Uber is minimizing its references to climate, too

As recently as November, Uber was touting the steps it was taking to address climate change. Now, it seems increasingly reluctant to discuss the subject. While its proxy statement last year mentioned the word “climate” 23 times, the one it released last month didn’t use the word at all.

After putting out Environmental, Social and Governance reports each year since 2021 that detailed its carbon emissions and climate-related goals, the San Francisco ride-hailing company has declined to say whether it will release a new version this year and deleted past ones from its website. And despite doing so last year, it didn’t include in either its proxy statement or the annual report it released in February any specific mention of its climate change-related goals. Company representatives did not respond to a request for comment.



Paying attention to climate change is important for corporate performance, said Danielle Fugere, the president of Berkeley-based As You Sow, a group that pushes for companies to adopt ESG-related policies both as an investor and as a representative of other investors. Companies that are less prepared for climate change could be outcompeted by more-prepared peers, she said. They might be operating less efficiently than rivals, and not prepared for the kinds of disasters that climate change can spur.

It’s important for shareholders to understand how companies are approaching and trying to mitigate such risks, Fugere said. By reducing its climate-related disclosures, “Uber is harming itself from an investor perspective,” she said. Uber’s apparent distancing from discussing climate change is similar to how it’s now approaching diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.

While the company previously touted its DEI efforts, it eliminated all mention of “diversity” from its annual report this year, dropped a promise to consider women and minority candidates for board or executive roles and eliminated a program that based its executives’ pay in part on meeting DEI targets . The moves follow President Donald Trump’s inauguration to his second term. Trump has ordered the end or diversity programs within the federal government , cancelled a longstanding requirement that federal contractors take steps to eliminate discrimination in hiring and threatened legal action against companies and organizations with programs designed to promote equity.

He’s also moved to block efforts to address or limit climate change, including when he signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at barring climate polices enacted by individual states . Trump’s moves follow a backlash on the right against ESG policies. Some Republicans and other right-wing figures have derided such policies as examples of “woke” capitalism that pushes companies to put left-wing policy goals ahead of profits.

Those pushing for diversity and climate change-related measures have argued that more diverse companies perform better than less diverse ones and climate policies make them more resilient. Noting broad support for such policies, they also argue that companies that pursue them are more likely to be viewed favorably by their investors, customers and the public at large . Uber began setting climate change-related goals in 2020 after the company's business was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among other things, it initially promised t o spend $800 million to help “hundreds of thousands” of its drivers acquire electric vehicles by this year; have all rides it offered in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom be EVs by 2030; and to have all of its rides and business operations be emissions-free by 2040.

It also said it was working with the Science Based Targets initiative, an advocacy organization that helps companies measure and curtail their emissions. Prior to 2025, Uber had released an ESG report every year since then that offered information about its progress toward its climate goals. It also updated its goals, most notably by promising that its delivery and freight services would also be emissions free by 2040.

And it began making its executives’ compensation partially contingent on meeting some of those climate goals. Additionally, the company has regularly updated a separate “ Climate Assessment and Performance Report ” on its website that details how the number of drivers in its network who have electric vehicles — and the number of rides given in such vehicles — has increased over time. Uber last updated that report in November.

"The road to zero emissions requires transparency and being accountable for progress year after year," CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says in a quote on that page that dates to at least 2022. "Uber is proud to be the first mobility platform to measure and report on emissions from customers’ real-world use of our products." Each proxy statement Uber has issued since 2020 has included a prominent section discussing its climate-related goals and the steps it was taking to meet them.

Those statements also pointedly noted that climate change — or ESG more broadly — were key areas of focus for the company’s board. A proxy statement is a document public companies release to their shareholders in advance of their annual meetings informing investors about issues relevant to their governance and matters that are up for a vote. Its latest proxy statement, Uber omitted that section on climate change or any discussion of climate at all.

Instead of “climate risk & sustainability” being an important area of interest for the board, directors are now looking at “electrification and waste reduction.” The number of restricted stock units executives receive under Uber’s latest stock grant program will be determined in part by progress toward reducing the company’s direct and indirect carbon emissions from its operations and increasing the number of electric-vehicle miles driven by drivers in its network over a three-year period. But Uber in the proxy statement didn’t spell out its emission or EV-mile targets or reconfirm its prior related commitments.

Indeed, in this year’s annual report, it raised — for the first time — concern about whether it would be able to reach its previous climate-related targets , blaming largely external factors. “When we set our 2025 climate goals, we anticipated that strong regulatory measures, alongside sustained industry-wide investment, would support our efforts,” the company said in its annual report. “While progress has been made, without more aggressive action from policymakers and the wider auto industry, we may not be able to achieve all of our 2025 goals as originally anticipated.

” Uber does still have up on its website its climate assessment report. But in a discussion on that page about its “sustainability goals,” it links to its ESG report from last year. That link is now dead.

Links found on Google to its past-year’s ESG reports now get redirected to an “about us” page. If you have a tip about tech, startups or the venture industry, contact Troy Wolverton at [email protected] or via text or Signal at 415.

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