Humanity and Innovation: NVIDIA Releases 2020 Corporate Social Responsibility Report

Our 11th annual corporate social responsibility report comes as the world confronts a pandemic and racial inequities. 
by Tonie Hansen

NVIDIA’s 11th annual corporate social responsibility report comes as the world confronts COVID-19 and the fight for racial equality has been reignited.

We’re inspired by the millions of frontline workers risking their lives to protect the billions sheltering at home to slow the spread of the disease. Ongoing protests in the U.S. are also underscoring racial inequities.

We know it’s not enough to be a well-intended, inclusive employer and provide equal opportunities for all. We’re creating opportunities for real change and reform. This past year, we prioritized the recruitment of women, Black/African Americans and other underrepresented minorities, reaching 19,000 candidates.

We also set out to make our annual developers conference, GTC, more inclusive. We increased the number of women attending by 60 percent from the previous year while also increasing the number of attendees from Black and Hispanic/Latino communities. We’re building relationships that will allow us to increase the number of Black NVIDIANs and GPU developers, but we still have a lot more work to do.

In the midst of all that’s going on in the world, our 16,000-plus employees are hard at work from home, performing groundbreaking research and developing revolutionary technologies and products. That work includes tackling COVID-19, unlocking new medical treatments to fight cancer and disease, reducing traffic congestion and fatalities, and saving crops, oceans and endangered species. We’ve found there’s no limit to the good that AI and accelerated computing can do to improve lives, aid the environment and address global challenges.

In response to the pandemic, NVIDIA joined the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium to help researchers better understand the virus, its treatments and potential cures. We provided over 300 coronavirus researchers a free 90-day license to NVIDIA Parabricks so they can use GPUs to accelerate genomic analysis of the virus by 50x. We also issued a global call to action for PC gamers to contribute their idle GPU and CPU processing power to “fold” against the coronavirus. These are among a number of our initiatives underway to combat COVID-19.

Equally inspiring: despite being physically distant as a result of office closures, NVIDIANs around the world came together to help those affected by the pandemic, donating more than $10.6 million to nonprofits in 34 countries to support COVID-19 response efforts.

Accelerated computing, which we pioneered, and AI are the most powerful technology forces of our time and will be essential to progress. We have to invent things and make them sustainable. Our platform democratizes AI so that any company can use it without having to write software. And our relentless work in energy efficiency helps conserve resources and lower the cost of accelerated computing for everyone, while tackling problems ordinary computers simply can’t.

Our corporate social responsibility report highlights our efforts over the last year to improve our social and environmental performance and measure our progress. This includes:

  • Fostering inclusion
  • Minimizing human rights risk in our supply chain
  • Designing energy-efficient products
  • Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions
  • Setting a goal to get 65 percent of electricity from renewable sources by fiscal 2025
  • Giving back to our communities through local volunteer and fundraising activities

Our efforts in many of these areas were rewarded with widespread recognition:

  • Featured for the fourth year in a row on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work (No. 27), was No. 6 on its Best Workplace in Technology list
  • Placed No. 5 on Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in AI list
  • Ranked No. 1 in Agility, Innovation and Performance by MIT Management
  • Included on both Glassdoor’s Culture 500 and Employee’s Choice: Best Places to Work lists
  • Ranked No. 1 for Worker Treatment and No. 2 overall on the JUST100
  • Scored 100 percent for the fifth year in a row on Human Rights Watch’s Corporate Equality Index
  • Featured for sixth consecutive year on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index
  • Retained positions on the FTSE4Good index, Bloomberg Gender Equality Index, 100 Best Corporate Citizens, and Barron’s Top 100 Most Sustainable Companies lists

These are just the highlights. Learn more about our efforts to be a responsible corporate citizen in this year’s report.