Sustainability Leaders · Oct 20, 2026 · 31m · 25m saved
With Erik Hansen, Chief Sustainability Officer at Workday
Workday hit net zero carbon and 100% renewable electricity in 2020, a year ahead of schedule. Most companies would call that the finish line. Erik Hansen, Chief Sustainability Officer at Workday, told Melissa Fifield of the BMO Climate Institute on Sustainability Leaders that it was closer to the easy part — the harder project is what's left over once the obvious reductions are done.
"Figure out what are the big levers in terms of emissions reductions that you can do now... don't let perfect be the enemy of the good when it comes to climate."
Erik runs climate strategy for a company whose own data-center footprint it mostly doesn't control, which is why Workday now screens carbon credits by hand and backs a multi-company methane-cleanup effort instead of waiting on unproven removal technology.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 31 minutes of audio, 6 minutes of reading.
Here are the 6 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
Net zero was the easy part; residual emissions are the real project now — 92% of Workday's electricity footprint sits in leased data centers it doesn't control
Workday screens every carbon credit for additionality and permanence (centuries, not decades) before buying
Workday joined Frontier's $915 million "growth AMC," alongside Anthropic, inside a roughly $2 billion coalition incubated by Stripe
Methane cleanup is the "emergency brake" while removal matures — the EPA counts 120,000 to 150,000 documented orphaned wells in the US
1.7 billion AI actions ran on Workday's platform last year, and its carbon footprint still didn't grow
Its 11,500 global customers increasingly treat Workday's emissions as part of their own scope 3 footprint
1. Net Zero Was the Easy Part
Erik's mandate has shifted since Workday hit net zero and 100% renewable electricity in 2020, a year ahead of schedule. The early work was "basic blocking and tackling" — measuring the footprint, buying renewable energy. What's left is harder, because most of Workday's electricity footprint isn't even inside its own walls.
92% of Workday's electricity footprint sits in data centers it doesn't own
"About 92% of our electricity footprint globally are in data centers that we don't own." — Erik Hansen
Workday is refreshing its near-term science-based targets with SBTi for a new five-year cycle, and leans on pushing its data-center providers toward renewables and on building its own generation where it can.
"We have over a megawatt now of on-site solar, rooftop solar paired with battery storage." — Erik Hansen
