Helping the World Meet Sustainability Goals with Josh Parker of NVIDIA

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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, Josh Parker. He’s the head of sustainability at NVIDIA. Welcome, Josh, to the Impact Podcast.

Josh Parker: Thanks, John. I’m thrilled to be here.

John: Hey, Josh, before we get talking about all the cool and important and impactful stuff you and your colleagues are doing in NVIDIA in sustainability, can you talk a little bit about yourself? I know today I’m sitting in Fresno, you’re sitting in Colorado. Where did you grow up and how did you get on this really interesting and fascinating journey that you’re on?

Josh: I tell people when they ask me, I would never have expected to end up where I am at NVIDIA or actually in the world that I’m in. But it’s been some really fantastic opportunities that have led me here. So I grew up in Oregon, spent my whole childhood in a few different towns and cities in Oregon, ended up graduating from high school in Portland. I went to college at BYU in Utah, and then law school at NYU. And studied electrical engineering undergrad and then became a patent attorney after that, patent litigator after law school. I practiced law in Texas and then in California. And while I was in California, I joined Western Digital in-house as an attorney there doing IP transactions. And I was enjoying my career. I’ve always loved technology. So it’s been fantastic to be in that space my whole career. While I was working at Western Digital, they invited me to run ethics compliance in Asia. So I was based in Bangkok for a few years. A fantastic opportunity. It took my family out and had a great experience there. As I was coming back, my old role had been filled, of course. And so the general counsel asked me if I’d be interested in leading sustainability there at Western Digital because they didn’t have a program and the board realized that they needed one. And I jumped at the chance, of course, and since then, there’s been no looking back. It’s been sustainability from there on out. After a few years in that role, then NVIDIA found me and I was thrilled, of course, to join this company.

John: Wow. Definitely not what is considered a traditional straight line. But that’s what I always find with what I call the greatest fraternity on planet to people like you, with amazing brands, that are wonderful people from all different backgrounds, that are running the impact or sustainability programs at small and large firms around the world. As a kid growing up, given that you grew up in Oregon, which is traditionally known as one of the prettiest and greenest states in America, was there a connection to the environment that you could look back on? Because sometimes people’s lives make more sense looking back than looking forward. Is there a connection to the environment and where you grew up that you can look to now that talks about what you do today on a day-to-day basis?

Josh: I always had a love for being out in nature. So I had a strong connection to nature, having been in Oregon, would go camping and things like that. My father was actually in the forestry industry. So he saw it from an interesting perspective. I remember having discussions with him about environmentalist groups who were concerned about forestry. And we’d have conversations at dinner about how the way his company was trying to manage the forest was actually good for animals, good for flora and fauna, preserved the forest, protected them from fires and so forth. So I do remember having a lot of discussions about that. And my mother was also very environmentally minded. She actually got, a few years ago, a master recycling certificate because she cares so much about protecting. If I inherited the sustainability from anyone, it was probably from my mom.

John: There you go. So when you look back, things become a little bit more obvious. I mean, that’s the fun part of life. What year, again, did you join NVIDIA?

Josh: It was three years ago.

John: Okay, great. So for our listeners and viewers, first of all, to find Josh and all his colleagues at NVIDIA, and all the wonderful work they’re doing in sustainability, you could go to www.nvidia.com. It will be in the show notes. You don’t have to stop driving your car or lifting weights to write anything down. That will all be in the show notes. For our listeners and viewers who are not familiar with NVIDIA, just a couple of highlights, over $5 trillion market cap known as one of Bloomberg’s magnificent 7, over $215 billion in revenue last year and with massive increases year over year. It’s a very, very large company. So you are the head of sustainability at literally one of the most valuable entities on the planet. Do you wake up some mornings and just have to like almost pinch yourself? It’s like almost a little bit surreal?

Josh: I do. And I don’t take that lightly. I was thrilled to join the company because I’d known about NVIDIA for a long time because I used to build PCs and use NVIDIA’s graphics cards in them, and I always respected the company and the leadership. And when I joined, it was one year after the ChatGPT revolution. And so they were on a crazy upward trajectory. So it was a very exciting time to join. But the type of role that I have here, and how exciting the culture is, is something I wouldn’t have anticipated. It’s always dynamic. The environment here is very pro-innovation. Let’s try everything, reason about things from first principles. I love the kind of very intellectual, dynamic, innovative environment. So yeah, I do pinch myself a lot of days because I feel like I’ve got one of the best jobs at one of the best companies in the world.

John: That’s so exciting. You know, when I get this wonderful opportunity to interview what I call one of the greatest fraternities on planet, head sustainability officers, chief impact officers, and you’re now part of it, if not one of the key leaders of it, what we’ve learned is sustainability, first of all, has no finish line, but also can be read very narrowly or widely. When you came in to NVIDIA, how did you frame up your role there? Was it dictated from the top down? Was it the proverbial whiteboard that they said, start from scratch? Or did you inherit something that you wanted to build upon? What version of that was your reality stepping in to be the head of sustainability at NVIDIA three years ago?

Josh: Absolutely, there was a program here when I joined. In fact, you and I were just talking, you interviewed my predecessor, Tony Hanson.

John: Right.

Josh: [inaudible]. And so the program when I joined, however, was two people. It was Tony and one other person, Claudia here, and they were fighting the good fight, but it was a more traditionally CSR, corporate responsibility oriented program. And the company was ready to move into a different type of program that was more fulsome sustainability, looking at environmental impacts, adopting initiatives, pursuing targets, and all of the things that modern, very broad sustainability programs have. So I jumped in, hired some more people and actually about to hire a few more people. So anybody who’s interested, please look for the postings here within the next couple of weeks. And one of the key things that we did right away, started modeling right away to see if we could do, is to set science-based targets because we knew that’s one of the clear demonstrations we can make about our commitment to sustainability. And I’m happy to say that we were able to have those validated about a year ago now, last year.

John: There’s not a day that we wake up and read any or listen to any of the legitimate, incredible news platforms such as BBC, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, or the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, where AI is not in the headlines somewhere. You’re at the corner of main and main in the AI revolution, pretty much, NVIDIA is. How is AI going to help you meet the goals that you’re creating and laid out as the leader of sustainability at NVIDIA? And how is it going to help the world meet its greater, broader sustainability goals when it comes to net 0 and cooling down this planet?

Josh: That’s a big question. We could probably spend the rest of the podcast [crosstalk].

John: All right. Sorry

Josh: No. That’s great. So I’d start by putting that into two buckets and say, first place, it helps me and my team a lot with administering sustainability in our program by helping us collect and analyze data a lot more effectively than we have in the past. So we’re using it to make sure that we’re tracking our sustainability better in the first instance and being able to report it more accurately, more effectively, more credibly to our partners. The second issue is the one that’s even more exciting, which is how does AI dovetail with substantive sustainability? So accelerating initiatives that are pro-sustainable outcomes and things like improving energy efficiency, reducing material requirements, helping on the social side with education and life sciences and so many other things that benefit society. The applications of AI for the common good are just dramatic. And it’s really hard to imagine a sustainability initiative that doesn’t have significant potential to benefit from the application of AI.

John: Well, I’m going to break it down even further. So your chips are really powering the most transformative technology that we’ve ever lived through on this planet. So AI itself is revolution, but the climate change revolution and the movement from the linear to circular economy is underway. But also, there’s many other benefits that are going to come out of what your chips can power and do. Where do you see the most impact? Is it strictly AI or is it AI that then you’re powering the AI revolution that’s then powering, as you said, climate change opportunities and accelerating those drug discoveries in the medical field? Where do you see that interrelationship between your chips, AI, and all the transformative opportunities that AI can power that are facing the world today?

Josh: So this concept dovetails really perfectly with our company’s mission, if we have a mission, and then it’s to help solve the world’s greatest challenges and technology. And the accelerated computing platform that Jensen and the team here pioneered years ago, and that is now being deployed very effectively for AI, is really the perfect general purpose tool to help us tackle all of those problems. So absolutely, we look at the chips and the data centers and try to maximize the sustainability of that infrastructure and that footprint. And the energy efficiency improvements generation over generation are just mind blowing. It’s 10 to 30 times per generation we’re improving the energy efficiency for the same workload. So that’s all something we’re absolutely doing. But the real huge potential for AI’s impact on the world in the sustainability space is what you mentioned second, which is the application of AI in other industries to solve the problems that they’ve been working on for decades or even centuries. Help us accelerate scientific discovery, to help us solve problems that we haven’t had in the past. And even though we’re a few years in now, we’re still very, very early innings of the AI revolution and the potential we’re just now starting to integrate it and to realize so much of the benefits.

John: I love always talking about the upside, and I’m a huge fan of NVIDIA. I’m a huge fan of what you’re doing, Josh, and the change that you could effectuate in the world. Because as I’ve learned over the years of doing this podcast, the last 17 or so years, is that it’s fun to always interview young innovators with new startups. But when I get to interview folks like you, sitting at great brands like you do, when you make a change or when you make a move in a direction, it really does move the needle. But I don’t want to gloss over some of the challenges that the AI revolution has sort of created when it comes to data centers and the grid. How can AI help, not only have created some of these challenges, but also help us overcome some of those challenges when it comes to managing the grid appropriately to support the AI revolution that, like you said, is still in early innings?

Josh: It’s a very timely question. A lot of people are seeing AI data centers be built and wondering how that’s going to impact their energy bills and the overall infrastructure.

John: Right.

Josh: And the news actually, again, to latch onto your optimism, is really pretty favorable. So AI data centers themselves are becoming assets to the grid because we’re implementing technologies that makes them flexible so that when the grid is at peak load, we can take our data center and reduce the power that it’s consuming so that people can keep running their air conditioners when it’s a really hot day, keep them comfortable. But when they’re not, when we’re not at peak load, the data center can soak up those unused electrons and convert it into intelligence and provide AI that’s helping with all of these societal benefits. So it actually makes the grid more efficient because it allows us to operate closer to that peak all the time through this flex initiative. And we’re actually deploying a data center ourselves in Virginia that takes full advantage of this. It’s an AI factory research center. And we partnered with many companies, including Emerald AI and EPRI, to implement this, to run tests, to make sure that it works. I think it’s really going to be transformative by helping the grid be more efficient and making sure that we’re using all of the electrons that are already in the system. And then you have on the other side, AI is really fantastic at helping us optimize systems, including energy systems. So where we’re moving as a world, and where we should be moving, is to a place where we have what’s called virtual power plants, where you have variable supply from renewables, and you have variable loads. Things like EV batteries that can be charged when there’s excess energy and can pause when there isn’t. And administer that kind of smart system where we’re using as many of those electrons as possible is something that AI is perfectly poised to do. And so we’re starting to partner with utilities to implement this intelligence and distribute it throughout the grid so that it can be smartly managed in that way.

John: I read about this, but I want to make sure I have this right. Was this part of that white paper, Emerald AI, where you talked about power flexible?

Josh: Yes. We’ve had a few announcements on this concept, and it all goes back to a study published by Tyler Norris at Duke University that found that if data centers could be flexible for just 1% of the year, it could immediately unlock 100 gigawatts of unused energy in the United States.

John: Wow.

Josh: That’s a ton of power. I know not a lot of people are in the energy, so that may not mean anything, but that is a lot of energy. And it’s just energy that’s already available. It’s just we’re not matching the load with the generation effectively. So this will allow us to better capture that energy.

John: Got it. When it comes to emissions, what are some of your key priorities and how do you choose to rank them when it comes to emissions? I hear all about the race to net 0. I was even talking to a very well-known professor, Paul Eakins, yesterday, and he was talking about now, he just wrote a book on real 0 instead of net 0. Talk a little bit about how you navigate these key priorities and rank them at NVIDIA.

Josh: Emissions and climate is our top priority for our sustainability program. So this is something we think about day in and day out. You know, I got an engineering background. So I try to be very logical about how we approach this. But we start where the impacts are the biggest. And we say, okay, what can we do about that largest bucket that we have? And then you go down from there. And the largest bucket for us, if you look at the life cycle emissions footprint for our products, is when our products are being used, the energy consumed when the products are being used. That’s by far the biggest bucket of potential emissions. So we looked there, we started analyzing this, trying to figure out how big that bucket is and what we can do about it. The good news, with respect to that, is that most of the large AI factory operators, the big companies that you’ve probably heard of like Microsoft and Google and AWS and others that are less common that are Colos [?] like Equinix and Digital Realty, have some of the most ambitious climate commitments and renewable energy commitments of any companies. And they’re often the largest purchasers of clean power in the United States. So these companies, the ones that are operating most of the infrastructure, the AI factory infrastructure, are using all of the clean energy that they can and actually building more to try to satisfy that. So that’s something that is being very actively managed and they have some of the lowest emissions per watt of any industry. So that’s the biggest bucket. We go from there. The next biggest bucket for us is upstream, looking at our manufacturers. And, you know, we have manufacturers throughout the world. And in some places, especially in Asia, the infrastructure and regulatory environment is not easy to find clean energy. But we are directly working with key suppliers there to try to support their de-carbonization efforts, and especially to support their transition to clean energy. Then the third bucket, which actually turns out to be a tiny piece of the overall pie, is NVIDIA’s own footprint. So the energy that we consume and the emissions that we emit from our facilities. Because we generally do the design, research and development, our footprint is a relatively small share of the overall pie. But we’re doing what we can there and, as of last year, we’re matching 100% of our energy consumption with clean energy and we expect to maintain that.

John: You know, Josh, with the curse and the blessing as being known as one of the most valuable businesses on the planet, you’re very visible everywhere. Your brand is very visible everywhere, and for good reason. How is it, from a sustainability perspective with regards to policy, given that you’re working in 38 and growing countries, I’m sure it’s going to be more than that this time next year… And obviously in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, and the Gulf. Talk a little bit about the reconciliation of the patchwork quilt of all the regulations and policies that exist around the world, and how do you deal with that? You’re really working day to day on very important issues to the company to keep it moving in the right direction towards the goals. Like you said, the priority is emissions. And how do you then delicately balance that high wire act [?] of the various and diverse regulations when it comes to emissions, when it comes to ESG, when it comes to greenhouse gas, all sorts of different issues are so diversely regulated around the planet? Where do you find a way or how do you find a way to reconcile these things without driving you crazy or distracting you from the core business of really making NVIDIA the most sustainable chip manufacturer on the planet?

Josh: Having a patchwork of regulations is, of course, challenging to navigate, regardless of what industry you’re in, what makes it more difficult. I mean, we’ve got good advisors, we have attorneys. I have an attorney on my team, and we go out and we monitor that proactively to make sure that we’re preparing to comply with everything. The role that I play, and that our government affairs team plays, is primarily one of education. And the reason that that’s particularly effective here is because we are going back to being in the right place at the right time and having a fantastic opportunity here with NVIDIA. We find ourselves in a situation where what is good for the economy, what is good for productivity, what is good for society, and what is good for sustainability actually seems to be aligning behind thoughtful deployment of AI. The reason that that’s beneficial is when you move around the world, you have different balances of priorities, whether it’s economic development or sustainability or social benefits and so forth. When you’re able to come to those meetings with data that demonstrates that AI is helping to reduce energy consumed in other sectors, and it’s helping to reduce overall emissions factors, and it’s helping us accelerate innovation and drive productivity and financial success, and it’s also providing educational benefits on the social side, when all of these things are lining up very well behind one particular strategy, which is, let’s use this technology for all of the public good that we can, let’s maximize its use for good, very thoughtfully and intelligently, it sweeps away a lot of the concerns and the challenge that you might otherwise face to find a balance between finances and sustainability and impacts and all of these other areas. So we do that, we bring the data, we bring what we’re seeing about AI’s benefits and its footprint, and it’s pretty overwhelmingly positive, the reaction that we have. Once they see the data, they see that all the stars have aligned to point to this outcome that actually, again, if we’re using it intelligently, is good across the board for the outcome [?].

John: Is the education element of what you do and your teams do, lead to, hopefully, more harmonized and better policies, not only here in the United States, but around the world?

Josh: That’s what we hope for, yeah. And I’ve been actually very, very impressed with the legislators and the regulators that I’ve spoken with directly, members of the executive branch in the United States, both houses of Congress, commissioners in the EU, all across the board. They are sincere in their efforts and their intention to try to do what’s good for the public. And once they grasp the data, once they have that available to them, it really does clear away some of the distractions and, I think will ultimately lead to a harmonized approach that, you know, [inaudible] that is supportive of the deployment of AI for the [inaudible].

John: For all listeners and viewers who’ve just joined us, we got Josh Parker with us. He’s the head of sustainability of NVIDIA. To find Josh and his colleagues on all the important impactful work they’re doing in sustainability, please go to www.NVIDIA.com. It’ll be in the show notes. You don’t have to write it down. Josh, I read an article about you, in particular, in Axios Magazine recently. That’s Axios Online, actually. And it was interesting to read about what I call no business and show business. Obviously, you are well educated. You have a legal mind, you have a engineer’s mind and a sustainability mind. And, you know, you put them all together and this makes total sense looking backwards how you’re now the head of sustainability at NVIDIA. But the no business, you have down and you’re mastering that. The show business part is public speaking. You know, everyone wants you to come speak because you’re the head of sustainability at NVIDIA. Talk a little bit about public speaking, the importance of messaging from where you sit because of the platform that you have. But also, when I started this podcast, chief sustainability officers and chief impact officers really didn’t exist by the way. When the word sustainability made its way up to the C-suite, it was the C-suite getting their head thinking, oh, the only thing they heard is it’s going to cost them money. How is the messaging going now with regards to business converging with sustainability and the ROI opportunities that are just there for the taking if people really focus on it? Great people like you with great organizations like you represent, how does that really now make dollars and cents with real ROI opportunities as well?

Josh: I would say that the public speaking portion of my role is one of the things that I didn’t anticipate. When I was younger, I didn’t expect having a role where I was doing so much speaking. But I do enjoy it, especially because I feel like we have a good message to share. It’s one that’s necessary, it’s one that’s underappreciated, and it’s also one that’s optimistic. Especially for those of us who have been in the sustainability space for a while, we’re used to bad news for the most part. You know, we were concerned about trends and about policy not being sufficient to address some of the big environmental issues that we’re looking at and social issues. And to be at a moment in time in a role where you have very credible, very real reason for optimism and actually a technological solution that people really need to help solve that, not to replace policy, but as a complement to policy, is really, really exciting. It’s invigorating. And so, although it ends up taking a lot of energy to do all the public engagements…

John: Sure.

Josh: … it is something that I love doing. And I’ll be happy to do this for the rest of my career. I’m a sincere optimist in terms of AI’s potential impact for the common good, especially for sustainable outcomes. And the gap that really needs to be filled, that I’m trying to fill, is to get the information that we already have in the hands of people who can use it in ways that are good for society, good for the environment, and good for business as well. And that last piece is, I think, becoming more and more evident. At NVIDIA, we view our platform as a tool that helps other people solve whatever problem that they’re trying to solve. And for a lot of people, that problem is climate change, or that problem is critical minerals, or not having drug discovery move quickly enough. And so putting this technological solution in the hands of people who are trying to solve those big problems is both good for business, it’s also, again, good for sustainability, good for the world.

John: And I’ll add to it that what I find when I listen to some of your talks and presentations, it’s not only educational, but it’s also very inspirational. Because you take the positive high road on all your messaging, which I think is so well needed in a world full of negative news and negativity with the externalities that we’re all dealing with right now on a geopolitical basis. Your positivity and inspiration shines through, and I think it’s much needed in these times. With regards to the supply chain, the global supply chain, you sit in a unique position. You have ecosystem partners on both sides. You’re a buyer and seller. How do you get to leave your imprint and leave your positivity and leave your vision of good, responsible sustainability on both your upstream and downstream partners so you can therefore affect the entire ecosystem that you have to play within?

Josh: With suppliers, I think it’s a relatively typical relationship because they’re suppliers and we’ve got a good business relationship with them. When we talk to them about aligned interests around sustainability, it’s really very productive. They, of course, want to keep us as a customer happy. And for most of our supply chain partners, we are a significant customer, so it’s a very strong business relationship. But there is a very strong trend in the overall tech industry towards de-carbonization, towards sustainability more broadly. And so what they’re hearing from us is very, very similar to what they’re hearing from their other customers. And that standardization, that industry-wide approach really makes it more of a business imperative. That makes it easier to have those conversations. And I’ve found a lot of alignment with our suppliers on those issues. With our customers, some of our largest customers are, again, some of the most sustainable companies in the world, investing millions and billions of dollars in sustainability projects, clean energy, et cetera. They typically have large teams working on sustainability, and they’re also finding ways to use their tech for good. So upstream and downstream, I think we’ve got alignment in terms of how we want to manage life cycle impacts of the actual technology. We also have a really good alignment, especially with our customers, on, again, those applications of AI for good. Okay, we’ve built this infrastructure. It’s as sustainable as it can be. It does have a footprint, of course. And I don’t want to minimize the fact that GPUs and our systems do use energy. And there is emissions associated to the manufacturing as well. But we’ve got this infrastructure. It’s really useful. How can we use it to do amazing things with our customers?

John: Makes sense. You’re on the inside, I’m not. I’m on the outside. I’m on the other side of your industry. I’m in the recycling of electronics business, so sort of the other side of the technological revolution, what happens to our assets when they come to their natural end of life. Talk a little bit about, from the inside perspective, some of the myths and understandings that you’ve come to realize and know when it comes to the interrelationship between AI and sustainability.

Josh: I’d love to do that. And this is a perfect opportunity because this is one of those areas where there’s so much good data to share that people don’t appreciate. One thing that my mind immediately goes to is water. You hear a lot about data centers and their use of water.

John: Right.

Josh: I know there’s concern, especially in the United States, about if a data center is built in my area, how will that impact water availability and [inaudible]? The fantastic news is we’ve basically solved that problem at the data center level. And it’s through innovation that has driven us to a very advanced cooling platform. So it’s direct to chip liquid cooling. So you’ve got a liquid coolant that’s in a closed circuit system of pipes that is pumped to the chips and then pumped away and then cooled. And it is extremely energy efficient and it is extremely water efficient. So we read the numbers between this type of cooling, which we launched in volume last year and which will be in all of our data center products later this year, the water consumption comparing this to the previous technology is one three hundredth of the water. So a tiny fraction of what we were using before to cool the same work line.

John: That’s great.

Josh: Yeah. So that type of data is what I’m really trying to get out there and help people understand that the infrastructure that’s being built close to them or in their state or whatever, the impacts that they may have heard about are probably from very old data, old equipment. The new generation is exceptionally energy efficient and also very water efficient. And that infrastructure is directly tied to, you know, probably the next drug discovery that could help us cure cancer or help us solve carbon capture and storage. It’s going to come from intelligence that we get. Even though the [inaudible] seem nondescript and not very useful, what they’re actually doing to help us solve the big problems is really impactful and will be increasingly impactful for people’s individual lives

John: You know, Josh, there is not a relationship that anyone ever goes into or a new opportunity, business venture, new job, where we all come in with preconceived notions. But after a while there, we come to whatever the realities are of that situation. Talk a little bit about, or I’d love you just to highlight, you coming into NVIDIA three years ago and where you sit today. Let’s just say this, what’s the hardest part of your job that people on the outside don’t really get to see?

Josh: Wow. Hardest part. You know, I think, traditionally, people in a role like mine would say, getting an executive buy in for the big initiatives that they want to pursue is challenging. It hasn’t been the case for me. The executive leadership team has been very committed to this program since day one. And I think we’re very optimistic about the opportunities of AI for sustainability. I would say the biggest challenge that I have is just getting enough of that credible data into the hands of people who are sharing it and able to maximize its impact so that people understand, not just the benefits of AI, but also have an accurate understanding of its footprint, of its environmental negative impacts. Because when you have an accurate understanding of both, that’s when you can make the really informed decision about, is this worth it? And I think in any credible balancing of those two, it’s very clear, absolutely. If anything is worth some quantity of emissions and energy consumption and water consumption, AI is probably it. And its footprint ends up being a tiny, tiny fraction of overall energy and emissions and water and all of those things. It’s a tiny sliver, and it’s already producing such dramatic improvements in so many areas that it’s well worth it. So trying not to get discouraged by the fact that people continue to not be able to balance those and understand those, is probably the challenge. What does that mean? That means that I get more opportunities to share that optimism, to share the data. So I end up getting to do the thing that I like the most.

John: Along those same lines, if you could change one thing, how the tech industry as a whole approaches sustainability on a macro basis, but then parsing it out, whether it’s in framing, metrics, or just public commitments, if you could wave your proverbial magic wand, what would the change be that you see as a commonality that if you could change that one thing, the needle would really move in the tech industry as a whole?

Josh: I would say standardization, I think, of metrics and approaches to measuring sustainable outcomes and impacts more broadly. And that’s because the tech industry, especially advanced tech and the AI ecosystem, is really focused on the impacts already and trying to manage those. Use clean energy, decarbonize, be very cognizant of all the chemicals and everything and the water. That’s something that we’re already managing really, really aggressively. So the challenge is we don’t have a good way, as an industry, of communicating how significant that work is and how we really are, as an industry, driving innovation that leads to sustainability. So I think if we had metrics that would allow us to aggregate all of those efforts in a way that’s credible and meaningful, then I think it would become a lot clearer that the positive aspects of the businesses that are driving sustainable outcomes.

John: Josh, I assume that every year your team creates an annual sustainability report, and that lives in perpetuity up on nvidia.com?

Josh: That’s right. And we’re preparing our current sustainability report now. It should be out in May or June this year.

John: Wonderful. I’d love you to think back over the last three years. If I was to ask you, what are your one, two or three top achievements, your team’s achievements in sustainability over the last two or three years that you could point to and be proud of? I want you to be, for this moment, a little less humble than you typically are and just use it as a way to platform some of your favorite achievements in sustainability at NVIDIA.

Josh: Number one, I’d definitely say setting science-based targets last year. We did a lot of modeling. When you’re in a company that is experiencing rapid growth, finding ways to commit to de-carbonization can be a little challenging. But we were committed to doing that. And I was very pleased that we were able to find a way to set those commitments and help them validated. So that would be first. The second thing I’m most proud of, I think, is that we really have gotten a lot more credible information in the hands of people who need it, policymakers, media, the public, to help them take better advantage of AI and to not be afraid of it for reasons of sustainability. One thing that we’ve done to help that is that we’ve started publishing product carbon footprints for data center products. And we’re expanding that program this year to many other products as well. With the goal of being as transparent as we can about, so these are cradle to gate emissions, so upstream of when they get to our customers. And to make sure that we’re being clear about it, and also to demonstrate, in general, that the impacts are lower than most people are expecting. So I’d say those were two big ones that I’m most proud of. I’m really looking forward to this year because we’ve now built up a team that’s really good at doing the basic sustainability programming and we’re looking at bigger ambition projects this year. Participating in the clean energy ecosystem, education ecosystem, that hopefully will have impacts that are much, much broader than our own corporate footprint might suggest. So excited about new projects and new ambition that’s going above and beyond this year.

John: Josh, the world now, besides the AI revolution, is undergoing this consumer economy, or let’s just call it the linear economy to the circular economy. OEMs that I started working with 20, 25 years ago in my industry, sustainability wasn’t a big part of their mantra back then. Now they all have designed for sustainability divisions. Is that something that’s institutional as well at NVIDIA and circularity and repurposing of your materials and also incorporating repurposed materials back into your new materials? Is this something that’s also an ongoing discussion and an ongoing part of your greater vision?

Josh: Last year, during a podcast, Jensen told the interviewer that performance per watt is our metric of success, which is really telling for the culture of innovation towards sustainability at NVIDIA and how that’s really integrated into our R&D. And there are practical reasons for that, as well as benevolent ones, but the whole orientation of our company is towards more and more energy efficiency. Let’s provide more tokens for each watt and do that faster. That really unlocks the next level of AI’s capabilities. So when we’re able to run more inference queries in that same watt, it allows us to train bigger, better models to use them more productively. So that is really core to our business success as well as to our sustainability goals. On the issue of materials and repurposing them and circularity, we actually so far have seen huge appetite for our customers to keep using our systems as long as they can, running them and running them. And of course, our AI business has grown very, very rapidly over the last couple of years. So if you go back a few years, the install base for AI data centers was a fraction of what it is today. So this may become a bigger issue over time, how we manage the old equipment. But for now, the equipment is being very, very effectively utilized, even though it’s a few generations old. And one of the reasons why that’s true is because our software engineers, and NVIDIA actually has more software engineers than hardware engineers, are continuously improving the software that runs on our systems so that even older systems dramatically improve their capabilities over time thanks to the software updates that we push out. So if you’ve got an old Ampere or Volta or Pascal system that’s generations old, it can still do very productive work. It’s probably not going to be training the next ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude model, but it can still do very, very productive AI work when it’s updated.

John: Josh, a large part of our audience around the world is 15 to 35 year olds, and you’re sort of the poster professional now for this generation in that there’s this massive desire from the next generation behind you to be like you, to not only make a living, but also to make an impact. What is your best advice that you could share back with that generation as either they prepare to go to school, graduate school, or they’re just getting out of school or university or graduate school, in terms of career advice to find a path where they can make both a living and an impact?

Josh: I would say look for where the impacts are the biggest, and find ways to excel at whatever you do, and make sure that people around you know of your interest in sustainability or products for good, tech for good, any of those issues. That really has defined my career path. So I’ve been interested in big influential companies and in tech since I was young, and it’s a great place to learn. It’s a great place to develop understanding of the world of technology and how it can be used both for good or for bad. And when you put yourself in that environment where you may have opportunities come up, and people know, number one, that you’re a good performer, you’re a hard worker, and number two, that you’re really interested in using your role and helping the company be a positive influence in the world, those opportunities are much more likely to come to you. And it would be really hard for me when I was 15 to expect to be in this role. It didn’t exist, as you were saying. But if you put yourself in those situations where people know you’re a good performer and they know that you’re interested in this type of work, I think that’s about all you can do to set yourself up for success. And that’s certainly worked for members of my team. I know people at NVIDIA and outside of NVIDIA who just kept in touch with me. I know they’re interested in this type of work. And so, of course, when I have new roles open up, those are the people I think of first.

John: That’s so wonderful, Josh. Thank you for taking the time, being generous and gracious with your time today and spend time with us. For our listeners and viewers, to find Josh Parker and all his wonderful colleagues who are working in the important and impactful field of sustainability at NVIDIA, please go to www.nvidia.com. Josh Parker, not only thank you for being generous today with us, but thank you more importantly to you and the wonderful people at NVIDIA for making the world a better place.

Josh: Thanks, John.

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