Dive Brief:
- Netflix Chief Sustainability Officer Emma Stewart is leaving the company after serving in the role for nearly six years, the executive announced in a LinkedIn post last month.
- Stewart was hired as Netflix’s first CSO in 2020 and has since helped the streaming giant cut its carbon emissions, expand its sustainability team, facilitate film productions in adopting clean energy and transportation and launch a solar and storage system. She announced her departure on July 21.
- Stewart said she will be joining the leadership team at Climate Spring, an organization that focuses on changing how climate change is depicted on film, television and popular culture. It also provides early-stage development financing, training and editorial consulting to support screenwriters and producers dedicated to climate storytelling.
Dive Insight:
During Stewart’s tenure, Netflix set 2030 targets to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 46% and cut the emissions intensity of its scope 3 emissions by 55%, against a 2019 baseline. The company said in its latest sustainability report that its total target-based scope 3 emissions increased around 6% compared to the previous year — a jump it attributed to increased purchased goods and services made to support its “growing business.”
The subscription-based streaming service — which also functions as a production company and studio — released 597 new original shows and films across the globe in 2025, up from 589 in 2024. These included the fifth and final season of the Duffer Brothers’ “Stranger Things” series, Guillermo del Toro's film adaptation of “Frankenstein,” and documentary “The New Yorker at 100,” which highlights the magazine’s’ history and newsroom.
However, Netflix said in the report that it was still on track to meet the 2030 scope 3 emissions intensity reduction target and said its emissions intensity for the category decreased 14% year over year. The company plans to match its remaining emissions from 2022 onwards through investments in climate solutions like retail carbon-free electricity energy attribute certificates and carbon credits, according to the report.
Decarbonization progress aside, Stewart has also advised on hundreds of film and television scripts and helped Netflix grow its “Our World, Our Stories” collection — a curated streaming category that features over 200 films, TV shows and documentaries that focus on the planet, environment and climate science.
“The flywheel of sustainability across the entertainment sector is now spinning at pace, and with audiences demanding ever more, it’s the right time for me to double-down on the work with the highest impact: sustainability and storytelling on screen,” Stewart said in her post.
In addition to joining Climate Spring, Stewart said she will also serve as a senior advisor to a few industry groups. She said she will advise the Sustainable Entertainment Alliance, a consortium of leading studios, streamers, and industry stakeholders dedicated to advancing sustainability; Futerra, a sustainable development-focused agency and product incubator; and Talking Climate Collaborative, which promotes effective climate communication.
“Emma Stewart has been a force for sustainability in entertainment, and I've had the privilege of watching that up close for the last five years,” Netflix Global Sustainability Creative Lead Chandra Simon Ritvo said in a July 27 LinkedIn post, following Stewart’s announcement. “She built a department from the ground up and turned sustainability at Netflix into a rigorous, embedded, and built-to-last discipline.”
Netflix has not publicly shared any details regarding potential plans to hire a new CSO, following Stewart’s departure.
