Stanford’s Climate Week hosted Apple sustainability leader Bessma Aljarbou on Tuesday for a keynote followed by a fireside chat at the Jen-Hsun Huang Engineering Building. The conversation covered Aljarbou’s journey in corporate sustainability, how Apple integrates environmental innovation across its global operations and advice for Stanford students looking to make a meaningful impact.

Aljarbou is Apple’s Head of Strategy of Environment and Supply Chain Innovation. She drives Apple product levels, infusing greener materials, conserving finite resources and reducing the environmental impact of its supply chain.

During the keynote, Aljarbou offered a comprehensive overview of Apple’s sustainability initiatives, highlighting the company’s ongoing work and milestones toward its greener goals.

“For well over a decade, we have been working to reduce our impact on climate change, use resources more efficiently and protect those who use, make and recycle our products,” Aljarbou said. “So our progress across these three areas has led us to our current and most ambitious goal to date — which we call Apple 2030.”

Apple 2030 is a plan with the goal of being carbon neutral across its entire value chain, including its global supply chain and the energy used to power its products. To reach that goal, Apple has committed to reducing its emissions by 75%. 

Gheed El Bizri ’25 M.S. ’26, a former editor for The Daily and one of the directors of Stanford’s Climate Week, served as the student moderator for the fireside chat.

“After spending last summer at Apple working on communications around their environmental initiatives, I became deeply interested not just in what Apple is doing, but in how sustainability leadership actually works from the inside.” Bizri wrote to The Daily.

Bizri added that she wanted to put the spotlight on people who are shaping sustainability from within the world’s most influential companies, which is what led her to invite Aljarbou for a fireside chat.

Aljarbou’s path to sustainability began six years out of college where she worked in solar energy doing business development, corporate development and helping them expand into new markets. From there, she transitioned into clean technology start-ups. 

“When someone like Bessma Aljarbou shares her reasoning, her constraints, and her leadership philosophy, it humanizes climate work and makes it feel accessible and real,” Bizri wrote.

Tuesday’s talk was one of over 60 events held as part of Stanford’s second annual Climate Week, attracting more than 90 student attendees.

“I think especially with a bunch of political tail-ins and the climate ecosystem right now, it is a really volatile place,” said Esha Gupta ’26, one of the directors of events for Climate Week. “So it’s really exciting to see people come together with the openness to learn and openness to engage.”

According to Aljarbou, Apple has already reduced its carbon emissions by more than 60% since 2015 across its entire value chain. The company designs its products to use materials that are sourced in a way that’s better for people and the planet, keeping the circular supply chain as the key factor towards its decarbonization effects.

“I found the experience really rewarding, it was really amazing to hear in-person from a high level executive at Apple about how this company is leading and setting an example with their ambitious climate goals.” Milian Chen ’28 said.

“People matter. Who you work for matters,” said Aljarbou, encouraging students to start looking for good companies.

“I hope you guys are all inspired to go out and do this kind of work,” she added. “You can do it from anywhere. You have some core guiding principles of what good looks like, but believe you can do this work. And you should be doing it, from everywhere, from every type of position.”