Natasha Tuck: 00:00

I also wanna just encourage progress over perfection. With greenwashing and all of that, it's too easy now to step back and say, I'm not gonna put myself out there. But we really need to live this saying, this action of progress over perfection because I personally commend companies for making progress. We're taking steps in the right direction. So I think we all need to do that and not be afraid or driven by fear.

Edward Qualtrough: 00:32

Hello, and welcome to the DPP podcast, your regular dose of hobnobbing, musing, hype vetting, and insightful conversation with technology and business experts in media, tech, broadcasting, and entertainment. That was the voice of Natasha Tuck, director of sustainability and ESG at Dolby. I am Edward Qualtrough, editorial director here at the DPP, and I am pleased to introduce to you the first part in a doubleheader of podcasts speaking with sustainability leaders. In an upcoming episode, we will hear from Mediacorp head of sustainability and senior vice president of production services, James Hollis, who is visiting The UK from Singapore. But in this episode, we are sharing more from that conversation with Natasha.

Edward Qualtrough: 01:17

Natasha discusses setting science based sustainability targets, Dolby's journey to becoming carbon neutral by 2030, how AI and ESG tools can help your organization, and why perfection is the enemy of good.

Natasha Tuck: 01:32

Hi. Thrilled to be here. I'm Natasha Tuck. I am director of sustainability and environmental, social, and governance at Dolby Laboratories. I'm based in San Francisco, which is where our headquarter offices are.

Edward Qualtrough: 01:47

Wonderful. So thank you very much for agreeing to speak. Now you've been involved in sustainability initiatives at various companies as well. So, look, first of all, could you just talk about Dolby maybe and initiatives at the organization and the journey to becoming carbon neutral? Are you got commitments as well by 2030?

Natasha Tuck: 02:07

Sure. Happy to. So, yes, Dolby, in 2020, committed to becoming a carbon neutral company by 2030, and that involves many steps, as many folks in my field know. But primarily, we essentially, it's an incremental process, and one of the early things that we did is we certified our business travel as carbon neutral. So if you can imagine that, you know, for a carbon neutral company, you want the entire footprint of the company to be carbon neutral.

Natasha Tuck: 02:39

In order to get there, you sort of do bite sized chunks. So we did business travel in 2020, which essentially means that for those business travel emissions, we offset that portion of our footprint with high quality third party verified carbon offset projects that we invested in. We do that each year. So that happens each year. We also began procuring 100% renewable electricity for our global operations.

Natasha Tuck: 03:07

And we actually set that goal to happen by 2025, but came in two years ahead of time. So we've now been 100% powered by renewable electricity for the last two years. So we'll continue that commitment. And then as you can imagine, that is yet another step on the journey or the path to carbon neutral company. So when I talk about that path, I just like to emphasize that there are all of these different pieces that may sometimes seem disjointed, but they're all, you know, stepping toward that end goal of becoming a carbon neutral company.

Natasha Tuck: 03:40

So and, of course, foundational to all of it, which I actually like to mention first typically, is that this is about reducing our overall environmental impact. That is why we set the goal. That is our intention. And the way that you do that, there are several ways to do that, but the the most popular way and the way that we decided to do it is through setting science based targets. So we set science based targets, you know, as I I've done this now at two companies.

Natasha Tuck: 04:10

It's a it's a long process, that involves people throughout the company. Took us about two years to develop those. And then last year, we had them validated by the science based target initiative. So that is best practice, and that was a big milestone for us. But those targets are foundational to getting us to becoming a carbon neutral company since, first and foremost, we're looking to reduce our footprint absolutely from our FY '19 base year.

Natasha Tuck: 04:41

So I would say that those are those sort of lay the groundwork, and we're working hard on making sure that though we achieve those goals and reducing, you know, where we can around the company related to those science based targets.

Edward Qualtrough: 04:54

Thank you. Just on that energy usage two years ahead of schedule, what was the reaction within the company when you were able to be ahead of the targets and the timeline you'd set yourself for that?

Natasha Tuck: 05:06

So I think people were really excited. I mean, I I think, you know, honestly, we are we are a relatively small company, and our operational footprint is relatively small. So for companies like Dolby, where we have a lot of leased offices, and today, more and more, you can opt in to renewable electricity through your local utility. It's become easier. It's become easier to get there.

Natasha Tuck: 05:37

So so that's why we did it early because we realized that this is not a huge lift, and it speaks volumes. It really just is something for people to be proud of and, really supports our commitment toward sustainability overall.

Edward Qualtrough: 05:54

Thank you. So I've also spoken to James Hollis, who works for MediaCore. He sort of leads sustainability initiatives there. So they're a big, media broadcast organization, and we spoke about the relationship between, essentially, I suppose, the customers and the providers, the tech providers, about how they can work together to achieve some, you know, very common goals. So what would be your take on how, like, a leading vendor, and you said, not as big as some people might think, but a large organisation, I would say, like Dolby, works with its customers to sort of share some of its knowledge and how media broadcast organizations and can achieve their their goals as well.

Natasha Tuck: 06:33

Yeah. So it's a great question. It's one we've all been thinking about for a long time. How can we support each other better? So in general, what I would say is the way that we at Dolby support our customers is primarily through collaborating with them when asked on their sustainability initiatives.

Natasha Tuck: 06:56

So for example, it's very common for companies like us to receive questionnaires, surveys, requests for information on what we're doing to well, really across ESG, environmental, social, and governance, but also specifically on our sustainability journey. So what we do is we prioritize those requests, and we provide as much information as we can. Today, that's that's I I would venture to say that's how it goes. That's generally what companies do. I would love to see more, I'll say in person, but could be on a video call, in person engagement where we can where we can really have a greater impact.

Natasha Tuck: 07:38

For now, it's really just about being responsive. Unfortunately, there are lots of different platforms. So this is a headache. It's been called survey fatigue by many of us for a long time where, you know, we have a lot of customers. And so we get lots of different types of requests.

Natasha Tuck: 07:56

So responding to them is can be really time consuming, you know, the same information over and over. But similarly, and also kind of on the flip side, one of the things that we're doing that I think is exciting and and speaks to this point is so just as our customers request information from us, we are requesting information from our suppliers. So all of us now, most of us now, are starting to work more deeply and more meaningfully with our suppliers and our supply chain because they generally make up a lot of a a company's carbon footprint. At Dolby last year, we kicked off a supplier engagement campaign to support our suppliers in setting their own science based targets. And that work, I'm super excited about because we are truly partnering.

Natasha Tuck: 08:45

We're providing resources and tools and sharing our expertise. I mean, I've done a carbon footprint many times. I don't want somebody to have to do it from scratch. And there are so many companies out there who actually haven't started. They're just smaller and have fewer resources.

Natasha Tuck: 09:05

So it's happening, like, across the value chain, right, from your the top customer down to the supplier to then who their supplier is. And and that's how we're supporting our customers.

Edward Qualtrough: 09:15

Thank you, Natasha. And it'll be interesting to see. I'd love to know the stats for who is looking at Summit Space targets as well. Maybe it's something the DPP will can investigate and explore a little bit further. So we've had on the DPP podcast, I think we almost had a month off where we didn't talk about AI because we had a a bit too much discussion about it for a few episodes in a row.

Edward Qualtrough: 09:37

But I am gonna ask you, what do you think are some of the opportunities for AI to help improve sustainability? I know this is something you sort of discussed and posted about.

Natasha Tuck: 09:46

Yes. I have. I personally have worked on and off with Nasdaq for a long time, so I'll just say that here, because that's who I I did the interviews with and things like that. And at Dolby, we're actually using one of their tools. So first, I wanna say that I'm no AI expert.

Natasha Tuck: 10:03

That is not my expertise. But what I'm seeing, which is exciting, is that what it can do so back in the day, if you had to do I'm just gonna use benchmarking as an example. Let's say that you had to look at a lot of companies and figure out how they set science based targets. Where are they on their journey? This is a lot of time and work.

Natasha Tuck: 10:26

With a tool like like tools that exist now, but specifically the one we're using, I can make an inquiry in that system, and it'll feed me back all of the answers, like, instantaneously. So I can immediately see what all what all my peers are doing if I've set up that peer list, where we stack up. Another interesting use case, which I think is actually even more exciting, is okay. So as we know, there are tons of new requirements out there for this space. So all of the new reporting regulations, the SRD in Europe, the SEC climate rules coming out.

Natasha Tuck: 11:04

And I've been doing reporting now for, you know, ten years, but I'm not intimately familiar with CSRD. I've been told there are, like, 800 disclosure items in CSRD, so I'm getting closer to really getting in there. But one of the things I can do in the tool is I can ask questions about CSRD, and I can ask about Dolby's public disclosures that are currently out there and how they support our compliance to that framework. And that would have taken hours upon hours as well as consulting costs most likely to find anything like that out, you know, like to do a gap analysis. So that's something that I can now do.

Natasha Tuck: 11:46

And if I'm good at it, fifteen minutes, it'll probably take me about a half an hour. I'm just excited to use AI in that way where it really supports us in being more efficient for things that just took too much time. They shouldn't have been taking that much time. We've got more important work to do. That's what I'm most excited about.

Edward Qualtrough: 12:04

So you have also led sustainability and ESG, VMware, big IT tech company, and you're doing the role at Dolby too. Could you attempt to give some pearls of wisdom about some of the biggest successes you've had in that area and maybe anything like this particularly useful for other organizations to know about? I mean, you mentioned before that some haven't started on there at all about science based targets. So what would be those those big successes or those those best bits of advice for other organizations?

Natasha Tuck: 12:42

Yeah. I'm gonna start there because it's so important to me. I think there are enough people now who have been doing this for a long time. Well, there's that, and there's also the fact that things can be done much quicker now through tools and resource platforms. So I would encourage people to not start from scratch, to leverage the tools and resources that are out there.

Natasha Tuck: 13:04

I'm gonna give one example because I'm it blew my mind, which I'm not sure it should have, but it did. So I come from, you know, ten years ago developing our carbon footprint for the first time at VMware. It's an incredibly manual process. You have to go around the organization and find out where the diesel generators are and then make sure you understand your lease terms and then get your business travel. I mean, right?

Natasha Tuck: 13:26

Like, it's a lot of reaching out. And today, you can upload your spend file. So imagine that you're a company and you have your spend file. That's a pretty basic thing that most companies have. You're coding expenses to certain GL accounts.

Natasha Tuck: 13:43

And from there, thanks to some AI, it understands what those expenses were for. So we can all of a sudden see what you spend on utilities, what your business travel was, what your purchase goods and services were. And it can do a footprint for you. It may not be perfect, but, man, it gets you a lot of the way there. When I see things like that, I get really excited, and I and I I want people to use the latest tools that are out there.

Natasha Tuck: 14:11

And I think they're accessible and affordable. So back to, successes. I think one of the things at VMware that was so much fun, frankly, and, you know, we considered then, and I still consider it to be how we wanna talk about sustainability and what we wanna do with sustainability in ESG, and that is to connect it to the core business strategy. And at VMware, it was it wasn't easy, but it was relatively easy because VMware had a legacy of pioneering virtualization. So inherent to its core was sustainability and driving efficiency across the IT sector.

Natasha Tuck: 14:51

So we were able to connect our work in decarbonizing the operations of the company to decarbonizing the operations of our customers through the use of our products. So that was just such a an easy and wonderful and authentic story to be able to tell and to be able then to support others on their journey. So that that was really a fantastic opportunity, I think, for me to see it so explicitly there. Now at Dolby, it's it's a little bit different. So one of the things that I'm most excited about is the opportunity for Dolby to influence the mainstream or popular culture through audio and visual and exploring what that could look like.

Natasha Tuck: 15:35

So I was really excited earlier this year when actually our UK marketing team brought to us this idea that they were putting together of a mini album. And it's called the seven sonic wonders, and it is the seven sonic wonders of the world. And it was put together by Chris Watson, a musician turned field recordist, Nenita Desai, who is a composer, as well as a Dolby Atmos engineer who mixed it all in Dolby Atmos. It is seven songs that are nature sounds and different recordings from around the world. It's incredible.

Natasha Tuck: 16:17

I highly recommend it. It's available on Apple Music. But really just another way to think about the opportunities that are there for us to have a positive impact and to influence people in different ways. So I was really excited about that and continue to talk about it whenever I can. I just love that idea that we can connect, for example, Dolby's core products to sustainability.

Edward Qualtrough: 16:45

And to close perhaps, Natasha, how about a learning when something maybe didn't go quite so well or as as as you had hoped at least?

Natasha Tuck: 16:55

Sure. So I think for me, probably the the main thing or that keeps coming up is that I like to move fast, and I like to get things done. And, of course, that can be wonderful, and I've had a lot of success because of that. On the other hand, I'm often reminded of the proverb, which is if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Natasha Tuck: 17:19

My work has been personally and professionally to slow down, to get the buy in needed. I think one of the challenges is that probably for any domain, we are so familiar with our own our language, our our jargon. And we might assume that it's just easier to understand than it is. So for me, the experiences that I learned from where let's say that there was a new framework that I needed to bring people from another department into. TCFD comes to mind, task force on climate related financial disclosures.

Natasha Tuck: 17:59

This one was a head twist for people to get their heads around, literally, me included, and we needed more time. We needed more time to get people to really buy in and and understand. So I think that's kind of the challenge of our time too is that there isn't a lot of time and people are so pressed for time. And that some of these things take time to understand so that you can really make good decisions from that place of shared understanding.

Edward Qualtrough: 18:32

Thanks, Natasha. That is such a core pure DPP message that what we would normally end on of all of these things, whether we're talking about cloud production or sustainability or digital transformation, it is as much about change in management and people and getting people to support the direction as it is about any of the technologies that we're talking about. Like I said, it would be the place to end on, but I'm gonna say if you did have a burning desire to share anything else that you wanted to say, now would be the time.

Natasha Tuck: 19:04

I'll say, well, one, I'm thrilled to be here, so thank you so much for the opportunity. And I also wanna just encourage this is another thing that I I really live by, which is progress over perfection. With greenwashing and all of that, it's too easy now to step back and say, I'm not gonna put myself out there. But we really need to live this saying, this action of progress over perfection because I personally commend companies for making progress. We're taking steps in the right direction.

Natasha Tuck: 19:35

So I think we all need to do that and not be afraid or driven by fear.

Edward Qualtrough: 19:47

That was Natasha Tuck, director of sustainability and ESG at Dolby. Thanks to Natasha for speaking with us and, of course, to you, dear listener, for spending some of your precious time with the DPP podcast. We have more sustainability and media innovation discussions incoming, and we will also be sharing some highlights from our media supply festival in New York very soon with you, along with, hopefully, a well timed DPP podcast announcement. So make sure you are subscribed to find out what that exciting news is.