The global design platform is using partnerships and clean power projects to drive emissions reductions and set an example for all industries
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Canva has made sustainability a core part of its mission and partnered with Watershed to measure and reduce its carbon emissions. It is addressing scope 3 through a Watershed-developed innovative fixed-price Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA), which reduces Canva’s supply chain’s environmental footprint through a series of new solar power projects funded in partnership with its print suppliers. Unlike the historically prohibitively large and complex VPPAs, Watershed’s model makes a clean energy program accessible to companies the size of Canva’s print suppliers. With the project, Canva is having widespread impact and setting an example for all industries on how to tackle scope 3.
Challenge
While committed to sustainability from the beginning, Canva faced the challenge of addressing the environmental impact of its growing supplier print operations. With the majority of its emissions coming from scope 3 sources—its supply chain—Canva needed a comprehensive approach to measure and reduce its carbon footprint while balancing sustainability, profitability, and partnerships.
Solution
Using Watershed, Canva identified that most of its emissions were from its supply chain. Watershed helped Canva reduce its footprint by developing a fixed-price Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA) alongside several of its print supply partners. The VPPA is funding a series of solar farms in Illinois, helping Canva’s print supply partners match their electricity emissions with clean power—and reduce Canva’s scope 3 emissions in turn.
Results
• Driving scope 3 emissions reductions with a solar initiative: Based on the grid today, the project will avoid over 15,000 tons of CO2 annually, equivalent to 38 million gasoline car miles avoided, and an approximately 16% reduction of Canva’s 2022 footprint.
• Achieving widespread positive impact: Canva’s sustainability initiatives, including the VPPA, will successfully reduce its scope 3 emissions while positively impacting local communities through creation of new jobs, lower electricity bills, and access to clean power––the excess generated that is unused by print supply partners.
• Leading by example and reducing its own footprint: While helping print supply chain partners decarbonize, Canva is also driving change all industries can emulate, and inspiring global action on climate.
Challenge
Canva, an online visual communication platform with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere, has 190 million monthly users who can also leverage the company’s global network of print supply partners to turn their designs into physical products—everything from posters and invitations to tote bags and mugs.
For Cameron Adams, Canva’s Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, sustainability has always been important. “Creating a truly sustainable company has been part of our vision since the very beginning,” he says. “For us, sustainability is really about three things: it's about people, it's about the planet, and it's about profit. You need to make sure that all three of those things are working together in order to make a truly sustainable organization that's going to be around in 100 years, and also has a planet to exist on in 100 years.”
“Making something that’s truly sustainable should be every company’s mission. We have to think about the people who work at these companies, the people they interact with as customers, and the environments and ecosystems in which they operate.”
Cameron Adams,
Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Canva
Canva has a simple yet ambitious plan to achieve its company mission: Step One is to build one of the most valuable companies in the world, Step Two is to do the most good they can. Step Two takes various shapes, and includes Canva’s sustainability efforts and climate commitments.
In 2020, as part of its two-step plan, Canva began focusing on its carbon footprint and impact on climate change. It embarked on a journey of understanding its scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions—and tackling them in the most tangible way possible.
The Canva team started looking for a sustainability platform, and Watershed emerged as the best solution because of its industry-leading software and deeply experienced services team. “Having a great team of experts that we can talk to about ways to act on our emissions, like setting up KPIs and working with offset providers, was a huge differentiator for Watershed,” Adams says. “This made us confident in our ability to not just measure our emissions, but also to act on them.”
Solution
Canva started using Watershed Supply Chain to better understand its footprint, which allows them to see data at a granular level and understand where their scope 3 emissions are most concentrated. For many companies, scope 3 emissions — which includes those from supplier and vendor activities — often account for more than 80% of a company's total carbon footprint. At Canva, printing alone accounts for approximately 30% of its total footprint. As its print supply partners source power from their local utilities which use a mix of sources including coal and gas, this contributes significantly to Canva’s scope 3 emissions.
Armed with a clear understanding of its print emissions, Canva was ready to take action. It wanted to set an example that reduction initiatives are possible alongside partners who might have tighter margins or run smaller operations than Canva. “We want to set an example for what other businesses can do to deliver decarbonization by working with our supply chain,” Adams says.
Watershed developed a fixed-price Virtual Power Purchase Agreement (VPPA) to help Canva and its print supply partners jointly reduce emissions. Since Canva can’t change the electricity sources its printing partners rely upon, the VPPA represented a viable solution to reduce the emissions of a distributed network of suppliers.
Canva and Watershed started by aggregating a pool of print partners to create size and buying power, then took the compelling business case for the VPPA to the boards of their partners to drive buy-in and commitment. The result was partnerships with five print suppliers: RPI Print, Taylor, Blooming Color, Brook & Whittle, and Digital on Demand.
This new fixed-price VPPA model takes an innovative approach to the historically complex and high-risk traditional VPPA. It creates a five to seven-year contract between clean power projects and Canva’s print supply partners, whereby the partners receive renewable energy credits and the projects receive multi-year guaranteed revenue that they need to be economically viable. Watershed's novel model, coupled with credit support from its investment banking partner, allowed Canva and its print supply partners to participate in a long-term clean power product that has historically been prohibitively complex and risky for companies of their size.
Through this VPPA, Watershed and Canva are funding a series of community solar projects in Illinois. The final product will be several facilities totaling 20 megawatts, which for the current grid is the same as displacing 15,000 tons of CO2 annually—equivalent to 38 million gasoline car miles avoided. At full capacity, this represents an approximately 16% reduction in Canva’s 2022 footprint—a massive positive impact on Canva’s scope 3 emissions.
The solar project will also directly lower Canva’s print partners’ scope 1 and 2 emissions. “While we were working on our own decarbonization efforts as best we could, Canva and Watershed took it to the next level for us,” says Rick Hanaway, VP of Sales and Marketing at RPI Print. “Leveraging Watershed’s climate expertise and Canva’s size allowed us to do something much faster and more at scale than we would have been able to do on our own.”
“Watershed allows us to move rapidly and scale solutions in clean energy to fight climate change much more than we could do on our own.”
Rick Hanaway,
VP of Sales and Marketing at RPI Print
Rather than create another ask for Canva’s print partners, Watershed and Canva worked to create a solution that felt accessible and impactful. “The partnership with Watershed and Canva is very thoughtful and intentional,” says Rosemarie Breske Garvey, President of Bloom & Color. “We have access to a more sophisticated approach to clean power than I could access myself as a small business owner.”
While clean power is often associated with decarbonization, it also has huge potential to improve the lives of communities living near clean power facilities. In Canva’s case, not only will the solar facilities help Canva’s print partners offset their emissions—thereby reducing Canva’s scope 3 emissions—but they will also create positive outcomes for the community surrounding the solar farm, such as lower electricity bills and new jobs.
“Watershed has been the perfect partner for creating a fixed-price VPPA and finding innovative ways for us to collaborate with our supply chain.”
Cameron Adams,
Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Canva
Results
With Watershed’s help, Canva created a framework for how its print supply partners can decarbonize their own manufacturing operations, setting an example for others to follow in the manufacturing sector—an industry that’s extremely complex and often resistant to change.
“We're really hopeful that this work will create a domino effect, both within manufacturing and across the tech industry,” Adams says. “The benefits aren’t just ours to reap, either—we’re making an impact on our emissions and those of our print supply partners, but we’re also affecting change in a community in Illinois.”
After all, sustainability at Canva isn’t just about the company taking action, it’s about inspiring individuals and organizations around the world to have an impact as well.
“It’s important for Canva to be a role model and share the word that we all can—and should—take action. ”
Cameron Adams,
Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Canva
The results of Canva’s adoption of a VPPA and subsequent emissions reductions are paying real dividends, creating momentum, and building excitement with supply chain partners. Canva is driving change at scale and leaving a lasting impact on our planet—exactly what it set out to do with its two-step plan.