Results
Maximizing efficiency and hitting targets with Watershed
With Watershed, Mia has streamlined sustainability efforts at Pinterest by measuring and forecasting emissions, identifying reduction initiatives, and understanding Pinterest’s supply chain—all with one platform.
In 2022, Pinterest also committed to setting near-term emissions reduction targets in line with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and, in 2023, its three emissions reduction targets were validated, including:
- Reducing scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 39% by 2027 from a 2019 base year.
- Increasing active annual sourcing of renewable electricity from 34% in 2019 to 100% by 2023 and through 2030.
- Reducing scope 3 GHG emissions by 70% per USD gross profit by 2027 from a 2019 base year.
Since setting these near-term science-based targets, Mia has been focused on measuring progress against the goals using Watershed’s reductions module—and in 2023 they achieved their goal of 100% renewable electricity.
By leveraging Watershed's audit-ready capabilities, Mia has built confidence in Pinterest’s sustainability plans with internal and external stakeholders.
Reducing scope 3 emissions through cloud optimization
As Mia and her colleagues initially thought, the majority of Pinterest’s emissions are from scope 3—including the emissions from cloud computing that make their platform possible. So, in 2023, she and the team prioritized the efficiency of Pinterest’s use of AWS infrastructure and launched technology projects to ensure intelligent use of compute resources, storage, and networking. They also worked to reduce the number of AWS servers required to power Pinterest around the world.
Specific projects to improve infrastructure efficiency included applying appropriate retention policies to reduce stored data, migrating a portion of Pinterest’s compute instances to AWS’s energy-efficient, general-purpose processor, and right-sizing such instances across the rest of Pinterest’s infrastructure.
“I love this project because it was driven out of the engineering organization, and the migration delivered performance improvements, plus cost and carbon savings.”
Mia Ketterling,
Global Sustainability Lead at Pinterest
To better understand the aggregate impact of this work, they conducted an in-depth analysis of one important workload. Due to improved performance and lower energy intensity, they achieved a 62% reduction in carbon emissions per query. Read more about this work and its impact here.
Watershed helped Mia monitor how Pinterest’s engagement with AWS and its engineering efficiency projects drove down the company’s overall scope 3 emissions. The outsized impact of this AWS initiative helped lay the groundwork for future efforts to reduce Pinterest’s scope 3 emissions.
Setting new standards and reaching new sustainability heights
Using Watershed, Mia and the team at Pinterest have achieved significant milestones, including their 100% renewable energy goal and setting science-based emissions reduction targets. Mia's leadership and the company's commitment to sustainability position Pinterest as a responsible corporate citizen and industry leader in integrating sustainability into core business practices.
“I’ve sat through and received proposals from my fair share of carbon accounting and consulting services. Compared to what Watershed can offer versus the rest of the market, it’s a no-brainer.”
Mia Ketterling,
Global Sustainability Lead at Pinterest