ChargePoint taps recycling exec to build sustainability program

Key takeaways

• Mike Schwartz is the company’s first formal hire responsible for ESG issues.
• His job will include helping customers use data in their own emissions accounting.

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ChargePoint, which operates one of the world’s largest electric vehicle charging networks, named former recycling executive Mike Schwartz to be its first director of sustainability.

Schwartz reports to ChargePoint’s senior vice president of operations. He’s responsible for building the company’s corporate sustainability function, starting with conducting ChargePoint’s first materiality assessment and creating baseline measures of its current practices related to environmental, social and governance issues. 

In addition, Schwartz will be the publicly traded company’s primary contact for investors and other stakeholders, including commercial customers. In that role he will help companies collect data that they can apply toward their emissions reductions goals for transportation and logistics.   

“By building out our sustainability program and the heavily demanding reporting that will come with it, we’ll enable our corporate customers to accurately and precisely report the actual and avoided emissions from their electric fleets,” Schwartz said.

Despite policy headwinds faced by electric vehicles under President Trump’s administration, the company plans to install hundreds of ultrafast charging stations this year at strategic locations across the U.S., in collaboration with General Motors. As of July 2024, ChargePoint supported more than 1 million charging parts in Europe and North America.

Like many other EV industry companies, however, post-election economic conditions have not been kind. ChargePoint reported $417.1 million in revenue for its fiscal year ended Jan. 31, off 18 percent from $506.6 million. The company’s stock price closed at $0.51 on May 5, near its 52-week low.

Schwartz was most recently manager of ESG reporting for Republic Services, a $16 billion company that manages 74 recycling centers and 18,000 waste hauling trucks. His previous roles also include a three-and-a-half-year stint in consulting with ESG ratings firm EcoVadis.

[Connect with more than 3,500 professionals decarbonizing and future-proofing their organizations and supply chains through climate technologies at VERGE, Oct. 28-30, San Jose.]