Sustainability and Cybersecurity – Vince Digneo, Palo Alto Networks

This is Techstrong tv. Hi everyone. I'm Bonnie Schneider, bringing you in-depth sustainability insights on techstrong tv.

Today we enter the fascinating intersection of cybersecurity and sustainability. This is where Palo Alto Networks, a global cybersecurity leader, is making significant strides. Joining me now is Vince Digneo, head of sustainability, climate and clean energy.

Vince has been leading Palo Alto's efforts in addressing climate challenges through their participation in the EPAs Green Power Partnership. Vince, it's great to have you here. Thank you, Bonnie.

It's great to be here. Vince, can you start with, uh, sharing us, uh, sharing our, with our viewers a little more about your background into your professional journey and your current role at Palo Alto? Right.

It's easier to work backwards, but I joined, uh, Palo Alto Network in July of 2021. Um, and that's as their first sustainability lead. So, um, I basically helped pull everything together specifically for sustainability.

Um, prior to that, I was, uh, eight years at Adobe. I also started their sustainability program in, uh, 2013. And then prior to that I was at Hewlett Packard where I was doing the same sort of role.

So I've been in this space quite a while. That's great. So what brought you to, to, what made you make this move?

Yeah, it's a great question because, um, if I look at Palo Alto Networks, it's the leader in cybersecurity. In my mind, it's the leader in cybersecurity, and the technology behind cybersecurity is very deep. It's, you know, you hear a lot of sort of noise about other technologies, but cybersecurity, it always has to be out in front of any threat.

And so the technology to be able to do that has to be greater than anything else. That's them, greater than any threat there is. So that's really attracted to me.

I've been in tech my entire career and the notion of being in some of the deepest technology is really attractive to me. So that's really what brought me here. That makes sense.

Uh, let's talk about Palo Alto Networks collaboration with the EPAs Green Power Partnership. How does that work? Yeah, so the EPA has that Green Power Partnership.

It's been around for quite a while. It was, uh, while I was at Adobe, even at Sheer Packard. And it's essentially looking at, at companies that are making progress on deploying renewable energy to power their business.

And what I really like about it is it's had a very specific focus on true renewable energy. Not offset, not unled renewable energy certificates, but true renewable energy. This I like.

Cause I don't believe in offsetting to basically, you know, achieve a goal or to create a marketing statement. So I really like the way the EPA has managed this, um, progression and how they're encouraging and actually highlighting companies that are making true progress. So that's essentially what they, they do.

And I think what it, it, it aligns perfectly with some of the, you know, the broader federal government, uh, climate goals, um, to be able to encourage companies to be able to do this sort of thing. And then now even with the, uh, inflation reduction act, there's a incentive to be able to make this happen more completely. So I think everything's coming together in a, in a good way for these things to make real progress.

Yeah, it seems that the Inflation Reduction Act definitely has, uh, started up a lot more of these efforts as well. Um, but moving to a more social issue, I wanted to talk about climate injustice, uh, a global concern. Obviously many organizations are doing what they can to, uh, make a statement and to position themselves in a position where they can, uh, make a difference in this area.

How is Palo Alto contributing to address climate injustice? I, I'll start out by saying kind of the conclusion, which is we are doing our part, and that is essentially we recognize that, and then especially over the last few years where we have these overlapping crises where basically the poorest among us are suffering from the worst elements of climate change. Um, and, you know, essentially because they can't afford to do better, and this is something that I think reli is relying on all of us, all major corporations to come together and solve this problem.

As, as a coalition, I can't do it alone. And what I say by what I start out by saying, um, we're doing our part is that we're, we are trying to get our employees to be educated in this, to adopt decarbonization for their homes, put solar panels on their roof if they can, if they can't purchase into a community choice aggregation, where they can get renewable energy, where they live. Um, so we're trying to make our employees stewards for what we are trying to do.

And on top of that, you know, our work with other companies, with our peers is what I see as one of the most critical elements of this because we can, we can move mountains with policy changes. And I think, you know, if we're getting all of our peers and you look at the tech community, which, um, which interestingly enough, I mean we are mostly customers of ourselves or very few sort of competitors. We we're customers of each other.

And we'll, we compete on not necessarily product on talent. And so when we come together and we sort of lift each other up, talent becomes very interested in working for these companies. And as such, they're well educated in this space.

We try and leverage them to do their part in the communities where we work and live. That makes sense. Uh, sustainability is leading conversations in data and software development.

Can you outline how sustainability fits into the cybersecurity landscape? Yeah, this is interesting because I think, you know, certainly, um, more recently AI has become, you know, buzzword buzzwords. And this is something that, that companies like Palo Alto Networks has been doing for quite a while.

There's, there's elements of machine learning than just about everything, uh, that this business does. It's gonna be increasingly more important. And so the questions about what is the sustainability of that?

So of heavy computing, and if you look at traditional data centers, I mean they, they eat up a lot of electricity, a lot of energy. And on its own, if it's placed on a grid where it's coal, coal powered or even natural gas powered, it's not that sustainable. Uh, and if you look at some of the data centers, like I, I would applaud Google for a lot of the renewable energy deployment that they're doing, I directly to their data centers.

So even though you may not be able to track the electrons from the renewable generation, solar or wind or whatever to the data center, they're putting it on those grids where once they, they purchase into this large renewable energy, the data center's emissions decrease. But everybody on that grid, um, is, is getting a chance to get purchase into renewable energy themselves at a lower cost. Um, so it's cleaning up the grids as well.

And I think, you know, if you look at that just from a compute point of view, um, Peloton Networks is in all these data centers. Essentially we have the cybersecurity provider through the clouds and through our hardware in those data centers. So it's kind of a, it it's a hand in hand partnership in the same way with the compute.

It is with the sustainability, it is with the renewable energy, it isn't solving the greater sort of challenges of, um, climate injustice as well. You know, obviously one of the, uh, impacts of climate change is that we're having more frequent ex frequent extreme weather events that are more severe and longer lasting, um, that's affecting our power outages. And often there's that fear during a power outages, that's when there's going to be a cyber attack.

So I was wondering in your background with sustainability and cybersecurity, if that is a concern of how we're going to handle going forward, these, these greater, uh, potentials for power outages with more extreme weather and affecting more people and where you see cybersecurity's role in that? Yeah, this is a perfectly apropos question for right now. Cause if you look over the last few days with slight delays, bad weather, the worst air in the world in Chicago, um, yesterday, and you look at the extreme heat in the South, this isn't, this isn't a one-off sort of thing.

This is happening more and more frequently. And I think, you know, the way that I look at this, especially like where, where we can play a role is resiliency, cybersecurity is like the backbone of resiliency. And if you look at grid modernization, which is something that that is trying to get going right now, it will, it will rely on the best cybersecurity to make sure that exactly what you were saying is not gonna happen if these threats aren't gonna break through.

Um, just because there's some sort of other either climate or, um, you know, infrastructure breakdown. So I, I think that if you, if we look, if we're looking forward and we should be, uh, and you look at the infrastructure across the us it should be connected and it should be resilient and it should be protected. And that's where we kind of Makes sense.

Uh, Palo Alto Networks was recently recognized, um, and on the C D P 2022 climate A list. Can you explain what that is and the significance of it? Yeah, it's, um, it, it, at first it sounds like a bunch of jargon, but basically what it is, it's, it's reporting us reporting on our sustainability, so our greenhouse gas emissions, um, what we're doing, our goals to try and reduce them.

Um, and I look at two elements that are fundamental to that science-based targets, which we've set. And they were recently verified. So the science-based targets basically is, uh, a set of directions, uh, for you to set goals for your company.

And it was originally coming out of cop, uh, I think it was 26th out of, uh, Paris, the Paris Climate Accord. And, um, basically they work hand in hand with, uh, C D P, which is the Reporting Outlet, world Resources Institute, world Wildlife Fund, so that they're looking at it from a scientific point of view. And this is really the fundamentals of everything that I do.

We, we need to be data driven, we need to use scientific methodology to basically on the data that set goals and then, and then take actions forward. So that's fundamental to what I do. And CDP itself is where you put all this information every year, it's lengthy, it's a big process.

We're right in the middle of it right now, and you turn it into CDP and they basically go through it and tell you how you, how you did. And as it turns out, last year, we've made the A list and that was the first time for Palo Alto Networks, um, which is kind of amazing given that, you know, I've been here two years and we went from, uh, what I walked in on, which was a c uh, a grade of C to A. So we've really stepped up our game.

And CDP is one of those outlets that basically acknowledges that. And I think that that's great. But more importantly, I think is the transparency of reporting.

We post our CDP results online, that's public, uh, take a look at it, we need to be transparent about these sort of things. And, and I think if I was to talk to any of my peers about this, it's, that's probably the best outcome of reporting to cdp, that you get a, you know, a pretty comprehensive assessment of how you're doing and you're being transparent about it to share with anybody who needs to, and I look to investors, I look to customers, I look to suppliers, I look to our employees taking that information and saying, okay, I think this company is doing pretty well. That's great.

You know, keep going. And, uh, so I think that should be one of the main outcomes of this is the transparency and reporting and clarity of it. And what role do you see IT and software development teams playing in advancing sustainability?

A lot of our viewers, tech strong TV work in IT and in software, and they may be watching this and wondering what can they do in their own organizations. So, uh, how, where do you see that that fits in? Yeah, it's, it's a great question because, you know, I'll go back to the energy intensity of, of IT equipment and that sort of thing.

And I love the way that Amory Levin from the Rocky Mountain Institute frames this is, you can squeeze so much energy efficiency into, into your business that ultimately when you start powering it with renewable electricity, you're taking the minimum, not being max, but you're, you're, you're basically focusing on energy efficiency. You can solve a lot of problems. That's where I would start with this story.

Basically, if you're running IT equipment outta your business, are you doing it efficiently? Can it be improved? Can you actually even, you know, for example, like some data centers using AI to figure out like when peak peak consumption is and trying to adjust for that sort of thing.

And even through deploying renewable energy at those times when, um, certainly at the times when the IT load is at it's highest. So start with energy efficiency, decarbonize, whatever, you can try and get rid of natural gas, try and, you know, back of diesel generation, try and figure something else out. There are options now, use storage, that sort of thing.

And then even what you have left, deploy renewable energy to, to power that. So I think that there's an entire sort of thread of it, um, improvement that can be done just with that sort of thing. And then if you look at the IT equipment and how that's progressing, um, sort of the typical Moore's law thing, which is each year, you know, it improves by 7%, something like that.

Um, how can you go beyond that? In other words, how, how can you use your IT equipment in a way that there's less waste? There's, there's less energy consumption.

It's only being used if when it needs be, you know, if it's 24 7 thing like cybersecurity gotta be on all the time. So that's when you really should be looking at renewable energy. I think there's a lot of things, uh, the IT professionals can be looking at in order to streamline their, their businesses, reduce cost, elevate their, their brand through sustainability.

Um, so there's a lot there. I agree. Um, looking at the bigger picture though, uh, since you've been working in this field for a while, what would you say are the emerging trends and developments at the intersection of cybersecurity and sustainability that you've seen and that you see emerging into the rest of 2023 and beyond?

Yeah, this is interesting because this question is coming up more and more about, and, and I spoke briefly about, um, ai, that intersection as well. But I think some of the things that we need to be looking at are what are we actually doing with programming? And I think, you know, IT professionals would say code optimization and sustainability.

That's when I call it being coding. But I think that that's a really important element to look at. Let's say for example, you have some really big software program, million lines of code.

Um, it's been out there for a long time, seems to work really great, but perhaps there's 5% of it that could be artifacts, you know, old, old lines of code that could be either removed or, or streamlined, optimized. Uh, once you focus on that, if you're, if you're reducing 5% of a million line code, uh, routine, that's 5% of the energy that you're reducing. And if I look at it from the cybersecurity perspective, you know, the, are, are there any latencies with having too much code that, that are artifacts or redundant or whatever else?

So in other words, can you speed up the process of, of what you're doing? Um, simply by reducing code lines, you can reduce latency, energy consumption and improve the performance of your software, in our case cybersecurity. And finally, can you give us a sneak peek into Palo Alto Network's upcoming sustainability initiatives?

What are you working on now? It's good timing for that because our science-based targets got, uh, verified I think at the beginning of this month, which is a big step. That means now we gotta act on them.

And if I look at one thing that I think is gonna be the most important piece, we have three science-based targets. One of them is three reduced scope one and scope two emission like everybody else does. Um, and really the way to do that, and for all of my peers, let's see what we can do to deploy renewable energy, that'll solve that problem.

The second one is we intend to get 65% of our, our, our suppliers by spend to set science-based targets. Again, working together, set the targets, set renewable energy goals, we'll all work together on this sort of thing. The third is, um, reducing our use of sold products.

So basically our customers emissions from them using our products by 40%. Um, and this is emissions over growth profits. So it's an intensity goal, um, approved by the Science Based Targets initiative.

But what that means is that use of sold product is about 75% of our total footprint. It's massive. Um, it makes the US look pretty small.

And what we need to do is to help our customers get on renewable energy so that they're running our hardware or even, you know, our clouded software on renewable energy, their emissions go down. That's part of it. The other part is to the data centers that we're in.

If they're, if they're using our product, um, either delivering them to customers or using them themselves, if they're doing it with renewable electricity, those then can start going down. So once again, it comes back to the entire value chain, setting ambitious goals and deploying renewable electricity and then working together to try and achieve, achieve it to a hundred percent. Net zero gets a lot of noise these days.

Um, and the way that we define it is 90% elimination of your emissions, not offsetting, not sort of substitution, not passing, elimination. In other words, if we can shrink that together and get to 90% by definition, I think it's World Resources Institute and the Clean Energy Buyers Alliance says if you do that by 90 cents, 90%, then you can mitigate the last 10%. That's what I'm looking for.

2030 is our objective for Scope one and Scope 2 20 40 for one, two, and three. That's gonna be really hard because right now, air travel, that sort of thing are our, how do we do that? You know, and you can't them, you gotta get rid of it.

Yeah. I think we need to innovate our way out of this sort of thing. We've got a little time to do it, but too much.

Well, that makes sense and it's great to hear such ambitious goals from you. Thank you so much for your time and insights today. Vince Digneo, head of Sustainability Climate and Clean Energy at Palo Alto Networks.

It was a pleasure having you on, Vince. It was a pleasure to be here, Bonnie. Thank you.

Great. Well stay with us on Techstrong tv. We'll have a lot more coming up.

I.