2020 NVIDIA CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REPORT
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2020 NVIDIA CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY REPORT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
01 EXECUTIVE
LETTERS
03 Letter from our CEO
06 SOCIAL
28 PRIORITY: Supply Chain
Management and Product Quality
35 PRIORITY: Employee Health
05 Letter from our EVP of Operations
and Safety
36 PRIORITY: Talent Strategy
02 PRIORITIES 39 PRIORITY: Diversity and Inclusion
43 Employee Engagement
07 Setting Priorities 46 Product Safety
09 Mapping Priorities to the UN 46 Materials Availability
Sustainable Development Goals
47 Societal Impacts of AI
49 Philanthropy and Volunteerism
03 STAKEHOLDER
ENGAGEMENT
07 ENVIRONMENTAL
51 Management System
04 GOVERNANCE
52 Greenhouse Gas Emissions and
Climate Change
15 Board Governance 54 Energy, Water, Waste
16 Compliance 56 Facilities Management
17 Ethical Conduct 57 Environmental Impact of Products
18 Transparency 61 Packaging, Transport, and Logistics
05 ECONOMIC
19 PRIORITY: Innovation
20 PRIORITY: Business Model
08 GOALS AND
PERFORMANCE
62 FY20 Goals and Performance
and Competitiveness 64 FY21 Goals
21 PRIORITY: Cybersecurity 65 Economic Performance
22 PRIORITY: Trade Issues 66 Diversity Performance
23 Business Continuity Management 68 Workforce Performance
24 Customer Relations 69 Environmental Performance
25 Brand and Reputation 72 Employee Health and Safety
26 Public Policy Engagement Performance
72 GRI Index
81 SASB Index
85 TCFD Index
ABOUT THIS REPORT
2
NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT
01 EXECUTIVE LETTERS
“It is not enough to just be a well-intended, inclusive employer, and provide equal opportunities for blacks. We must purposefully and systematically
create opportunities for black employees. Starting with me, we will elevate the urgency of increasing the black population at every level of our
company and do our part to fight racism.”
– Jensen Huang, CEO
LETTER FROM OUR CEO Corporations must also act. NVIDIA must act. It is not
enough to just be a well-intended, inclusive employer,
CEO Jensen Huang’s Opening Comments at 2020 Annual and provide equal opportunities for blacks. We must
Meeting of Stockholders. purposefully and systematically create opportunities
for black employees. Starting with me, we will elevate
I want to take the opportunity to address the heartbreaking the urgency of increasing the black population at every
events of the past weeks in America as we confront painful level of our company and do our part to fight racism.
racial inequities and prejudice that exist to this day.
We’re fighting a two-front war. The world is still
We are deeply sorry for the pain, despair, and injustice confronting COVID-19, one of the greatest challenges in
that black communities continue to endure. We stand human history. In just a few months, a pathogen 1,000th
with them. Racism must end. the width of a human hair has circled the globe and
shaken society to its core.
These tragic events force us to confront the fact that
the world is not equal. It is not enough to not be a racist We owe our thanks to those on the front lines of this
—we must be anti-racists. Exercise our citizenship to crisis: first responders, healthcare workers, and
push for legislative reforms to end police brutality service providers who inspire us every day with their
and racial injustice. Stand with social movements that bravery and selflessness.
protest peacefully for real change and reform. NVIDIA
stands with them.
3
NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Executive Letters
Billions around the world are Harnessing NVIDIA’s accelerated
sheltering at home, doing their computing to save lives is the
part to slow the spread of the virus. perfect example of our company’s
Many are unable to make a living or purpose—to tackle problems
are struggling to do their jobs while that ordinary computers cannot.
caring for their families. At NVIDIA, NVIDIA stands at the intersection
we closed our nearly 60 offices of two powerful technology forces
around the world. We continue to —accelerated computing and AI.
pay contractors their full wages The computers we build are time
despite reduced staffing needs in machines that let scientists see the
our facilities. We gave employees future today—rocket ships that
raises early to put a little more take researchers to the furthest
money in their hands. Paying it frontiers of science. With NVIDIA,
forward, our employees have scientists explore our universe
donated more than $10 million to from the quantum to the galactic
help their communities. scale and seek deeper understanding
of humanity from the science of life
NVIDIA is aiming our technology, to the mystery of intelligence.
our superpower, at COVID-19. When
every second counts and much is Our company is advancing some
at stake, scientists gear up with of the most important technologies
NVIDIA to jump to light speed. They of our time. Our inventions help
are using NVIDIA-accelerated researchers tackle incredible
computing to sequence and image scientific, industrial, and social
the virus, search for a vaccine or challenges. Our company’s purpose
treatment, and build AI robots to has never been more vital.
disinfect hospitals.
COVID-19 will not be the last virus,
but it can be the last pandemic.
We must start now to prepare for
future outbreaks. Working with the
international scientific community,
we will develop an end-to-end Jensen Huang
computational defense system to CEO and Co-Founder, NVIDIA
detect threats earlier, contain the
spread, speed vaccine development,
and continuously test and monitor.
This pandemic will demand
long-term structural changes to
healthcare, transportation, retail,
and manufacturing – the world’s
largest industries. Our expertise
in computing and AI will help
industries rebuild.
4
NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Executive Letters
LETTER FROM We’re also on the front lines of
enabling medical researchers to
a distributed computing project
that uses volunteers’ computer
OUR EVP OF turbocharge their coronavirus processing for disease research
that simulates protein folding,
OPERATIONS treatment and research projects.
A short list includes: computational drug design, and
other types of molecular dynamics.
Here at NVIDIA, we’re in the > We joined the COVID-19 High The response has broken records
business of inventing revolutionary Performance Computing as hundreds of thousands of new
technologies that improve lives and Consortium, a collaboration users join the effort.
address global challenges. with the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy,
As I write this, the COVID-19 the U.S. Department of Energy,
several technology companies,
pandemic is challenging us to look
and national labs. The effort will
Our CSR efforts
for new ways to manage life and
work while protecting our families. help researchers everywhere
better understand the virus, its
build on our long
NVIDIA was early to join the global
effort to slow the spread of the
treatments, and potential cures. track record of
virus. We began closing our offices > We donated $430,000 to
Wuhan University for treatment
working hard
in the Asia-Pacific region at the
end of January, and by March, we and research. Zhongnan every day to be
had closed our offices around the Hospital physicians are using
world. We urged our employees
GPU-accelerated AI software a responsible
to quickly detect patients
to make their health and their
who may have COVID-19. The corporate citizen
families’ health their top priority, software has been deployed
and began providing resources to 34 hospitals in China. by integrating
to employees to work remotely.
For the few facilities engaged in > We’re providing any coronavirus sound social and
researcher a free 90-day license
essential tasks, we’re following the
to Parabricks, a version of the environmental
highest standard of protection for
Genome Analysis Toolkit that uses
our people and recognizing their GPUs to accelerate analysis by a principles
efforts with bonuses. I also want to
acknowledge the incredible efforts
factor of 50.
and practices
> We issued a global call to action
of our colleagues here at NVIDIA.
for PC gamers to contribute their throughout our
Despite many challenges, they have
idle GPU and CPU processing
barely broken stride during one of
power to “fold” against the
enterprise.
the busiest periods in our history. coronavirus. Folding@home is
5
NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Executive Letters
These efforts build on our long > Designing power-efficient products
track record of working hard every with a strong social impact.
day to be a responsible corporate > Increasing employee diversity and
citizen by integrating sound social fostering inclusion, especially
and environmental principles and with members of the Black
practices throughout our enterprise. community
Recent events have underscored the
> Minimizing risk in our supply chain
importance of companies playing
and upholding the highest quality
a role in creating a more just society. standards.
In response, we’re redoubling our
efforts to listen and learn > Reducing our energy footprint to
address climate change.
from Black NVIDIANs, create
opportunities within our company > Evaluating emerging risks and
for them, and build a network opportunities related to growing
of Black talent. This includes our brand.
creating a focused recruiting > Setting goals and monitoring our
team, deepening relationships progress toward them.
with Historically Black Colleges
and Universities, and expanding We’ve made significant progress
opportunities for Black and other against our CSR and business
underrepresented developers objectives over the past few years.
throughout NVIDIA’s ecosystem. For example, our AI healthcare
business has grown significantly, and
It all begins by providing a great we’ve rolled out generous parental
place to work that fosters an benefits for our employees.
atmosphere of creativity and In 2019, the Nominating and
innovation. This has been repeatedly Corporate Governance Committee
recognized by Fortune, Glassdoor, of our Board of Directors began
and other outlets that feature us on to oversee CSR processes and
their best places to work lists. we again received top industry
rankings for CSR, innovation,
Our design teams build the most
gender equality, and other key
energy-efficient technologies
areas. We continue to attract and
possible using environmental
retain top talent.
practices designed to mitigate
climate change and promote In partnership with our stakeholders,
sustainability. We invest in and give we increase our relevance,
back to our local communities and responsiveness, and resilience
global society at large. Through each year. During this uniquely
our conscientious business challenging time, we look forward to
practices, we work hard to protect transforming more bold new ideas
the human rights of all workers in into tangible products that solve
our supply chain. big problems and uplift the human
spirit.
Our CSR priorities revolve around
these key business areas: business Sincerely,
model and competitiveness,
cybersecurity, diversity and inclusion,
employee health and safety,
innovation, supply chain and product
quality, talent management Debora Shoquist
strategy, and trade issues. Strategies Executive Vice President of
for achieving our business objectives Operations, NVIDIA
include:
6
NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT
02 PRIORITIES
SETTING PRIORITIES A strategic focus on these areas enables us to build
a more agile, future-oriented company. We annually
We update our issue analysis each year to ensure that our implement several initiatives related to our priorities,
priorities continue to align with stakeholder expectations, which provide varying levels of return according to
market trends, and business risks and opportunities. the business goals assigned to the topic.
For FY20, we reconfirmed the six priority issues we We determine our priorities in three stages:
identified in FY19. In FY21, we added as priority issues > Throughout the year, the CSR Committee uses several
Employee Health and Safety, due to the COVID-19 methods to collect input from internal and external
pandemic, and Diversity and Inclusion, as a recognition stakeholders regarding their priorities. Each issue is
of our need to increase hiring from Black and other assigned a quantitative score based on this input.
underrepresented communities. These issues are > Members of the Nominating and Corporate Governance
essential to our continued business success and Committee of our Board of Directors plus several
reflect the topics of highest concern to NVIDIA and executive staff members review these issues, which
our stakeholders: stakeholders have individually ranked according to
their values. This information is evaluated in the context
> Competitiveness/Business Model
of our changing business, internal enterprise risk
> Cybersecurity discussions, and reports filed with the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission.
> Diversity and Inclusion
> The CSR Committee positions the issues on a matrix
> Employee Health and Safety according to stakeholder and executive preferences,
> Innovation which visually highlights the most important issues to
external stakeholders and executives.
> Supply Chain Management/Product Quality
> Talent Strategy
> Trade Issues
7
NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Priorities
NVIDIA FY20/FY21 CSR PRIORITIES
Innovation
Supply Chain Management/Product Quality
HIGH
GHG Emissions and Climate Change
Competitive/Business Model
Human Rights Employee Health and Safety Talent Strategy
Water Energy Diversity and Inclusion
Trade Issues Cybersecurity
Waste Materials Availability
STAKEHOLDER CONCERN
Envioronmental Impact of Products Business Continuity
Community Engagement Customer Relations
Societal Impactof AI
Transparency
Public Policy Engagement Ethical Conduct
Corporate Governance
Employee Engagement
Supplier Environmental Management
Brand and Reputation
Transport and Logistics
Facilities Management
Product Safety
Recycling and E-waste
Compliance
LOW
LOW HIGH
IMPACT ON COMPANY
Findings from our FY20 priorities assessment resulted in the following adjustments compared to the prior year:
> In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we increased the ranking > We removed Anti-Corruption as a standalone issue and
of Employee Health and Safety to that of a priority issue. incorporated it into Ethical Conduct.
> To place a focus on increasing hiring from Black and other > We increased the priority ranking of Brand and Reputation,
underrepresented communities, we elevated Diversity and Climate Change, and Societal Impacts of AI.
Inclusion to priority issue status.
> Stakeholders increased the priority ranking of
> We made three definition changes: 1) added “pay equity” Materials Availability.
to Diversity and Inclusion; 2) added “managing for
production disruptions” under Supply Chain Management
and Product Quality; and 3) added “immigration concerns”
to Talent Strategy.
Our priorities are addressed in subsequent sections of this report. We define each issue, discuss why it’s important to NVIDIA,
how we manage it, and disclose any relevant performance data.
8
NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Priorities
MAPPING PRIORITIES TO THE UN SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS
PRIORITY: INNOVATION
SUSTAINABLE NVIDIA ACTION/INITIATIVE
DEVELOPMENT
GOAL
AI, Accelerated Computing Drive Shift to Personalized Healthcare: The genomics community
continues to extract new insights from DNA. Recent breakthroughs include single-cell sequencing
to understand mutations at a cellular level, and liquid biopsies that detect and monitor cancer
using blood for circulating DNA. But genomic analysis has traditionally been a computational
bottleneck in the sequencing pipeline—one that can be surmounted using GPU acceleration. To
deliver a roadmap of continuing GPU acceleration for key genomic analysis pipelines, the team
at Parabricks—an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based developer of GPU software for genomics—is
joining NVIDIA’s healthcare team.
NVIDIA Collaborates with UCSF on AI Center for Radiology: Integrating AI into the radiology
workflow can help medical institutions keep pace with an ever-growing stream of medical imaging
data. The number of images acquired during common studies like MRI and CT scans has swelled
in recent years from tens of images each to hundreds or thousands. It’s a challenge compounded
by a rise in the number of patients being imaged. University of California, San Francisco, one of
the world’s top medical schools for research, has unveiled a center to develop AI tools for clinical
radiology—using the NVIDIA Clara healthcare toolkit and the powerful NVIDIA DGX-2 AI system.
AI and Machine Learning Advance Academic Research: Universities and research institutes
around the world are important drivers of discovery and innovation, and professors and
researchers are looking for answers to the biggest questions facing each academic discipline.
With powerful NVIDIA GPU computing resources, academics can use AI, machine learning, and
data science to more swiftly advance knowledge in fields such as astrophysics and astronomy,
biology, earth and climate science, humanities, medicine, and physics.
NVIDIA Selected to Contribute to Industry Safety Group: NVIDIA works with key international
organizations that are formulating standards and regulations for automated vehicles. NVIDIA
is also heading one of the European Association of Automotive Suppliers expert groups on
highly connected automated vehicles. We’re also working with ASAM, a standardization
organization based in Germany to update the language and testing standards for simulation
testing. Through the collaboration we’re defining an open standard for creating simulation
scenarios, describing road topology representation, sensor models, world models, as well
as the criteria and key performance indices for the industry to advance validation methods
for autonomous vehicle deployment.
9
NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Priorities
PRIORITY: TALENT STRATEGY
SUSTAINABLE NVIDIA ACTION/INITIATIVE
DEVELOPMENT
GOAL
Developer Diversity and Inclusion at NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference: NVIDIA has strived
to make its annual developer conference, GTC, a more inclusive event with annual networking
events for women. At GTC19, we expanded our offerings for women with a daylong, invite-only
event featuring guest speakers and hands-on AI training at several of our regional conferences.
At GTC DC in November, we worked to increase the number of attendees from Black and Latinx
communities by partnering with universities and professional groups to host daylong training
and a networking reception. The number of women attending our November event increased 60
percent from the year prior.
NVIDIA Showcases Diversity of Talent at NeurIPS: At NeurIPS, the world’s premier event focused
on neural networks, NVIDIA sponsored all four diversity workshops, including Women in Machine
Learning, Black in AI, LatinX in AI and Queer in AI.
PRIORITY: SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
SUSTAINABLE NVIDIA ACTION/INITIATIVE
DEVELOPMENT
GOAL
AI in the Sky Aids Feet on the Ground Spotting Human Rights Violations: At NVIDIA’s GTC19,
Human Rights Watch discussed its new tools for monitoring human rights violations, including
remote sensing via satellite and drone data, analytics from public datasets, and investigations
using videos and photos posted to social media. The nonprofit is partnering on this work with global
AI software provider Element AI which leverages NVIDIA GPUs.
10NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT
03 STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
Engaging our diverse stakeholders on important issues and transparently respond to their concerns. Although
is integral to how we do business. We define stakeholders we do not have a formal stakeholder advisory panel for
as entities or individuals who can be affected by NVIDIA CSR issues, at least one member of the CSR committee
and whose actions can affect the company, and we engage evaluates each stakeholder request to determine what
with them in numerous ways on a variety of topics type of response is appropriate.
throughout the year. We rely on our annual priority issue
assessment to help us understand the issues that matter
most to them. This allows us to focus our engagement
FY20 INTERACTIONS:
STAKEHOLDER FY20 INTERACTIONS
Board of Directors We presented our CSR strategy, programs, and risks to the Nominating and Corporate
Governance Committee.
We briefed the full Board of Directors on the final priority issues assessment after incorporating
the committee’s feedback.
We presented a diversity and inclusion overview to the Nominating and Corporate Governance
Committee and the full Board of Directors received a brief on the Societal Impacts of AI.
Attendance at each committee meeting where CSR was discussed averaged 90 percent.
11NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Stakeholder Engagement
FY20 Interactions (cont.)
STAKEHOLDER FY20 INTERACTIONS
Communities We continued our engagement with the Santa Clara, Calif., and Bangalore, India, county
departments on the development of new corporate campuses.
We engaged close to 4,300 youth through activities designed to help them excel in basic math
skills and gain inspiration through tours of our technology center and career roundtables with
NVIDIA engineers. These activities give youth access to innovative AI technology through
hands-on activities.
See the NVIDIA Foundation annual report for FY20 activities in our communities.
Customers/ We provide customers with self-assessment questionnaires and participate in relevant working
Developers groups through our “Full” category membership in the Responsible Business Alliance.
We received several requests per week from customers regarding product and social compliance,
legal, and regulatory issues.
Eight customers requested our participation in CDP.
We conducted an analysis of customer contracts to confirm that our priorities align with their
requirements.
We worked directly with customers to report our supplier status related to conflict minerals.
We hosted developer conferences in seven countries, reaching nearly 21,000 people. We offered
several hundred seats at these conferences for women and members of the Black and Latinx
communities to increase diversity within the developer ecosystem.
Employees and Our last global employee survey yielded a 95 percent response rate. We are moving in FY21 to
Prospective a pulse survey format.
Employees We launched an updated Careers and new Inclusion site on nvidia.com.
We held ongoing discussions between our CEO and resource groups (African-Americans,
Hispanics, women, veterans, and early career employees) on topics such as bias in AI.
We reached 19,000 underrepresented candidates at university and professional recruiting events.
We launched our first internal career fair for employees interested in exploring new career
opportunities within NVIDIA.
See Diversity and Inclusion in the Social section for more FY20 interactions with
prospective employees.
12NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Stakeholder Engagement
FY20 Interactions (cont.)
STAKEHOLDER FY20 INTERACTIONS
Government/Public We deepened our relationship with the United States House and Senate AI Caucus, the
Policy Engagement Congressional Tech Staff Association, and key officials in the legislative and executive branches.
We engaged with the CTA, CompTIA, ESA, and SIA to provide feedback on their policy advocacy
and development.
We provided comments to and worked with NIST before their release of AI standards guidance.
We brought subject matter experts from NVIDIA to educate policy advisors in the House
and Senate.
We led a monthly AI educational series for technology policy advisors in the House and Senate.
We led AI sessions for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the No. 1 tech
think tank in the world according to the University of Pennsylvania.
We participated in convening the Congressional Tech Staff Association for networking and
educational events.
We hosted several federal agencies at our fifth annual GPU Technology Conference in
Washington, D.C. (GTC DC).
We supported Congressional programs to build tech opportunities for historically Black colleges
and universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), including the HBCU Caucus
Innovation House and educational scholarships for Black and Latinx communities at GTC DC.
We convened policymakers from Congress, the Administration, and the nonprofit community
for policy panels at GTC DC. This included bringing together key Congressional staff and Policy
Advisors in DHS to discuss AI in cybersecurity, and conversations with key OSTP and NIST
officials.
Nongovernmental We scored 100 percent in the Human Rights Watch Corporate Equality Index for a fifth year.
Organizations We engaged with the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, the Global Child Forum, Know the
Chain benchmark, Children’s Rights Benchmark, and the World Benchmarking Alliance Digital
Inclusion Benchmark.
Research/Ratings We were featured for a sixth consecutive year as a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability
Organizations Index. We remained on the FTSE4Good index, the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index, the 100
Best Corporate Citizens list, Barron’s Top 100 Most Sustainable Companies, and Forbes’ JUST
100 ranking. We debuted on Equileap’s Gender Equality Index.
We were featured for the fourth year on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list at No. 27.
Overall, we interacted with 11 research/ratings organizations: Blendoor, Corporate Knights,
FTSE4Good, ISS, MSCI, Oekom, RepTrak, RobecoSAM, Sustainalytics, Trucost, and Vigeo Eiris.
13NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Stakeholder Engagement
FY20 Interactions (cont.)
STAKEHOLDER FY20 INTERACTIONS
Shareholders We participated in the CDP for the 11th year and achieved an A- on our climate change response
and a B- on our water security response.
We presented CSR issues to shareholders holding 19 percent in aggregate of our common
stock during the company’s annual outreach meetings. Topics covered included: human capital
management, societal impacts of AI, diversity and inclusion at the company and Board level,
and Board involvement in CSR.
Suppliers We conducted an ongoing evaluation of our suppliers using RBA analysis tools.
We sent an average of 23 requests to suppliers each week.
See Supply Chain Management, FY20 RBA Member Compliance to see the full range
of activities we conducted in FY20, including 100 percent completion of risk assessment
and self-assessment for all applicable suppliers, receipt of 10 VAP audits from high-spend
suppliers, and reviewing audits of 45 percent of our strategic suppliers.
14NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT
04 GOVERNANCE
GOVERNANCE
SNAPSHOT
11
of our 12 Board members
are independent
DECLASSIFIED
BOARD STRUCTURE
and all Board members
serve one-year terms
INDEPENDENT
DIRECTORS
which gives the Board flexibility
in determining what is best for
the company
BOARD bylaws form the framework for
governance at NVIDIA.
MAJORITY VOTE
GOVERNANCE As of the end of FY20, we had 12
practices have been
adopted voluntarily
WHAT IT COVERS: directors on our Board, and 11 of
Board composition, independence them (92 percent) were independent.
The sole exception is Jensen Huang, SUCCESSION
of committees and leadership,
who is also our founder, president, PLANNING
anti-takeover measures, Board
and chief executive officer. Our for the position of Chief
and named executive officer
corporate governance policies permit Executive Officer is in place
compensation
the Board to designate either a
NVIDIA, including its Board of chairperson of the Board or a lead
ANNUAL
Directors, is committed to operating independent director, which gives
PERFORMANCE
under sound principles of corporate the Board flexibility in determining
EVALUATION
governance. Our corporate what is best for the company. At this
time, NVIDIA has a lead director, of Board and Board committees
governance structure ensures
robust Board and management Mark Perry, rather than a chairperson
of the Board. In FY20, all directors
accountability and transparency to PUBLIC
attended at least 75 percent
our shareholders, and promotes DISCLOSURE OF
good decision-making now and for of meetings of the Board and
director nomination process,
the future. To ensure that long-term committees on which they served.
process access, and
interests are being served, our Board approach to Board diversity
Director compensation is reviewed
oversees management performance.
by the Board’s Compensation
Our overarching code of conduct,
Committee in consultation with a
financial team code of conduct, 18%
compensation consultant after an
corporate governance policies, of our independent
evaluation of peer group practices.
Board committee charters, Board members are female
Compensation is ultimately approved
certificate of incorporation, and
by our Board. We design our named
15NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Governance
executive officer (NEO) compensation
program to pay for performance
COMPLIANCE We employ social and environmental
compliance engineers in our
and to attract, motivate, and retain WHAT IT COVERS: worldwide operations organization.
a high-caliber executive team. NEO These employees manage issues
Compliance with all applicable
pay is heavily weighted toward such as human rights, end-of-life
policies, laws, and regulations,
performance-based variable cash recycling, hazardous substances,
including fines/penalties
and long-term equity awards and conflict minerals in our supply
that are earned only if we achieve chain. Our global legal and human
We view compliance as the activities
pre-established corporate resources teams receive regular
we undertake and the systems we
financial metrics. Our executive guidance from legal counsel and
establish and maintain to address
compensation program requires industry associations on issues
environmental and social issues
executives to maintain meaningful related to bribery, ethics, and
by adhering to laws and the
stock ownership, and a clawback hiring and labor practices. The
requirements of governments and
policy is in place for performance- sales operations team oversees
our customers. Compliance is the
based compensation. our customers’ environmental,
baseline that establishes the
social, and ethics requirements
minimum standards to which we
and works cross-functionally
hold ourselves accountable. We are
CSR Governance committed to comporting ourselves
to ensure the compliance of
all related teams. In all these
The Nominating and Corporate in accordance with the highest ethical
functions, we have established
Governance Committee (NCGC) standards regardless of whether there
mechanisms to maintain active
of our Board is responsible for is a legal requirement to do so.
compliance, assess our performance,
reviewing and discussing with
Governmental compliance is a and anticipate impending
management our practices with
critical component of our business requirements and regulations.
respect to environmental, social,
and corporate governance. Our strategy because it involves our
head of CSR reviews stakeholder license to operate in markets where
inputs and our annual priority we want to manufacture and sell
issues analysis with the NCGC each our products, manage offices, and
year. Our priority issues matrix hire employees. We comply with
includes issues that are of utmost all mandatory governmental
importance to our stakeholders, regulations that apply to us in the
such as climate change, human communities in which we do business.
rights, and diversity and inclusion. We meet contractual obligations
by also complying with our
customers’ requirements.
16NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Governance
ETHICAL
CONDUCT
WHAT IT COVERS:
Policies, systems, processes, and
performance relating to ethical
operation, anti-corruption, and
anti-bribery, including ethics hotline
and whistleblower protection
We strive to achieve the highest
standards of ethical conduct in all
our business dealings. Our codes
of conduct and policies guide how
we conduct ourselves in our
professional relationships toward
our customers, partners, competitors,
vendors, government regulators,
shareholders, fellow employees,
and the community at large. Our
longstanding code of conduct organization to host the hotline, we practicing transparency, and
outlines our core values and ensure that our employees feel maintaining accurate business
establishes the expectations we comfortable with anonymous records. To protect our company’s
have about how we conduct reporting. We have a strict “no reputation, we have several policies
business. This code applies to all retaliation” policy regarding good related to these issues, and we
our executive officers, directors, faith reports of activities that run expect employees to comply with
and employees, and we expect all counter to our ethical expectations. them. We routinely test travel and
third parties we do business with, entertainment claims in attempt
All NVIDIA employees receive ethics to identify inappropriate payments
including consultants, contractors,
and sexual harassment training. They in defiance of our code of conduct.
and other service providers, to
also complete training on our code of Ninety-seven percent of employees
act in a manner consistent with it.
conduct, which covers environmental who have frequent contact with
In addition, we have established
and social responsibility issues, customers, partners, and suppliers
a financial code of conduct that
upon hire and then every two years (such as those in sales, finance,
applies to our executive staf f,
thereafter. In FY20 we rolled out a and procurement) have completed
directors, and members of our
new code of conduct training globally, additional global anti-bribery and
finance, accounting, tax, and
and as of April 2020, 97 percent of anti-corruption training.
treasury departments.
employees had completed this training.
Our commitment to promoting a
Our longstanding commitment to
culture of integrity means that we
doing business with integrity means
aim to foster an environment where
avoiding all forms of corruption. Our
everyone is expected to act ethically
anti-corruption practices involve the
and where people can voice concerns
steps that we and our employees
without fear of retaliation. Anyone
take to ethically conduct business
can confidentially and anonymously
and preserve our ability to work
lodge a complaint about any
with customers and governments.
accounting, internal control,
We specifically emphasize making
auditing, code of conduct, conflict
ethical decisions, never engaging in
of interest, or other matter of
bribery or insider trading, avoiding
concern using a corporate hotline,
conflicts of interest, approaching
which is hosted by an independent
competition ethically, complying
third party. By using an external
with international trade regulations,
17NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Governance
TRANSPARENCY from customers and share data
directly with shareholders. We
WHAT IT COVERS: have also increased our external Since 2012,
positioning by providing data about
Corporate responsibility
our performance to environmental, we’ve engaged
transparency and disclosure (policies,
level of disclosure, performance),
social, and governance reporting Trucost to assure
firms, such as Bloomberg, CDP, ISS,
external assurance, and direct
JUST Companies, MSCI, RobecoSAM, that our GHG
stakeholder engagement
and Sustainalytics.
emissions data
We promote a culture at NVIDIA Since FY18, NVIDIA’s internal audit
that values integrity and prioritizes team has reviewed elements of our
meets the AA1000
transparency across our entire CSR program to ensure that the standard.
business. We maintain high levels company has adequate governance
of transparency to build trust in a structures. Our internal audit team
way that supports our business benchmarked our CSR report
success. In this report, we discuss against comparable companies
transparency as it relates to and assessed program ownership,
environmental, social, and monitoring, and communications.
governance issues. We report in Metrics the team has reviewed for
accordance with the Global accuracy include community giving,
Reporting Initiative Standards at diversity and inclusion, economic,
the Core level. Since 2012, we’ve environmental, and workforce.
engaged Trucost to assure that
our GHG emissions data meets the
AA1000 standard.
We actively work in our priority issue
areas to address business risks and
improve performance. We publish
dashboards of key workforce,
diversity, environmental, and supply
chain metrics to give stakeholders
insight into our performance.
Throughout the year, we respond
to several requests for information
18NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT
05 ECONOMIC
MIT Culture 500
NVIDIA ranked No. 1 in Agility, Innovation, and Performance in MIT Management Review and Glassdoor’s Culture 500.
PRIORITY: a unified underlying architecture, leveraging our GPUs
INNOVATION and CUDA as the fundamental building blocks. The
programmable nature of our architecture allows us to
support several multibillion-dollar end markets with the
WHAT IT COVERS:
same underlying technology by using a variety of software
Innovation of new products, technology, and operational
stacks developed either internally or by third-party
practices; enabling distributed innovation through
developers and partners. We specialize in markets in
support of developers who use NVIDIA products;
which GPU-based visual computing and accelerated
intellectual property protection; research and development computing platforms can provide tremendous throughput
for applications.
The drive to innovate is embedded in NVIDIA’s DNA. Our
invention of the GPU defined modern computer graphics Through FY20, our reportable segments were GPU and
and established us as the leader in visual computing. Tegra Processor. Starting with the first quarter of FY21,
With our subsequent introduction of the CUDA programming our reportable segments have changed to “Graphics”
model, we opened the parallel processing capabilities of and “Compute & Networking”. From our proprietary
the GPU for general purpose computing. We have since processors, we have created specialized platforms
extended our research and development emphasis to that address four large markets where our expertise is
the revolutionary field of AI. critical: gaming, professional visualization, data center,
and automotive.
About 26 percent of our revenue in FY20 ($2.83 billion)
funded R&D activities. In total, we have invested more Our Graphics segment includes GeForce GPUs for
than $20 billion in these efforts since our inception, yielding gaming and PCs, the GeForce NOW game streaming
inventions that are essential to modern computing. service and related infrastructure, and solutions for
gaming platforms; Quadro GPUs for enterprise design;
NVIDIA has a platform strategy that brings together
GRID software for cloud-based visual and virtual
hardware, system software, programmable algorithms,
computing; and automotive platforms for infotainment
libraries, systems, and services to create unique value
systems. Our Compute & Networking segment
for the markets we serve. While the requirements of
includes Data Center platforms and systems for AI,
these end markets are diverse, we address them with
19NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Economic
Most Admired Companies
NVIDIA ranked first in the semiconductor
category on Fortune magazine’s list of the
Most Admired Companies.
HPC, and accelerated computing; PRIORITY: We also must meet customer
DRIVE for autonomous vehicles;
and Jetson for robotics and other BUSINESS safety and compliance standards,
which are subject to change.
embedded platforms. MODEL AND Additionally, we continue to make
We continuously assess whether COMPETITIVE- considerable investments in
research and development, which
and where to seek formal protection
for particular innovations and
NESS may not produce significant revenue
for several years, if at all. If our
technologies, based on such WHAT IT COVERS: investments are unsuccessful and
factors as: Market and global competitiveness, we fail to develop new products,
> The location in which our products including NVIDIA’s business model, services and technologies, or if
are manufactured; market leadership, and financial we focus on technologies that
success; issues that impact NVIDIA’s do not become widely adopted,
> Our strategic technology or product
fair access to the market, including: our business, revenue, financial
directions in different countries;
anti-competitive practices and condition and results of operations
> The degree to which intellectual global unrest could be adversely affected.
property laws exist and are
meaningfully enforced in various We cannot assure that our strategic
Our success depends on our ability
jurisdictions; and direction will result in innovative
to identify emerging industry changes
> The commercial significance of products and technologies that
and to develop new (or enhance our
our operations and our competitors’ provide value to our customers,
existing) products, services, and
operations in particular countries partners and, ultimately, our
technologies that meet the evolving
and regions. shareholders. If we fail to anticipate
needs of these markets. Such
the changing needs of our target
activities may require considerable
markets and emerging technology
technical, financial, compliance,
trends, or if we do not appropriately
sales and marketing investments.
adapt that strategy as market
We devote significant resources to conditions evolve, in a timely
the development of technologies and manner to exploit potential market
business offerings in markets where opportunities, our business will
we have a limited operating history, be harmed.
such as the automotive and data
Our response to market
center markets, which presents
competitiveness is outlined in the
additional risks to our business. We
Business Strategies section of our
must also continue to develop the
FY20 10-K, pp. 7-12.
infrastructure needed to scale our
business in these areas, including
customer service and support.
20NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Economic
PRIORITY: leaders, reviews metrics and
CYBERSECURITY evaluates emerging threats. We also
address cybersecurity scenarios in In FY20,
our resilience planning, document
WHAT IT COVERS:
them through business continuity
we reviewed
Technologies, processes, and
practices designed to protect
plans, and follow the processes all strategic
outlined in frameworks such as the
networks, computers, programs,
ISO 27000 for Information Security suppliers for
and data from attack, damage, Standards. Against the backdrop of
or unauthorized access; frequent changes and new knowledge,
cybersecurity
product safeguards we continually evaluate and adapt and intellectual
our security measures.
We define cybersecurity as measures property
designed to protect our IT assets We have defined a set of actions
from unauthorized access or attack. for teams to initiate, which will alignment
Included are NVIDIA’s products and help us to determine the type and
the privacy of our customers’ and rigorousness of our response in
to NVIDIA
employees’ data. As we become the event of a cybersecurity issue. standards.
aware of more frequent high-profile The team also leverages external
security breaches in business and parties, such as computer security
government, and as new dangers firms and those with risk management
arise, we remain committed to and governance expertise. NVIDIA’s
respecting privacy and implementing Board of Directors receives regular
appropriate protections for any presentations on cybersecurity.
personal information we collect or
that our users share with us. We continuously hone our
cybersecurity and data privacy
Our efforts are managed by a global training to respond to new
team of cybersecurity, IT, engineering, requirements in global privacy laws.
and legal experts. A cybersecurity
committee, which meets monthly
and is driven by executive-level
21NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Economic
PRIORITY: > International economic and If our sales outside of the United
TRADE ISSUES
political conditions, including as States are delayed or canceled
a result of the United Kingdom’s because of any of the stated factors,
decision to withdraw from the our revenue may decrease.
WHAT IT COVERS: European Union, and other political
Ability to move and sell goods tensions between countries in The global economy is constantly
internationally, including export which we do business; changing, and we are prepared to
controls, import duties, quotas, > Unexpected changes in, or change with it. To that end, we use
and other trade barriers and impositions of, legislative or foreign currency forward contracts
restrictions; regulatory, pricing, regulatory requirements, including to mitigate the impact of foreign
and supply chain impacts changes in tax laws; currency exchange rate movements
associated with changing political > Differing legal standards with on our operating expenses. And
and trade environment; global respect to protection of intellectual we continuously evaluate the
recruitment activities and hiring property and employment practices; location of our manufacturing and
for specific skillsets sourcing suppliers.
> Local business and cultural
factors that differ from our normal For an overview of risks related
Our semiconductor wafers are standards and practices, including
produced and packaged by third to global recruitment, see our
business practices that we are
parties located outside of the United FY20 10-K, p. 16.
prohibited from engaging in by
States. Revenue from sales outside the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
of the United States accounted for and other anti-corruption laws
92 percent of total revenue for and regulations;
FY20, and 87 percent for each of > Exporting or importing issues
fiscal years 2019 and 2018. And as related to export or import
of January 26, 2020, approximately restrictions, including deemed
46 percent of our employees were export restrictions, tariffs,
located outside of the United States. quotas, and other trade barriers
and restrictions;
The global nature of our business
> Disruptions of capital and
subjects us to a number of risks
trading markets and currency
and uncertainties, which could have fluctuations; and
a material adverse effect on our
business, financial condition, and > Increased costs due to imposition
results of operations, including: of climate change regulations,
such as carbon taxes, fuel or
energy taxes, and pollution limits.
22NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Economic
BUSINESS Operations. Each function has a plan
to identify and address potential risks.
NVIDIA BCM PROGRAM
CONTINUITY These efforts are supported by robust
MANAGEMENT infrastructure, systems, policies, IDENTIFY
and procedures and are designed to RESPOND
WHAT IT COVERS: RECOVER
mitigate risk and protect the safety
NVIDIA’s ability to operate without and trust of our employees and
interruption; robustness of business customers when unexpected events
continuity systems, infrastructure, such as cyberattack, business
policies, and procedures disruption, or natural disaster occur. STEERING
COMMITTEE
Business continuity management We believe that BCM is critical to
(BCM) focuses on protecting our minimizing financial and reputational
core values. Our philosophy of BCM impacts. By anticipating the
is to identify realistic threats and likelihood of severe events, we can
their potential impact to our core mitigate these risks and ensure BCM TEAM
values and to design a formal that the company does not endure
framework for responding. We believe unnecessary damages.
that resilience can be achieved by CORE
embedding redundancy and diversity VALUES
into our response framework. A BCM
steering committee of four executives
is supported by several business
leaders across the following functions:
Corporate Communications,
Cybersecurity, Facilities, Finance,
Global Security, Human Resources,
Information Technology, and
23NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Economic
CUSTOMER
RELATIONS
WHAT IT COVERS:
Customer satisfaction; customer
relationship management,
including privacy
We view our commitment to positive
customer relations in terms of the
role we play as a responsible supplier
to original equipment manufacturers,
our reseller partners, and our
customers, which includes both
businesses and consumers.
We support customers through a GPU TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE
comprehensive support site and GTC is a global conference series providing training, insights, and direct access to experts on the
several NVIDIA-hosted product hottest topics in computing today. Thousands of researchers and professionals attend to learn the
forums and communities. Our latest on the most dynamic topics related to high-performance computing, AI, and deep learning.
customer service team tracks
interactions with consumers as
gathered from our customer forums Our customers include some of
they occur and shares bi-weekly
to give our research and development the world’s largest electronics,
satisfaction reports internally. We
organizations a steady stream of consumer brand, and automotive
measure customer satisfaction in
feedback about what is working and companies. Consequently, we have
several ways and use these metrics
what improvements our customers integrated throughout our global
to help promote experiences that
want. NVIDIA protects customer data operations the standards outlined in
delight our customers. Measurements
and honors their choices in compliance the Responsible Business Alliance
include customer satisfaction rate,
with GDPR. More information can be (RBA) Code of Conduct covering
percentage of support incidents filed,
found here about our privacy policy. labor, environment, health and
closed incident survey response
safety, ethics, and management
rate, and referral rate. We robustly support developers systems. We use these standards
who want to create innovative as our management approach for
Our customer support organization
applications with our products. We our supply chain.
is on the front line of communications
give developers diverse resources,
with our national and international
including courses in parallel Inquiries from our original equipment
partners, working with their
programming; enhancement tools manufacturer customers have
engineering teams as they test
for debugging, performance, and increased in line with our focus
NVIDIA products in their systems
testing; access to highly skilled on supplier responsibility and
and devices. For partners that embed
engineers and specialists who provide environmental sustainability.
our hardware in their products,
custom services and co-design Requests for information have
quality is monitored through ISO
industry-specific applications; predominantly related to conflict
9000 certification.
and financial support to university minerals, environmental compliance,
Our support organization has taken researchers in various scientific quality, cybersecurity, consumer
steps to dramatically reduce the disciplines. Our GPU Technology satisfaction, and ethics.
time it takes for our software team Conference advances global
to incorporate customer feedback, awareness of accelerated computing,
enabling technicians to respond computer graphics, high-performance
quickly and increase customer computing, AI, and deep learning.
satisfaction. We also use data
24NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Economic
To manage these inquiries and
requests, we employ quarterly
business reviews with key customers
and partner with them on various
initiatives through the RBA. Certain
customers assign points on their
scorecards to environmental, social,
and governance performance.
Customers who are RBA members
monitor our performance through
tools provided by that organization,
such as self-assessment
questionnaires, validated audit
processes, and tracking tools for
carbon, water, and waste.
BRAND AND
REPUTATION AWARDS AND ACCOLADES
We track closely our inclusion in several prominent business publications for
WHAT IT COVERS: innovation and leadership, notably:
Semiconductor and technology
> Barron’s > Fortune
industry perception and reputation
World’s Best CEOs 100 Best Places to Work
and how that influences NVIDIA’s
business activities; brand > Fast Company > Harvard Business Review
reputation and market positioning; Most Innovative Companies Best Performing CEOs
in the World
integrity of brand and customer > Fortune
perception; CSR performance as Future 50 Sustainability
an indicator of reputation All Stars
As outlined in our 10-K, several
factors can impact our brand and
reputation. Every day, we build a This annual CSR report forms the The Stakeholders section lists all
better business by acting with foundation of our CSR communications of the ratings/rankings requests we
integrity in all we do. Through our and is used by all stakeholders to received in FY20. We have seen a
CSR efforts and reporting, we’ve find the information they need. It dramatic increase in the number of
built trust and credibility with our is a resource for several ratings, requests to participate in these lists
stakeholders as we disclose the rankings, and indexes we participate in the last few years as CSR has
metrics they expect. We’re recognized in each year. become a central element of business
as a great place to work by current strategies throughout the world.
These third-party endorsements
and prospective employees, as a
help boost our reputation and brand
respected supplier to customers,
as a strong corporate citizen. Notable
and as a successful long-term
recognitions we have received
investment by shareholders.
include: the Dow Jones Sustainability
Index, CDP, 100 Best Corporate
Citizens, Human Rights Watch’s
Corporate Equality Index, and the
JUST100.
25NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Economic
LEADING THINKERS IN AI CONVERGE ON DC
Leading thinkers from the White House Office of Science and Technology, National Institute of Standards and Technology, NASA Langley Research
Center, and more discussed the future of AI at GTC DC in 2019. Speakers included: Lynne E. Parker, assistant director for AI with OST; Suzette Kent, CIO
of OMB; and Elham Tabassi, chief of staff in the IT Laboratory at NIST.
PUBLIC POLICY AI Research and
Standards
ENGAGEMENT
In FY20, as part of a panel focused
WHAT IT COVERS: on the current state of AI standards
Transparency of political through the National Institute of
contributions and lobbying Standards and Technology, we
efforts, including participation provided input to NIST and other
through industry organizations; government officials. We also
engagement with policy makers provided comments to the RFI
on the same topic. We participated
Public policy engagement enables in the development and advocacy
us to affect government action of the Semiconductor Industry
and provide thought leadership Association’s policy plan, which
to global governments on recommended substantial
issues that directly affect our investment in the U.S. workforce
business. It is also a platform for and federal R&D programs.
educating policymakers through
demonstrations of our technology, As part of GTC DC, we brought
amplifying our work in targeted together a leading group of
areas, and collaborating with policymakers and analysts to
various organizations on issues discuss the U.S. national strategy
of shared interest. We focus on AI, with a specific focus on
our public policy activities in AI, standards, investments, and potential
specifically to promote investment regulatory actions.
in core AI research, support
workforce development around AI,
and provide educational resources
to technology policy advisors.
26NVIDIA 2020 CSR REPORT Economic
ACCELERATING AI ADOPTION
Workforce Development In early April 2020, we joined the NVIDIA leaders use our popular blog to
promote causes of company interest, such
COVID-19 High-Performance
as the government’s adoption of AI.
We serve as the co-chair of CompTIA’s Computing Consortium, a
workforce subcommittee, where we collaboration with the White House
support their policy development Office of Science and Technology
around skills-based training, Policy, the U.S. Department of
apprenticeships, and certifications. Energy, several technology companies,
We connected our educational and national labs. The effort will
scholarships for AI training for help researchers everywhere
Black and Latinx in AI with the better understand COVID-19, its
Congressional Black Caucus treatments, and potential cures.
and the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus to provide guidance to their We do not have a political action
workforce development programs. committee. In FY20, we did not
perform lobbying activity or expend
resources that required registration
AI Education under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.
We provide subject matter experts
to brief Congressional policy advisors
on AI technology, offering insights
on AI research and development.
Those advisors include staff at the
House Science Committee, the House
Energy and Commerce Committee,
and the Senate Commerce Committee.
We enhance our reach in public
policy through participation in
organizations such as the Consumer
Technology Association, Entertainment
Software Association, the Information
Technology Industry Foundation,
and the Semiconductor Industry
Association, among others.
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