embedded from their founding fathers into their DNA. What a great place to grow up in terms of getting your sustainability education. What a great place to work, I guess.

Ellen: Yeah, it was a fantastic experience. The way that I frame that is HP is a company that makes a bunch of stuff like PCs, printers, 3D printers, more on the supply side. Here at MasterCard, we don’t really make a product per se. We’re a payments network, and we run the technology on the network. Now I’ve moved from the supply side to the demand side, which, again, in that frame coming from where I did at a product-focused company, really helping to harness demand for sustainability is a huge opportunity. When you think about who is MasterCard, we have over a hundred million points of acceptance locations around the world where you can use your MasterCard. All of those merchants. We have over 20,000 banking partners and over 3 billion cards in circulation. Again, 8 billion people on the planet, 3 billion cards. If you want to help shift consumption towards more sustainable choices, couldn’t be a better place than MasterCard.

John: So interesting you say that Ellen, that’s such an important point because over the course of 17 years of doing the show, I love having young entrepreneurs who are start up and they’re going to change the world. They’re so excited, and they’ve got the latest and best new widget that’s going to make an impact, and many of them do. But then I also enjoy having great people like you on the show because when great people like you get to take leadership positions at important brands like MasterCard like you said, you can move the needle in big ways and make important shifts because we’re in a race to really help heal this environment and decarbonize this planet, and the race is real.

Ellen: Yeah, no, for sure. Again, when you think about the scale, we’re seeing transition, we’re seeing the market shift here. So the consumers that are shopping at all the merchants on our network, they’re looking for more sustainable products and services. The merchants themselves are in the middle of transitioning their businesses to be more sustainable. So we’re in a great position to help accelerate that across the whole value chain.

John: You gave out some fantastic statistics. Just a little bit more: I think your revenue is over $25 billion, you have over 33,000 employees, and obviously, you serve the world with 3 billion users, which I’m a proud user as well, of MasterCard service.

Ellen: Fantastic.

John: It’s a great brand, and I’ve had nothing but great experiences over the course of my lifetime and career. When you came into MasterCard, what were you walking into? Because, as you mentioned HP, it was part of their DNA, part of their brand. Were you the first Chief Sustainability Officer at MasterCard, or were you already walking in to something that had been set up and you were coming in to further grow what had been set up?

Ellen: There had been a long legacy of focus on environmental and social impact at MasterCard. There had been a Chief Sustainability Officer prior to me coming in, and where MasterCard’s legacy really was built in this space, which makes sense when you think about who MasterCard is, was a focus on financial inclusion and inclusive growth. About 10 years ago, in fact, this year is the 10-year anniversary of the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth, that focus on social impact and financial inclusion has been unstoppable, really unprecedented in the financial services industry. There was this keen focus on environmental and social impact, and then I came in to help accelerate that. One of the other things, when you ask what I was coming into, a big important decision was made right before I joined, where MasterCard shifted its compensation for all of those 33,000 employees you just mentioned. Every single employee at the company is compensated on our progress against our ESG targets. So what does that mean? That means I’m coming into a company where, sure, I have a certain number of direct reports, but essentially all 33,000 employees are part of the sustainability and social impact team at the company. They’re compensated on this; they have incentives to move the needle, and I think that was an incredible bold leadership move that continues to help us accelerate momentum across these topics.

John: Honestly, I’ve never heard of that before. When I’ve interviewed folks like you sitting in very big seats and positions like you have at large corporations, there’s usually some sort of network of ambassadors or ESG or impact or sustainability ambassadors, never all the employees are empowered to be part of your team. They’re all part of your team now.

Ellen: Yeah, well, every February, when you get your annual compensation statement, there are three lines: the top line, what’s your base salary, your percentage of increase; the second line, what percentage of bonus are you applicable for, what did you get; and then the third line, which is the line I love the most, the percent of ESG bonus that each employee’s getting. So again, it sends a clear message. Now, you can’t just offer that type of financial incentive without following through on education and training and making sure every part of the company understands what is my role here. So we’ve followed that up with a lot of deep education, what we call these ESG in action guides that help employees in marketing, in technology, in product, in engineering, across all the different parts of the company really understand and have very good examples of what are the types of decisions, changes, behaviors we are looking for that will help accelerate our progress against our goals.

John: So then I assume that if I’m one of your employees, Ellen, and I fully embrace the teachings that you share with us in terms of technology and everything else, then I can make a difference myself and impact not only the greater good that MasterCard is trying to do in inclusivity but also my own rewards and my own bonus at the end of the year.

Ellen: That’s absolutely right. Our statement around this is doing well by doing good. ESG is threaded throughout the core of the company and our business. We know that we need to accelerate this type of work to attract new customers, to keep our existing customers, and to move into a more sustainable, regenerative economy. That’s what’s happening. We need to be part of that and help lead the way.

John: What I get excited about is when I hear paradigms that are new tipping points. You’re only a year and a half into it, so it might be a little bit of an unfair question, but push back if it is. But so far, are you seeing this work the way you want it to work and that upper management and the C-suite and everybody else wanted it to work? Is it working as you wanted it to work and the team wanted to work and the leadership at MasterCard?

Ellen: Well, I’ll give you a couple of numbers. We just launched our 2023 ESG report, which comes out annually, and one of the headlines that I’m really excited about is what’s happening with our carbon footprint. In our ’22 report, a year prior, what we had announced was that the company’s net revenue grew by 12%. The carbon emissions grew by 3%, much slower rate, right? Which is good, starting to slow down emissions from growth. This past year, in our 2023 report, we announced that we grew net revenue by 13%, so 1 percentage higher than the year prior, and we decreased emissions by 1%. So we just turned the corner on decoupling our growth from consumption and emissions. Now, of course, this is very difficult work, especially when we look to this year and the future and how we need to continue to build, in particular compute power across the company and strengthen our capabilities in AI, blockchain, et cetera. We know data centers, for example, are the biggest part of our carbon footprint. So this is going to continue to be a challenge to stay on that trajectory of decoupling growth from emissions. But very proud of the work that we’re doing; it could not have happened without the support of all the employees at MasterCard. But all sorts of great progress that we’re seeing in this space.

John: That’s fascinating. So let’s talk about sustainability. Chief sustainability officer; the fun part is what I’ve learned from what I call the greatest fraternity in the world: chief sustainability officers, chief impact officers. I get to know so many of you now because of the show. Sustainability can be read wide. It could be read narrow. How is your role, if you were going to define to me and share with our audience? What does sustainability mean at MasterCard in terms of your day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, year-to-year? It’s a publicly traded company; it’s a big company. It’s in the spotlight. Is sustainability read widely there, or is it read narrowly when it comes to certain few topics that are super important?

Ellen: Yeah, well, so I oversee our full environmental, social, and governance strategy. So when we have our quarterly ESG steering committee meetings which by the way, the people that sit on that steering committee reflect our CEO’s organizational structure. So kind of just like compensation, everybody’s included. Everybody’s on the sustainability or ESG steering committee; all of our CEO’s direct reports sit on that steering committee. So it reflects the full organization of the company. But each quarter, we take a look at our dashboard across all of our goals in environment, social, and governance. So it is that broader definition that we’re overseeing across the company that, of course, takes many forms in many parts of the organization to deliver on. We have a chief privacy officer, we have a chief diversity officer, and we have lots of other leaders across the company who own key parts of that strategy and, of course, are very involved in our ESG steering committee as well.

John: Oh, I got you. And so you run a dashboard with KPIs there, and as you said back to your days of youth in your DC radical transparency to everything that’s going on in terms of the real numbers.

Ellen: That’s right. And again, you know, with the new regulations that we’re seeing, having a deeper understanding of what it means to be, you know, transparent? How do we make sure we’ve got the right processes and controls across the company? We’re moving out of Excel spreadsheets into more sophisticated tools like Workiva, which we use for our financial reporting. We’re now using that, for example, as well for our sustainability and ESG reporting. Lots of work to do here, but we’ve got a strong team, and we’re holding ourselves accountable. Again, you can see in that 2023 ESG report that we just published more data than ever before. I think we added over 30 new KPIs and metrics to the report that we hadn’t shared previously.

John: That sustainability report lives in perpetuity on your website, mastercard.com, right?

Ellen: That’s right. You can find it there.

John: That’s awesome. And for our listeners and viewers who just joined us, we’ve got Ellen Jackowski with us today. She’s the chief sustainability officer at MasterCard. To find Ellen and her colleagues and all the important and great work they’re doing in sustainability, please go to www.mastercard.com. Let’s go back to what you just talked about in terms of all the rules and regulations that are coming out. This is a complicated matter. This is a patchwork quilt now around the world of all different types of rules and regulations that great leaders like you are forced to somehow juggle and manage and keep an eye on and keep your company, which is a worldwide brand, adhered to. What does this look like now? And is there any hope in the future, Ellen, for harmonization of this massive patchwork quilt of different rules and regulations?

Ellen: Well, let’s hope so. We certainly hope that that’s how this evolves. I think most companies out there hope for harmonization. One of the things, though, that we did structurally a little while ago, we were one of the first corporations to create a new role inside the company called ESG controller. That role reports to the overall corporate controller in our chief financial officer’s finance organization. By creating that specific ESG controller role, that’s really helped us prepare for everything we’re seeing out of the European Union, for example, with the CSRD regulations, and with what the SEC has proposed as well for climate disclosures. So that would be one of my recommendations to others listening out there: if you don’t have an ESG controller, it’s something to seriously think about bringing in a focused role who has that type of financial reporting expertise, those processes, those controls, and can help bring that type of capability to the sustainability function. I think it’s been extremely helpful to us in preparation.

John: You know what? That sounds absolutely brilliant. Tell me, without giving away too much but helping guide a lot of other listeners out there who are not only just the next generation of chief sustainability officers, but you have a lot of chief sustainability officers that tune into this show. ESG controller is a great idea. What would their background typically be? Is it more accounting, or is it more policy? Is it environmental science? Where would their background and strengths lie to have that kind of role?

Ellen: Well, I think it’s really up to the company, and the controller perhaps is the hiring manager to figure out what makes sense for the company. For us, though, our ESG controller has a very strong background in the finance organization and has been through many financial audits and earnings, all those things. So coming with those types of skills to partner very closely with my team, and I sit in strategic growth within the company. She sits in finance, I’m in another part, and the partnership that I think we’ve created is extremely strong. Again, bringing together complementary competencies to build this new function has worked very well.

John: That sounds like such a great idea. Wow, that’s so forward-thinking! Let’s turn the questioning to something you brought up at the top of the show, which I find fascinating, and I want to learn more about sustainable consumption. When you say sustainable consumption, what does that mean, and how do you get to focus on it at MasterCard and potentially help gently influence that as well?

Ellen: Yeah, again, for us, we have a net zero goal. I mentioned some of the statistics we’re doing quite well against our goal. In fact, in that ESG report, you’ll see for scope one and two emissions, we’ve reduced by 48% compared to our 2016 baseline, and 40% of our scope three has been reduced again against the 2016 baseline. So great work on our net zero goal, plenty more to do. It’s going to get harder, we all know, but doing very well. Our footprint, though, again, because we don’t make any hard products, is quite small for a company of our size. So the biggest opportunity we have to help fight climate change is transitioning our value chain to sustainable consumption to help consumers and individuals out there make more sustainable choices and to help our merchants on the network as well figure out how to offer more sustainable products and services in a way that’s going to help grow their business. So that’s really a key area of focus for us and where we see lots of innovation in our sustainability strategy. We’ve got three pillars of focus in sustainable consumption, and it’s really kind of our theory of change: inspire, inform, and enable. So “inspire” is about how do we inspire consumers to want and to live a more sustainable, fulfilling lifestyle. So, our brand “priceless,” and when you think of MasterCard, often you think of that word “priceless.” What does priceless mean? Does it now include a sustainable, fulfilling lifestyle? Those choices like that is how we’re evolving the definition of our brand. One great activation that we had coming into 2024 was at the Grammys. That’s a partnership that we’ve had for over 17 years, and there we partnered with SZA, the most Grammy-nominated artist. She dropped a brand new song on the Sunday of the Grammys called “Saturn.” If you go watch the video, you’ll see it’s set in a forest. She’s wearing a special outfit. One of our key partners, Conservation International, helped us pick out the right seeds that could be sewn into our outfit that all of her fans could win access to those seeds. We shipped them to them so they can plant them. We did a partnership with Lyft with Sirius XM to help restore trees as part of this Grammys partnership, and this was all a kind of an experiment in “inspire” by partnering with one of the biggest influencers in the world, SZA. Are we helping to inspire this mindset of wanting a more sustainable lifestyle? So that’s an example of “inspire.” “Informed.” Now, if people want to do this, how do they know what’s more sustainable than something else? There’s a lot of greenwashing out there. There’s a lot of data out there. Sometimes you don’t know: is this data accurate? Is this helpful? It’s very complicated. So we’ve got our first product, the MasterCard Carbon Calculator, which helps people at the end of the month. You get your bill of what you spent, the financial impact. You get your bill with the line items and the estimated carbon impact, providing better information for better choices. Plenty more work to do on that product; it’s our first iteration, but we’re really excited about ways we can help people make better choices. Then finally, the third pillar, “enable”: how do we turn that inspiration? Now you’ve got the right information; you know what to choose into actual action. A great example there is how MasterCard is partnering with public transportation groups all over the world in terms of making it easier to choose the low-carbon public transit opportunity versus getting in your car, for example. So in New York, we’ve worked with the New York subway system to eliminate the MetroCard. You don’t need it anymore, that extra card where you put money on it that sits in your wallet, box it up, or you forget it at home. Instead, you can just tap your MasterCard on the turnstile and go, taking the friction out of choosing low carbon. We’re working to do that with city bike systems and city scooter systems. You don’t need a separate app; instead, you just tap your MasterCard, get on the bike, and ride. Again, more to do in this space, but “inspire, inform, enable,” that’s our theory of change to drive more sustainable choices.

John: And so that’s on the consumer side. Well, you have a hundred million…

Ellen: Points of acceptance, yeah.

John: Yeah. So how do you work with them to make them more sustainable-friendly?

Ellen: Well, they’re seeing the same shift in the market that we are, right? Where their customers are wanting to choose more sustainable products and services. So we’re working on several pilots with many of our merchants to figure out one, if we think about the “inform” pillar, can we take some of that information in our carbon calculator that we provide after you’ve made the transaction? Can we work with the merchant to provide that same type of data when you’re choosing your product or service? You have it right in time when you’re making that choice. So that’s one of the ways, as well as in the “inspire” pillar, a lot of the merchants on our network have really powerful relationships and sponsorships. How can we work with them to share a narrative of what is priceless? What is the desired kind of future product that they want to be delivering and creating demand for that? So plenty to do across our full value chain, but our merchants play a very important role.

John: Ellen, one of the hot topics of our modern times is this topic of AI. Without giving away any trade secrets like all other great financial institutions, I’m sure MasterCard is leveraging AI not only for its current business and the current environment but the future as well. How is AI enabling you to do what you want to do and achieve your goals as a chief sustainability officer more?

Ellen: Well, I think early days, right? The innovation and the speed of the products and services that leverage AI are exponential. It’s a really exciting time. But, of course, we also have to be very careful of how we implement this and, in particular, how and where we build the capabilities to support AI. I mentioned data centers are the biggest area contributor to our carbon footprint, and as we add compute power, we’re being very thoughtful about where we locate these additional computers and data centers, make sure they can be sourced with renewable energy. MasterCard uses 100% renewable energy across our operations today. So I guess that’s one of the foundational pieces as we adopt this technology. We’re going to be very thoughtful about how we implement it in the most sustainable way. But then secondarily, there is a lot of experimentation on the reporting side. How can you automate some of this reporting and establish some of the IT infrastructure on the back end to help aid that automation like we have with Workiva, is only going to help us get there faster. So, plenty of areas of opportunity. I would say, again, early days, a lot of innovation, and we’ll continue to test and learn as we go.

John: Ellen, you’re quite young compared to me, and you’re only at MasterCard a year and a half. What gets you most excited right now? You’re a year and a half into this, but you’ve got a long way to go, and as you and I know, sustainability doesn’t have a finish line. It’s a journey. What are the biggest opportunities you see on the road ahead for MasterCard and your team over there and sustainability?

Ellen: Well, we’ve spent some time talking about sustainable consumption. That’s why I joined the company. Like the scale of opportunity to truly create big impact. Impact that could truly help stop climate change. Like for me, that is in the forefront. But the other big opportunity at MasterCard is inclusive climate action, kind of taking everything the company’s done. I mentioned the 10-year anniversary of our Center for Inclusive Growth. How do we take everything the company, all these capabilities and tools, digital wallets that we built around inclusive growth. How do we also use those same tools for climate adaptation and resilience? I think there’s a really huge opportunity there. We’ve already started tapping into that. Our Center for Inclusive Growth has now kind of put a climate lens on all the programs that they’re supporting ongoing now for the future. So those are the two biggest areas: sustainable consumption and inclusive climate action, making sure we’re bringing everybody together with us as we transition to a sustainable, regenerative economy.

John: Well, Ellen, I’m not only grateful for the time you spent with us today, but I’m grateful for all the work you did at HP and the work you’re doing currently at MasterCard in sustainability and doing it with your colleagues. I just want you to know you’re always welcome back on the Impact Podcast because, as you and I know, this is a journey, and there’s going to be a lot of wins ahead that you’re going to be able to share with our audience, and they’d be very excited to hear. These are topics we’ve never covered before: sustainable consumption. it’s fascinating what you’re doing by empowering everyone, all 33,000-plus employees at MasterCard, to be part of the sustainability journey that you’re on at MasterCard. I think it’s just wonderful and exciting and very game-changing in many, many ways. So, you’re always welcome back here. To find Ellen and to find all of her colleagues at MasterCard and all the great work they’re doing in sustainability, please go to www.mastercard.com. Doing well by doing good and making the world a better place. That’s what I call priceless.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry with thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States, and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.