Equity and Impact 
Report 2021

Table Of Contents
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Table of Contents	
2
Introduction
Introduction................................................................. 3
Spotify in Numbers..................................................... 6
Our Business Model.................................................... 7
A Message from Our CEO	�������������������������������������� 10 
Our E&I Progress........................................................  11
Climate Action 
Climate Action...........................................................  13
Getting to Net Zero...................................................  15
Our Environmental Impact	��������������������������������������17
Audio for Good.........................................................  22
Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging..........................  23
Within Spotify...........................................................  26
On Spotify	����������������������������������������������������������������� 40
Beyond Spotify	���������������������������������������������������������46
Mental Health
Mental Health	����������������������������������������������������������� 49
Heart & Soul	��������������������������������������������������������������� 51
Mental Health Moments	���������������������������������������� 53
All the Feels	��������������������������������������������������������������� 55
Tools & Resources	��������������������������������������������������� 56
Civic & Community Engagement
Civic & Community Engagement	������������������������� 57
COVID-19 Vaccine Support & Awareness	��������� 59
Voter Engagement.................................................... 62
Philanthropic Giving................................................  63
Responsible Business
Responsible Business	���������������������������������������������� 67
Governance...............................................................  69
This is How We Roll	��������������������������������������������������� 71
Creating a Safe, Secure & 
Transparent Platform............................................... 73
Reporting Principles & Data
About This Report..................................................... 77
Methodology for Calculating 
GHG Emissions........................................................... 79
Auditor’s Report.......................................................  80

At Spotify, we’re driven by our enduring mission to unlock the 
potential of human creativity by giving a million creators the 
opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity 
to enjoy and be inspired by it. As history has shown time and 
again, creativity – art, music and human expression – flourishes 
when society does. These things go hand in hand. 
That’s why a healthy Earth and an empowered 
population are absolutely crucial to our mission 
and central to our values at Spotify. We’re 
committed to driving equity across every layer of 
our business – from our employees to our platform 
and, to the extent we can, to our broader industry. 
We strive to make Spotify a place where all are 
welcome, where individuality is celebrated and 
where all voices are heard. These values – and, 
importantly, the actions behind them – speak to 
the type of company we want to be.
As our company presence and influence grows,  
so too does our responsibility – we believe we 
owe it to our listeners, creators and employees 
to strive for a better future together. We stand 
proudly committed to advancing environmental 
and social change – and playing a positive role  
in the global ecosystem.
So, without further ado, welcome to Spotify’s fifth 
annual Equity & Impact Report, referring to work 
we performed in the financial year 2021. This 
year’s report focuses on four priority areas where 
we have invested most heavily in the past year – 
Climate Action; Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging; 
Mental Health; and Civic Engagement. Read on 
to learn more about our response to some of  
today’s most pressing challenges and some of  
the greatest opportunities for our organization  
to drive positive impact.  
Introduction

Climate Action 
The consequences of the climate crisis are growing 
by the day, and we all must work to be part of 
the solution. One of the most urgent areas here is 
working to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, 
which is now an ongoing and integrated part of  
our everyday business. Using Spotify’s unique 
global reach, we strive to create positive changes 
in our own business and inspire people around the 
world to take action on the climate crisis.
Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging 
At Spotify, we believe this world is big enough 
for all of our voices. That’s why we’re working to 
shape a society and culture, centered on justice 
and equity, that is welcoming of people of all 
backgrounds and identities. With the power of 
our platform and brand, we hope to build trust, 
community and real change. We don’t simply want 
to reflect the world around us; we want to be a  
part of building its future.
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Introduction	
6
Spotify in Numbers
Mental Health
We’re only as good as we’re feeling – and mental 
wellness is at the core of our overall well-being. We 
aim to raise awareness and remove stigma, provide 
proactive self-care and professional support and 
normalize the conversation surrounding mental 
health for our employees and listeners. We believe 
that sharing heals – by talking about mental health 
and being open about our experiences, we can 
create a culture where no one suffers in silence.
Civic & Community Engagement
As a global brand, we know that our actions and 
decisions impact the world, our industry and our 
listeners every single day. It’s a responsibility 
we don’t take lightly. We believe that civic and 
community engagement are critical to enabling 
healthy communities around the world. From 
encouraging our listeners to vote in local elections, 
to making it easier to access accurate information 
about the COVID-19 vaccines, to encouraging 
our band members to donate to causes they care 
about, we’re empowering the communities we 
touch to grow and thrive.
Number of subscribers:
180 Million 
Number of podcast titles: 
3.6 Million 
Spotify is available in:
184 Markets
Figures are as of December 31, 2021 unless otherwise noted
Number of Monthly Active Users:
406 Million 
Equity and Impact 
Report 2021
Number of tracks:
82 Million

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Introduction	
8
Our Business Model
​Spotify exists to connect creators with fans and empower 
them to live off their art. We aim to do this by providing the 
industry’s best resources, features and monetization tools to help 
creators boost revenue, reach more fans and connect with more 
advertisers. And we aim to give our listeners the best experience 
– simple, seamless and personalized.
Our mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity by 
giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art 
and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by 
these creators.
Connecting creators and fans is part of both the 
foundation and future of our business. Spotify works 
to deliver these connections across both the ad 
supported and Premium subscription packages for 
individuals, families and couples living under one 
roof; and through standalone app experiences for 
different listening needs, such as Spotify for Kids. 
We’ve also been hyper-focused on building tools 
and services, like Anchor, that provide opportunities 
for creators to grow their fanbases.
Throughout it all, our 7,146 band members are 
driven by our five core values. Always and in 
everything we do, we strive to be:
How We Create Value
Spotify remains the largest contributor to global 
music industry revenues of all music streaming 
services. It’s our job to help connect creators and 
fans and inspire one another in safe, positive and 
engaging ways.
Benefits for Creators
We’ve been hyper-focused on building tools and 
services that provide opportunities for creators to 
grow their fanbases. We’re building the pathways 
to success for the streaming era, investing 
extensively in this space. 
As of December 31, 2021, there are now over  
11 million creators on Spotify, and our listeners  
are engaging with an increasingly diverse set  
of artists. 
Benefits for Fans
Our goal is to make it easy for fans to access their 
favorite audio content anytime, anywhere,  while  
also giving them a personalized experience that 
makes it easier to discover new content and  
connect with creators.
A Platform for Everyone
Every day, our teams work on finding innovative 
ways to make Spotify more inclusive and accessible 
for all. From amplifying the voices of historically 
marginalized and underrepresented creators to 
introducing new features on our platform that 
address the needs of disabled listeners, we strive 
to cultivate Spotify as a hub where anyone and 
everyone can explore, listen and be heard. 
Benefits
for Creators
Benefits
for Fans
Improved
Business
Increased
Engagement
Enable more
Creativity
Unique
Entertainment
Engagement
Spotify
Privacy
With technology evolving around us every day, 
data and user privacy is, and always will be, a key 
priority at Spotify. We are committed to providing 
a platform that is not only for everyone, but 
also protects listeners’ privacy and security and 
empowers them to exercise their privacy rights.
Playful
Innovative
Sincere
Passionate
Collaborative

We have long said we want Spotify to entertain, inspire and 
educate. To be a place for the world’s voices to gather, and 
to be heard. A place for allowing conversation and sparking 
thought, and doing so in a way that balances creative 
expression with the safety of our listeners.  
 
We are focused on delivering an engaging experience for all 
who use our platform and to protect the planet we all call 
home. Some of these efforts are detailed here, in our 2021 
Equity & Impact Report. 
So, what do equity and impact mean to Spotify? Equity is the 
fair treatment of all Spotifiers, listeners and creators. When 
it comes to impact, it’s about showing up for people and the 
planet – using our platform to drive meaningful change where 
it matters most. 
As always, our work here is not done. But it is certainly 
underway. We look forward to moving forward, toward our 
goals, and achieving our mission of 50 million creators and a 
billion listeners and fans, together. 
Daniel Ek, Chief Executive Officer
A Message from Our CEO
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Introduction	
10

In 2021, Spotify brought together three critical groups – Diversity, 
Inclusion & Belonging (DIB), Sustainability and Social Impact –  
as one central team under the Equity & Impact (E&I) name. 
Our mission is to drive awareness, advocacy and action on the most pressing global issues to create 
positive impact in communities, the audio industry and the planet. We believe in building an 
equitable future for our band members while uplifting the communities in which we do business, driving 
sustainability and building a global philanthropic effort that supports our values. We expect all of us to 
take responsibility for our impact on others, building productive relationships across teams, disciplines and 
backgrounds where all are heard and feel respected. 
As a global company, we are uniquely positioned to influence real change, both within Spotify and in 
the world at large. Our platform reaches hundreds of millions of fans each day, and we recognize the 
opportunity – and responsibility – that gives us. As we work to reduce our own climate impact and focus 
on our social impact, we have the power to influence outcomes in a meaningful way. At Spotify, we work to 
bring together technology and art to solve the challenges confronting our workforce, society and planet.
In 2021, we made great strides toward creating a more equitable business for our band members, users, 
creators and partners. We got there by tapping into an approach that is central to equity and social 
impact – leading with empathy. That means making a real effort to understand one another – to recognize 
each other thoroughly and thoughtfully. When leading with empathy, we create spaces for the most 
marginalized to feel seen, safe and celebrated. Progress for one group does not need to come at the 
expense of others. 
Our E&I progress in the past year includes the following notable efforts:
Our E&I Progress
•	
Implemented a new Inclusive Hiring Strategy
in the U.S. as well as the 5-Star Strategy,
formulated by our Racial Equity Coalition,
which you can read more about on page 30
of this report.
•	
Committed to achieve net zero GHG emissions
within the next decade.
•	
Donated to over 3,000 organizations through
our philanthropic giving programs.
•	
Donated to Global Citizen’s Vax Live event,
to both the World Health Organization and
COVAX to increase vaccine equity.
•	
Expanded the Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
team to encompass DIB Strategy Specialists, 
Early Career Pipeline, Heart & Soul (our Mental 
Health program), Inclusive Hiring and Social 
Media & Digital Storytelling teams.
•	
Advocated to make Juneteenth an official
Federal holiday in the U.S.
•	
Launched Cultural Moments campaigns on
our platform to celebrate the milestones and
contributions of various underrepresented
groups, including LGBTQIA+ Pride Month,
Black History Month and International
Women’s Day.
Elizabeth Nieto, Global Head Equity & Impact
We have an intentional focus on the needs of the most historically marginalized communities to foster 
a sense of belonging for every individual. We will continue to expand our relationships with strategic 
partners globally and involve band members and creators from around the world to support our work, 
building a deeper sense of community and belonging for employees from all backgrounds. 
We believe in the power of our people, their stories and the impact we have as a platform to imagine 
and deliver a sustainable future that is welcoming for all people. 
Thank you for tuning into Spotify’s Equity & Impact efforts.
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Introduction	
12
Elizabeth Nieto

Climate Action Hub
Click to listen as you read
The climate crisis is one of the most pressing issues of our time. 
It’s something that affects us all, no matter where you are or what 
you listen to. We must all work to be part of the solution so that 
our people and planet can continue to thrive for generations  
to come.
We recognize our unique opportunity to raise 
awareness of the climate crisis through the global 
reach of our platform, and we’re dedicated to 
amplifying reliable climate change content that 
drives education and inspires action. We’re also 
working to be part of the solution by lowering 
our own greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 
methodically reviewing our environmental 
impact and using our findings to set tangible 
GHG emissions reduction goals. To facilitate this 
process, we have attempted to map identifiable 
GHG emissions connected to our business. For 
further information, see the Environmental section 
below. From there, we’re identifying where we 
need to focus our efforts to make an impactful, 
long-lasting difference for our planet.  
In 2021, we made progress toward this aspiration, 
most notably through an ambitious pledge to 
reach net zero GHG emissions within the next 
decade. We recognize that collaboration is 
critical to addressing the climate crisis, so we’ve 
continued our progress toward truly “green” 
streaming by expanding our work with suppliers 
who align with our sustainability goals and 
share our devotion to reducing our collective 
impact through disruptive innovation. We’ve also 
amplified more voices and created easy access  
to climate change information through our 
Climate Action hub and dedicated Climate  
Action Studio. 
Climate Action

Reducing GHG emissions can’t be something 
we do on the side – it has to be integrated 
into our everyday business. Urgent climate 
action needs to happen right now. To turn 
up our ambition to address the climate crisis, 
we have pledged to reach net zero GHG 
emissions within the next decade. 
We’re just at the beginning of our journey, but our end goal – and 
our roadmap – are set in sight. In 2021, we joined the Exponential 
Roadmap Initiative, a network of scientists, innovative companies, 
and NGOs committed to exponentially reducing GHG emissions, 
educating and inspiring others to do the same, and engaging with 
the wider community to push the climate action agenda forward. 
We also joined the United Nations’ Race To Zero, the largest ever 
alliance committed to achieving net zero GHG emissions by 2050 
at the latest.
Inspired by the Exponential Roadmap’s 1.5°C Business Playbook, 
we focus on the four pillars that serve as our guide for our own 
path to net zero. These pillars identify the focuses that need to  
be prioritized within our climate strategy.
Our Journey to Net Zero
The first pillar focuses on the company’s activities 
to reduce our own GHG emissions; these will 
include reduction efforts for energy and electricity 
consumption in our workplaces. The second pillar 
focuses on the company’s activities to reduce our 
value chain’s GHG emissions generated from office 
infrastructure and hardware, cloud storage and 
usage, and end-use streaming. The third pillar will 
“
Spotify strives to be part 
of the solution and take 
our responsibility to act 
urgently and decisively 
on climate change, 
both in terms of getting 
our own operations to 
net zero emissions as 
well as inspiring and 
supporting climate 
engagement and action 
among our creators  
and listeners.”
Gustav Söderström 
Spotify’s Chief R&D Officer and 
Executive Climate Champion
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Climate Action	
16
Four-pillar climate strategy
address the alignment of the company’s vision, 
strategy, value proposition, products, and services 
with the net zero pathway. The fourth pillar focuses 
on efforts to influence climate action in the society. 
It contributes to the net zero ambition beyond our 
own business. We’re currently working on finalizing 
our climate strategy and will share more updates 
on this later on.
Inspiring our band members
Following our pledge to reach net zero GHG emissions, we created  
a Climate Champions Network. Our Climate Champions 
representatives across all of our business areas will inspire our band 
members and promote action around our climate commitments. 
They’re the drivers for sustainable change within their respective 
domains to embed our sustainability efforts across Spotify. 
Pillar 1
Reduce our own 
GHG emissions 
Pillar 2
Reduce our value 
chain’s GHG emissions
Pillar 3
Integrate climate in 
business strategy
Pillar 4
Influence climate 
action in society
GHG

As Spotify grows, so does our responsibility to track, share and reduce 
how our business affects the planet. By understanding our sources for 
GHG emissions and environmental impact, we can set goals, prioritize 
actions and work effectively to reduce emissions in order to reach our 
net zero target. 
As a streaming service, our impact on the climate isn’t always obvious, but ultimately, our business is grounded 
in the physical world, in our office spaces, our suppliers’ data centers and our listeners’ devices.
Our Environmental Impact
Making workplaces better 
Reducing our GHG emissions is our priority, and 
we’ve taken actions to reduce our environmental 
impact in the workplace. We have offices in 45 
cities around the globe, and we’re integrating 
sustainability into how we design, remodel and run 
our offices and are constantly looking for ways to 
operate more efficiently and sustainably.  
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Climate Action	
18
We’ve measured our Scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG 
emissions from our value chain following the 
guidance from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. 
Our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions represent less 
than 1% of our total GHG emissions and come 
from direct fuel combustion such as natural gas 
from our owned offices and purchased electricity. 
Even though our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 
only account for a small part of our total GHG 
emissions, we’re keeping close tabs on them as 
they are within our direct control. The residual 
GHG emissions from our operations in 2021 that 
couldn’t be eliminated will be counterbalanced 
by investing in third-party carbon removal and 
avoidance projects during 2022. 
Scope 3 represents 99% of our total GHG emissions 
and stem from marketing, end use, goods and 
services, cloud, and capital goods. While we 
do not have direct control over the majority of 
GHG emissions in the Scope 3 category, we’re 
already putting efforts to address our Scope 3 
GHG emissions. In 2021, we continued to work 
together with our partners to improve cloud 
efficiency, establish stronger procurement around 
environmental aspects for our suppliers, and 
investigate the emissions from audio streaming. 
Spotify’s total GHG emissions in 2021 were 353,054 
metric tons of CO2e. Compared to last year, our total 
GHG emissions increased. We attribute the increase 
to factors including enhancements to our GHG 
emissions calculations methodology, growth of our 
business to new markets, and increased employees 
and monthly active users. Despite our GHG 
emissions increase, in 2021, our GHG emissions 
intensity per employee and per monthly active user 
has remained stable. At Spotify, it is our priority to 
find the best solutions to lower our environmental 
impact, and we will keep addressing them in our net 
zero commitment as well as exploring additional 
opportunities to accelerate the reductions. 
Spotify’s 2021 GHG Emissions
<1%
Scope 1
<1%
Scope 2
99%
Scope 3
Natural gas
<1%
Scope 1
Electricity
<1% 
Scope 2
Offices
14% 
Scope 3
Goods and Services
19%
Marketing
28%
End Use
23% 
Travel
<1%
Cloud Use
13% 
Employees
3% 
Spotify’s Total  
GHG Emissions 
353,054 
tons of CO2e
Spotify’s 2021  
GHG Emissions 
Breakdown* 
*For Spotify’s year over year GHG emissions breakdown, see page 79
To lower GHG emissions related to electricity 
consumption in this area, we’re striving to run 
our offices on 100% renewable electricity, and in 
markets where this isn’t possible, purchase Energy 
Attribute Certificates to cover our consumption. 
Enhancing our methodology 
In 2021, we enhanced our GHG emissions calculations methodology and 
recalculated our historic emissions data for 2019 and 2020. We added  
more granularity in our business travel and cloud usage data points. We  
also included app downloads to our end use data calculation. More on  
our updated methodology can be found on page 79. 
Our GHG emissions intensity per employee 
and monthly active user decreased by 
around 25% from 2019 to 2020, and it has 
remained stable from 2020 to 2021.
CO2

Our Environmental Impact
Smarter spaces for Spotifiers
With the wellbeing of our employees in mind, we’re already working hard to use our spaces in the most 
sustainable, flexible ways. We aim to provide an excellent experience and consistent quality in all our 
workplaces with these three things in mind.
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Climate Action	
20
While our water impact is limited to what we 
use in our offices, we know that every drop 
counts. That’s why we’re investigating ways to 
optimize our current use by exploring efficient 
water fixtures, making thoughtful site selections, 
evaluating landscaping requiring alignment to 
local ecosystems, and managing our discharge 
responsibly.
Changing the way we travel
Spotify operates in many markets across the 
world, which means that travel has been a notable 
source of GHG emissions for us historically. But 
COVID-19 forced us to connect and collaborate 
in new, remote ways. Our employee travel in 2021 
continued to decrease. Our GHG emissions from 
business travel were 3,021 metric tons of CO2e, a 
55.9% reduction from 2020. 
We’re using our Work From Anywhere initiative, 
which we’ll discuss further in the next chapter 
of this report, along with advancements in 
technology and our learnings from the pandemic, 
to create a company-wide approach to travel that 
keeps both the well-being of our people and the 
planet in mind.
Minimizing e-waste
We continued to look for ways to reduce waste 
across all our offices and decommissioned data 
centers in 2021. We collected a total of 2,575 
units of electronic equipment that had reached 
the end of their life cycle at Spotify. Of these, 41% 
were recycled and reused by other companies and 
individuals outside Spotify. The rest were scrapped 
and the materials were recycled by the collecting 
companies. In some locations, we went above and 
beyond our previous efforts to minimize waste by 
tracking progress with general waste and plastic as 
well as electronic equipment. This information will 
help us measure our progress in future years.
We’ve also joined a new partnership to perform 
collection and recycling services for all of our sites 
across the globe, making it easier for all regions of 
Spotify to treat e-waste in the same way.
We incorporate sustainability 
considerations, such as 
whether the buildings are 
certified by third-party entities 
such as LEED, Energy Star,  
or WELL.
Our dynamic space optimization 
approach enables us to provide the 
same experience and service, but 
with smaller space. These efforts 
have helped us reduce our square 
feet of office space per person 
by 15% from 2020 to 2021, which 
resulted in more efficient use of 
space for our band members.
In 2021, we made 
improvements with our 
controlled LED lighting 
and HX lighting systems in 
some of our offices as part 
of our work to increase  
energy efficiency.
Site Selection
We’ve established Sustainable Building 
@Spotify Guidelines that incorporate 
resource efficiency considerations such 
as energy and water into our workplace 
selection process.
Space Optimization
Using our dynamic space optimization 
approach, we utilize the space in an 
optimal way with a more dynamic setup 
and use of the workplace.
Long-term Design
We incorporate modular furniture, as well 
as prioritize energy efficiency and climate 
resiliency strategies into our design process. 
We also provided clear requirements on 
furniture selections, highlighting what to 
recycle and materials to avoid.

Our Environmental Impact
Audio for Good
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Climate Action	
22
As a global platform with more than 406 million monthly active users, we 
have an important role to play in educating our listeners and encouraging 
action on climate change. 
We’re using our platform to raise awareness of 
the climate crisis globally and inspire positive 
action. We also partner with climate organizations 
and scientists to help give our listeners accurate 
information and amplifying more voices. In 2021, 
we continued to use our platform for good, raising 
global awareness of the key challenges facing our 
climate and creating engagement around solutions 
to drive meaningful and systemic change.
Climate Action hub 
Leading up to Earth Day 2021, we created a 
Climate Action hub on our platform where 
listeners could find a curated set of podcasts on 
climate change. The dedicated thematic Climate 
Action hub is part of our larger Play Your Part 
(PYP) initiative, which is a podcast editorial-led 
community hub for Spotify users to hear inspiring 
and informed voices on pressing societal issues. 
To commemorate the annual United Nations 
Conference of the Parties 26 in Glasgow (COP26), 
we updated our Climate Action hub with content to 
help listeners navigate, learn more, and be inspired 
to take action in the fight against the climate crisis. 
Within the Climate Action hub, our listeners can 
learn directly from environmental activists on 
how they use their voice to make a difference 
and explore our Spotify Original podcasts, 
including How to Save a Planet. They could also 
Scaling impact through partnerships
We recognize that collaboration with our suppliers, 
partners, creators, and listeners is key to lowering 
negative climate impact. 
Like many, we rely on cloud providers, co-location 
data centers, and a global Content Delivery 
Network (CDN) to deliver content. We factor 
environmental considerations into our cloud and 
data center infrastructure selection strategy, 
prioritizing providers that rely on clean energy 
sources and partnering with them to optimize data 
storage. Our suppliers’ data centers are based in 
different locations across the globe. The availability 
of renewable energy varies across regions, but our 
suppliers also work to put more renewable energy 
discover how to make an impact individually or 
collectively to help save our planet and discover 
the intersection of racial, gender and economic 
equality when it comes to environmentalism. For 
users looking to learn more about the technical 
components of climate change, we recommended 
a number of podcasts featuring scientists and 
experts who explore the biggest challenges facing 
our planet.
Spotify Climate Action Studio
During COP26, we leveraged our platform to 
make the discussion in Glasgow more accessible 
and intersectional, across our global audience of 
users. We hosted interviews and live-streamed 
conversations in Spotify Greenroom, our new 
social audio app. Our ambition was to make the 
conference more inclusive and provide listeners, 
especially younger ones, with the opportunity 
to add comments and questions as well as get 
backstage access to COP26, even if they did not 
attend in person. Simultaneously, we aimed to 
support scientists, organizations, and activists to 
reach a broader audience and drive greater impact. 
We wanted to transform climate content into 
something accessible and understandable through 
creative storytelling. Looking at the engagement 
we got from COP26, Spotify Climate Action  
Studio will live beyond this conference. More to 
come in 2022!
Collaborative research initiative on streaming
Spotify joined DIMPACT, a collaboration between the University of Bristol and media companies around the world, to 
measure GHG emissions associated with delivering digital content, from data centers, CDNs, and network infrastructure 
to end-user devices – what we call our digital service architecture. 
We’re excited to participate in this industry research to gain a greater understanding of the climate impact across all of 
these elements and use that data as a baseline to reduce our climate impact. We expect the results of this research to be 
shared in 2022, so stay tuned!
Digital Service Architecture:
Data Centers 
& CDNs
Network  
Infrastructures 
User  
Devices
on the local grid through projects such as new  
solar and offshore wind power deals.
Right now, the industry is still lacking information 
on the climate impact of streaming. We need to 
understand and map out this impact based on 
device distribution, cloud energy consumption,  
and many other parameters in order to reduce it.   
We’re proactively investigating GHG emissions 
generated by our listeners, including data traffic 
for streaming content on Spotify, downloads of 
our app, and power supply of the devices used to 
listen, with devices accounting for the majority of 
GHG emissions. We’re looking into partnerships 
in this part of our value chain to collaborate on 
reducing these GHG emissions, as this is an area 
further away from our direct control.

Frequency on Spotify 
Click to listen as you read
Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging (DIB) has always been at the 
center of our business at Spotify. 
2021 was the year of solidifying how we think about equity and inclusion — being more thoughtful 
about how we leverage our resources, being proactive about the way we represent our people and 
users, and being conscientious about how we show up in communities. 
Diversity, Inclusion 
& Belonging

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging	
26
We want our band members, listeners and artists to 
feel a strong sense of belonging, regardless of how 
they identify. That’s why we introduced our new 
Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging strategy in 2021, 
grounded in three pillars:
•	 We believe accelerating diversity is not only 
about hiring; it’s also an opportunity to develop 
and retain the diverse talent we already have 
within the organization — at all levels — as well 
as invest in a new generation of audio creators 
and tech professionals from all backgrounds. 
•	 We lead with empathy and are always looking 
for ways to infuse inclusion into our culture, 
whether that’s changing the way we work, 
designing our platform to be accessible for all, 
or amplifying content from underrepresented 
creators. 
•	 We don’t just want to foster a sense of 
belonging in our company culture — we want 
to amplify it across the world. We’re working 
on ways to do this on our platform and in our 
communities, including advocating for positive 
policy changes that tackle inequity. 
Within Spotify
Our commitment to upholding diversity starts in our hallways — both 
physical and virtual. We’re increasing our efforts to retain the wide mix  
of identities represented among our band members and provide them 
with the tools for growth to more senior-level positions. We’ve also 
launched our Inclusive Hiring Talent Acquisition Strategy, built out 
existing and created new early career pipeline programs, and made 
progress toward our employee demographic goals.
In 2021, we made significant strides to further 
immerse Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging within 
Spotify, on the Spotify platform, and beyond 
Spotify throughout our industry. In our own 
hallways, we introduced a comprehensive inclusive 
hiring strategy to cement diversity at the forefront 
of our recruitment and worked toward building a 
more representative workforce. On our platform, 
we amplified the voices of global communities 
with content hubs featuring underrepresented 
and marginalized creators. To create larger, 
industry-wide change, we donated to various 
causes through our philanthropic giving programs 
predominantly to organizations dedicated to 
inspiring, connecting, and elevating the next 
generation of diverse voices and creators.
Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging is embedded 
in everything we do. It is how we show up in the 
world to represent people, their stories, and their 
experiences — not just because it’s the right thing 
to do, but because it’s our responsibility to do right 
by our billions of fans, millions of creators and 
thousands of band members who work to make it 
all happen. By advancing a diverse and inclusive 
culture where everyone can belong, we can better 
unlock the potential of human creativity, with 
equity and impact as the outcomes. 
Workforce representation 
Our platform is for everyone, and so is our 
workplace. The more voices we have represented 
and amplified in our business, the more we 
will all contribute, thrive, and be brilliant. We 
have an intention and commitment to advance 
representation and bring in different perspectives 
at Spotify. We’re working to make sure our people 
reflect the diversity of our listeners, and this starts 
with being transparent with our data.
Workforce demographics
Our ambition is to have greater representation 
relevant to the consumers, creators, and 
communities we work with across the globe. A 
major focus area for us in 2021 has been expanding 
our data collection, as well as being deliberate 
about the way we leverage data to make decisions 
within the business and advance measurable 
progress. By reviewing data on employee 
demographics, we’re able to gain critical insights 
that inform our DIB strategy. Demographic data is 
collected via voluntary employee self-identification 
in Workday, our employee engagement platform, 
and includes age, gender, nationality, race/
ethnicity, religion, and military status (where such 
information gathering is allowed under local laws).
Based on employee demographics in the U.S., 
which make up 52% of Spotify’s workforce,  
we’ve set an aspirational goal to increase our  
Black employee representation to 14% by the  
end of 2023, emphasizing director-level roles  
and above.  
This figure was developed with a determination to 
surpass the Black representation delineated in the 
latest U.S. Census. We believe that we must have 
greater representation in our hiring and leadership 
ranks because of the deep representation 
in our consumer and creator population — 
the contributions of Black creators and the 
consumption of their art by all individuals globally 
require a greater responsibility in our workforce. 
To reach this goal, we implemented strategic 
hiring initiatives that earmark Black professionals 
and emerging talent, and we’re working to create 
and expand programs such as Behind the Mic that 
support underrepresented groups in their pursuit 
of careers in podcasting production. We also 
launched a new partnership with the Executive 
Leadership Council focused on Black employee 
development programs.
We’re doubling down our efforts to retain Black 
band members and provide them with tools for 
career growth. In 2021, we launched the BLK Ezra 
personal coaching and workforce development 
conference initiative, and we recently expanded 
our Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging team to have 
the right people in place to further our mission of 
supporting Black band members. At the end of 
2021, Black representation made up 8.8% of our 
band members in the U.S, up from 8.1% in 2020 
and 6.3% in 2019.
On Spotify
Cultural Moments and Hubs 
promoting underrepresented 
creators (Frequency and Equal)
Beyond Spotify
Behind the Mic program and 
industry partnerships
Within Spotify
Aspirational Hiring Goals and 
5-Star Strategy for Racial Equity
Achieve 14% of Black employee 
representation in the US by the 
end of 2023.

Workforce By Gender (Global)
*Native American includes American Indian, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiian and 
other Pacific Islanders as categorized by U.S. government reporting standards.
Data Source: Disco: December 2021
Robust data collection and analysis will support us as we continue to grow in our journey; it enables us 
to refine and assess our Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging strategy to look for goals and opportunities 
that advance equity and inclusion in our workplace and across social identities. We’ve started a self-
identification initiative for ethnicity data in the U.K. and Brazil, and are expanding to other regions as 
well — where allowed under local laws — to create a holistic view of our workforce diversity makeup. 
Notably, we intend to introduce self-identification questions for disability inclusion into Workday and 
job applications on our Life at Spotify career site to enable us to understand our current workforce 
representation for people with disabilities and identify opportunities to increase and improve the 
experience in 2022.
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging	
28
Our 5-Star Strategy  
for racial equity
As a company, we’re collaborating across continents 
to drive systemic change for racial equity. In response 
to the trauma, injustices, and pain experienced by 
the Black community, we accelerated our roadmap 
and implemented a 5-Star Strategy with BLK, our 
Employee Resource Group for Black band members, 
to advance our racial equity and anti-racism efforts, 
both internally and on our platform. We developed 
the Racial Equity Coalition as a cross-functional group 
of leaders that oversees the execution of our 5-Star 
Strategy. As this group evolves, it will continue to 
focus on accountability to our commitments around 
racial equity. 
“
We know the work of greater 
racial equity requires all of us to 
be informed, educated, and apply 
learnings in our behaviors and 
decisions. With the Racial Equity 
Coalition, we have a cross-functional 
team of leaders that are dedicated to 
the implementation and progression 
of our work in an intentional and 
meaningful way. ”
Travis Robinson
Head of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging
In the last year and a half, our 5-Star Strategy has helped make a holistic and lasting impact at Spotify 
through our focus on People, Donations & Fundraising, Policy, Content and Spotify Culture.
Race/Ethnicity (US Only)
Spotify
Spotify 
Leadership
Director and above
55%
<1%
45%
57%
20%
<1%
9%
9%
4%
58%
42%
Two or More Races
White
Asian
Black/African American
Hispanic/Latino
Native American*
Spotify
Men
Women
Non-binary

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging	
30
Inclusive Hiring
Diversity without inclusion practices can actually 
hurt productivity; it can result in higher attrition 
rates, poorer performance, lower engagement and 
worse interpersonal relationships. That’s why we’re 
educating ourselves and adopting more inclusive 
hiring practices so that we can reap the benefits 
of diversity without the potential pitfalls that it can 
bring. Our Inclusive Hiring team is the driving force 
behind our efforts to accelerate representation. 
They work with our hiring band leaders around the 
world to provide everything they need to attract 
and hire diverse talent.
To build on our commitments made in 2020 
around social justice and the representation of 
Black band members within Spotify, we introduced 
a new inclusive hiring strategy in the U.S. for 
2021. This strategy prioritizes the retention 
and development of underrepresented groups, 
specifically focusing on Black band members. 
DIB Tools
We recognize that transparency about the opportunities available to Spotifiers is essential to creating a culture of 
Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging. Likewise, transparency around our workforce demographics is crucial to promoting  
that culture. That’s why we’ve given access to our internal talent marketplace and employee demographic reporting 
tool to our band members around the world – they deserve to know how diverse Spotify is and what opportunities exist 
to further develop their careers.
Echo
Echo is our newly-launched Internal Talent Marketplace. 
Grounded in AI technology, Echo helps match our 
talent with growth opportunities based on their skills, 
experience and development goals. It enables band 
leaders, project owners and mentors to expand hiring 
beyond traditional backgrounds, meet other band 
members (who might not have met otherwise), and 
work with talent from all over the world. In a distributed-
first culture, Echo continues to drive forward the 
career development and growth of all Spotifiers and fill 
important talent gaps.
Having an internal talent marketplace means being 
able to offer varied development opportunities to all 
band members, regardless of the groups they identify 
with, which is why the creation of Echo is paramount to 
our approach to Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging. We 
designed Echo as an environment where everyone can 
thrive, be seen, and access opportunities from wherever 
in the world they are. We will continue to leverage 
this technology to remove biases and make sure that 
opportunities are inclusive for all.
Disco
Disco, our data-driven talent management tool, shows a breakdown of employee demographics where allowed under 
local laws. For example, our U.S. Disco platform includes race, ethnicity, gender, tenure, age, and time enrolled. Updated 
in real time and accessible by all employees, Disco helps Spotify’s band leaders identify opportunities for growth and 
improvement in representation. Launched in 2021, this innovative tool provides a high level of transparency with our band 
members by serving as the go-to place for Spotifiers to discover all our people-related data. We’ve also widened the team 
offering to include complex analysis projects on key people-related challenges.
Registered band members 
as of December 14, 2021 
3,459
Job  
opportunities
1,176
Mentorship 
assignments
67
Active 
project roles
26
 Echo went live on October 1, 2021
Our inclusive hiring strategy centers on four goals:
•	 Aligning our understanding around 
representation and inclusivity.
•	 Developing new aspirational hiring goals. 
•	 Implementing new, best of class practices, 
processes and preparation for inclusive hiring.
•	 Establishing new tools and resources for 
recruiters and hiring band leaders.
At Spotify, we have goals and outcomes, not 
quotas, when it comes to inclusive hiring. As part 
of our new strategy, we set aspirational hiring 
goals centered on realistic, achievable steps to 
help focus our attention, establish accountability 
and drive change. Our hiring targets are ambitious 
and customized based on geography and business 
needs. Likewise, our outcomes prioritize increasing 
representation from underrepresented groups that 
will provide tangible benefits for performance, 
innovation and productivity. Aspirational hiring 
goals have been instituted across several of our 
global business areas.

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging	
32
Interview training and support
Recruiting and retaining diverse talent is critical 
to our ability to sustain a competitive advantage. 
That is why we’ve made it a priority to equip our 
band members, especially our talent-facing teams, 
with the tools and resources needed to emphasize 
inclusivity throughout the hiring process.
We developed an inclusive interview training 
module for interviewers and hiring band leaders. 
The 16 module series was supported by behavioral 
change specialists from MindGym, a group 
dedicated to psychology-based organizational 
transformation, to provide a foundational 
knowledge on what inclusive hiring means, 
the recruitment process (with an emphasis on 
inclusion) and creating a more inclusive selection 
process. Most importantly, these trainings are 
available 24/7 to help bridge the gap in inclusive 
hiring, any time and anywhere.
In the last year, we also introduced Inclusive Hiring 
Talks in the U.S. to address racial issues and engage 
in conversations around what it means to be a 
Spotifier in the U.S. With a focus on aligning people 
on shared experiences, Inclusive Hiring Talks help 
us understand why inclusivity is important and why 
all candidates are worthy of consideration.
Rethinking our internal Diversity, Inclusion & 
Belonging strategy inspired a reimagined way to 
communicate that strategy externally, leading to 
the creation of our new careers site, Life at Spotify. 
Our goal was to develop engaging content that 
truly highlights life at Spotify – our people, our 
culture, our product, our pursuits, and the voices 
of our diverse communities. We transformed our 
careers site into a true resource and platform to 
showcase our thought leadership and work in the 
Equity & Impact space. Life at Spotify goes beyond 
job listings to tell the full spectrum story of being  
a Spotifier.
Hiring Tools & Resources
To further build on this transformation, we 
increased our efforts and changed the name of 
our Life at Spotify: The Podcast, hosted by one of 
our band members from our GreenHouse Learning 
& Development team in Singapore. In the series, 
Sequeira speaks with Spotify band members 
from around the world about the moments and 
innovations that have helped them thrive, including 
an unexpected career move, a hilarious stumble on 
the way to creating the next big Spotify thing, or a 
groundbreaking culture initiative that affects our 
people like never before.
Unbiasify
We utilize Unbiasify 
to mitigate bias 
and enable blind 
resume reviews. This 
computer extension 
tool hides names and 
profile photos on 
social networks so 
our hiring managers 
can focus on what 
actually matters, 
helping increase 
representation in our 
pipeline.
Textio
The Textio tool 
helps us craft job 
descriptions and 
messaging, with a 
focus on improving 
the inclusivity of 
communication.
Inclusive hiring 
repository  
and toolkit
To create a more 
inclusive recruiting 
process, we’ve 
created a number 
of tools to provide 
our recruiters and 
hiring managers 
with guidance and 
resources that 
strengthens their 
ability to onboard 
quality talent by 
identifying skill 
and potential, 
while mitigating 
unconscious biases.
Entelo
Entelo helps identify 
job applicants 
from different 
demographic 
groups to increase 
representation in our 
pipeline, allowing 
us to leverage data 
to change job listing 
messaging if needed.

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging	
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Early Career Pipeline
We strive to attract top-notch talent with a focus 
on access, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). 
We position ourselves as an employer of choice 
by exposing and engaging talent with our brand, 
culture, and exciting work. Early career pipeline 
programs serve as a strategic tool for all Spotify 
Business and Global Units, identifying and hiring 
cutting-edge students, recent graduates, and 
newly-skilled professionals to launch and develop 
their careers with Spotify. 
•	 Summer Internship Program: This is our largest 
program offering applicants a huge range of 
opportunities across our business and technical 
teams, as well as the chance to make a direct 
impact on how the world consumes audio. In 
2021, we hired 167 individuals for the global 
virtual summer internship program with 26%  
of those eligible converted to full-time.
•	 Financial Analyst Rotational (FAR) Program: 
This program aims to develop a diverse cohort 
of recent graduates into finance professionals 
through an immersive 24-month rotation 
program with four six-month rotations in our 
Internal Audit, Treasury, Accounting, and 
Financial Planning & Analysis teams.
•	 Rotational Product Manager (RPM) program: 
Through the one year Rotational Product 
Management program in Europe, aspiring 
product managers go through three rotations 
across our business, gaining experience in real 
projects to become future product leaders  
with us.
•	 Aspiring Marketing Professionals Rotational 
Program: The Spotify AMP Rotational Program 
is a unique, once-a-year opportunity for 
diverse emerging talent focused on marketing 
in Spotify’s Freemium Business organizations. 
Since its inception, we’ve had nine band 
members participate in the two-year program, 
from which six have graduated and three 
are currently in their rotation. To date, we’ve 
retained 83% of AMP Associates.
•	 Technology Fellowship Program: Each year, 
the Tech Fellowship Program focuses on  hiring 
candidates who are either self-taught, attended 
a coding bootcamp or have degrees from 
community colleges not usually reflected in 
traditional talent pipelines. We’ve hired a total  
of 39 fellows since 2016 and have converted 37,  
an approximately 95% conversion rate.
•	 Opening Act: The Opening Act Innovation 
Challenge enables Spotify to hear from creative 
and innovative students attending Historic Black 
College & Universities (HBCU) and Hispanic 
Serving Institutes (HSI). Each year, we invite 
HBCU and HSI students to submit solutions 
to identified business challenges at Spotify. 
Finalists are selected to pitch their solution to 
our teams, and winners are given an internship 
spot in our Global Summer Internship Program 
to work directly on the solution they presented. 
Through this program, we’ve hired 21 interns and 
8 have been converted to full-time  
band members.
•	 SEO London Partnership: SEO London serves 
as a strategic partner for all of our Business 
and Global Units to amplify the diversity of our 
pipeline by identifying and hiring cutting-edge 
students, recent graduates, and newly-skilled 
individuals from underrepresented communities 
to launch and build their careers with Spotify.
Talent Acquisition Partnerships
We recognize that success is rarely accomplished alone. We engage a number of external partners to  
support, uplift, and amplify our own efforts to place inclusive hiring at the forefront of our recruitment efforts.
Raising the Volume conference
In September, we hosted Raising the Volume our first 
Spotify-branded virtual recruiting conference. Raising 
the Volume is geared towards women and non-binary 
professionals in audio, media, and technology. This 
conference was designed to inspire, teach, motivate, 
and attract talent to Spotify, with the hope that 
attendees would leave feeling empowered to raise 
their voices and make bold moves. 
The conference gave over 700 global attendees a taste 
of Spotify culture and inspired them to see themselves 
in various careers at Spotify, with the goal of increasing 
representation of women of all experiences in our 
workforce. The event included a keynote speech from 
actress Michaela Jae Rodriguez, a performance by 
artist Alessia Cara, breakout sessions and lightning 
talks (quick, informative TED-style keynotes) hosted by 
members of Spotify’s ERGs, networking rooms, and a 
recruitment hall called, “Join the Band.”
Action to Catalyze Tech
We are a founding signatory to the Catalyze Tech initiative through which the 
Action to Catalyze Tech Report (ACT report) provides tech companies with a 
rigorous framework of action to accelerate progress toward success in DE&I.  
The ACT Report recommendations were developed by a cross-industry  
working group of academics, DE&I experts, think tanks, and tech companies.
Valuable 500
In 2021, we announced our participation in the Valuable 500, a global network 
of companies committed to disability inclusion. As part of our membership, 
we’ve committed to making sure our platform and workplaces are accessible to 
Spotifiers, listeners and creators.
Lesbians Who Tech
We are an active sponsor of Lesbians Who Tech, a community of LGBTQIA+  
women, non-binary, and transgender individuals working in and around the 
technology industry.
Jopwell
We engage with Jopwell, a platform dedicated to advancing careers among  
Black, Latinx, and Native American students and professionals, to help expand our 
outreach to talent pools that have been historically marginalized.

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging	
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Leading with empathy to create a community of belonging
Our DIB mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity by accelerating a diverse culture where 
everyone belongs. We’re driving accountability and behavioral change to get us there.
Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)
Led by our band members and open to all, including our many and numerous allies, our Employee Resource 
Groups elevate voices that are underrepresented in our industry or historically marginalized. They are places 
for people to share their experiences, support each other, develop leadership and help the business better 
understand their needs. Regardless of a Spotifier’s identity, all are welcome to join any of our 15 ERGs.
Work From Anywhere
Our Work From Anywhere initiative was accelerated in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we grow  
and work in more places, Spotify has introduced a focus area for 2025 to become a “distributed first” company,  
enabling our talent to create value for Spotify independently of where our people work and removing constraints for 
scaling the platform. In doing so, we need to keep the playing field leveled and further improve how people contribute 
and collaborate, independently of work location. 
Even though we’re not all in the same place, we’re still committed to meeting the accessibility needs of Spotifiers 
everywhere, so we provide band members living with disabilities with the equipment that may be needed to conduct  
their role from anywhere.
Meeting on Equal Ground
We go out of our way to make all  
meeting participants equal.
At Spotify we advocate for Meeting On Equal Ground. Every participant  
in a meeting should feel like their input is on equal footing. We know it’s  
hard to track conversations both visually (trying to see who’s talking) and 
audibly (with varying distances from the microphone) for those not in the room.  
So here are some tips to succeed:
	−
Maintain your camera on at all times unless there are special circumstances
	−
If one is distributed, all should use your device’s camera to level the  
playing field
	−
Make sure everyone is heard and respect virtual ‘raised hands’
	−
Appoint a moderator to help steer the conversation, and a scribe  
if applicable
	−
Maintain an active body lanuage - emulate a physical environment
	−
Don’t continue discussions with people colocated with you after the 
meeting be inclusive and set a new one or do it asynchronously! 
The transition to a distributed workforce during COVID-19 has made it more important than ever for 
Spotify ERGs to create a sense of belonging, connection, and community for our band members. In 
September 2021, we launched a new ERG strategy focused on intersectionality among groups, a more 
global perspective for Spotify communities and training and support opportunities for ERG leads.
As part of this new strategy, we’ve expanded our family of ERGs – we launched Veterans, fostering an 
inclusive community for military personnel and their spouses, and we began rolling out Remix Groups, 
which represent all underrepresented and historically marginalized groups at a local level within our 
smaller offices.
Able, creating an accessible workplace 
for band members with disabilities
Banda, an inclusive community for 
Spotify’s Latinx band members
Christians, making a positive impact  
on Spotifiers of faith
Muslims, supporting, empowering,  
and fostering Muslims and allies
Remix, our broadly diverse community 
inspiring people to bring their whole 
selves to work
SPACE, home for those who identify  
as or support the Asian community
Veterans, fostering an inclusive 
community for veterans and supporters
Arabs, fostering a safe environment 
for Spotifiers from the Middle East and 
North Africa region
BLK, championing allyship, education,  
and cultural awareness for Black Spotifiers
Desis, celebrating the richness of the 
culture of South Asian Spotifiers
Parents, connecting current and  
soon-to-be caregivers
Shalom, providing community and 
connection rooted in Jewish culture, 
tradition, and values
Spectrum, Spotify’s LGBTQIA+ 
community
Women, providing resources and 
development support for the women 
of Spotify

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Inclusive Benefits
We offer benefits and perks that are inclusive and 
aligned with our company values – what we like to 
think of as rewards that make you rock. In addition 
to standard medical, dental, vision, and retirement 
plan benefits, we add in global parental leave, 
flexible public holidays, and other more playful 
surprises. It’s important to create a rewarding, 
inclusive environment where our people want to 
stay and where they know they can grow, which is 
why benefits are extended to every band member, 
regardless of seniority.
Here’s a sample of some of our rocking rewards:
•	 All the Feels: Actions speak louder than words. 
Through our All the Feels Employee Assistance 
Program (EAP), we say and show how deeply 
embedded mental health support is within our 
Spotify culture. This includes providing band 
members therapy coverage and access to free, 
confidential counseling sessions with a qualified 
counselor.
•	 Paid time off for relocation: Moving is stressful 
enough. At Spotify, the last thing we want our 
band members to worry about is taking time off 
of work to move. That’s why we provide a day  
of paid time off to help lighten the load while 
they relocate. 
•	 Pet insurance: Companion animals are part of 
the family. We make available a pet insurance 
plan to help keep your pets happy and healthy.
•	 Days off for personal milestones: Not just for 
emergencies or civic obligations but to celebrate 
the milestones in your life such as your  
wedding day.
•	 Parental leave: We want our band members to 
bond with their newest family member to the 
fullest, so we provide a minimum of six months 
paid parental leave globally, including for both 
biological and adoptive new parents.
•	 Family-forming and expansion: Everyone 
deserves the chance to become a parent, 
and our Spotify family hopes to make that a 
possibility for all of our band members. We 
offer family planning benefits, including in vitro 
fertilization (IVF), egg freezing and adoption 
services to all band members globally. 
Fair pay is more than a benefit at Spotify – it is a 
crucial component to building equity. We conduct 
a global pay analysis annually to make certain 
that our band members are being compensated 
fairly and equitably. In 2021, we performed our 
annual pay equity analysis focused on differences 
between genders globally, as well as ethnicity in 
the U.S.
Disability Inclusion
In 2021, we formed an Accessibility Group to 
help provide Spotifiers and our listeners with the 
resources, tools, and equipment needed to support 
their disabilities. This has enhanced our efforts to 
make sure that our platform and workplace are 
accessible to all. 
Spotify is part of the lives of over 406 million 
people around the world, and we’re cognizant 
that many of our listeners have different access 
needs. We’re continuously making accessibility 
improvements to our user experience to help our 
listeners enjoy the songs and podcasts they love 
more easily. In the past year, we introduced three 
updates to Spotify on iOS and Android: buttons 
with increased readability features, options for text 
resizing, and a beta for podcast transcripts. 
We partner with Be My Eyes to enable visually-
impaired listeners to receive help and support 
while using our platform. Be My Eyes is a social 
enterprise that works towards making the world 
more accessible and inclusive for the 2.2 billion 
people who are blind, have low vision, or other 
visual support needs. 
We have also updated our career site to make it 
clearer that we can make accommodations to the 
process to support candidates with disabilities. We 
welcome applications from all candidates interested 
in joining the band, and want to make sure everyone 
can take part in our recruitment process.
Cultural Competency 
Training Learning Journeys
Our Learning Journeys help broaden and streamline 
our understanding of Diversity, Inclusion, & 
Belonging across the organization, with a number of 
training opportunities available to all band members 
as well as those within specific business areas. Our 
band members globally participate in the creation 
of our inclusive environment through the following 
Learning Journeys:
•	 Minus the Bias enables our band members to 
discover the most effective ways of  addressing  
bias, as well as equipping them with skills to  
do so. 
•	 Knowing Me, Knowing You allows Spotifiers 
to define their own identity, understand the 
importance of psychological safety at work, 
explore how to connect naturally with others, 
and learn how to be more mindful of those who 
are different from us. 
•	 The In-Crowd shares ideas for creating a 
greater sense of shared identity within Spotify 
teams, ways to recognize everyone’s unique 
contributions, and practices for creating a sense 
of belonging. 
Inclusion Fika
Hosted each month, our Inclusion Fikas are 
gatherings relating to Diversity, Inclusion, & 
Belonging topics, including cultural observances, 
allyship, and representation. These discussions  
are open to the company and focus on an 
intersectional perspective.
Ezra virtual coaching
Research suggests that individual professional 
coaching is one of the most effective methods for 
behavioral change. We have several customized 
leadership programs as well as individual growth 
journeys at Spotify. We needed to find additional 
solutions for a personalized and scalable approach 
to development, and we strongly bet on coaching.
This type of professional coaching is less about 
the individual’s career aspirations or addressing an 
urgent need and more about proactively driving 
the collective behaviors we need for the future, at 
scale, with a truly personalized approach. In 2021, 
we opened this development opportunity to all 
Spotifiers identified with a coaching need by their 
band leader.
BLK Workforce Development Conference
Hosted by our BLK ERG, the Workforce Development Conference served as 
a racial equity and workforce development event. The conference’s theme, 
FRWRD: Navigating The Bounce Back, aimed to highlight the ways in which 
members of BLK can enhance their well-being while also discussing how 
their growth is meaningful to the community as we navigate the new normal. 
The keynote speaker and panel sessions were open to all Spotifiers to learn, 
engage and be in community with the BLK ERG.

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging	
40
Inclusive marketing training
It’s important that we prioritize inclusive marketing practices when connecting with our listeners and 
communicating to the world. In 2021, we launched an Inclusive Marketing Training series in the U.S. to 
educate our teams on issues of representation within marketing and give our colleagues tactics to promote 
inclusive marketing practices for historically marginalized communities within their daily work. The 
trainings will be scaling globally in 2022.
The Inclusive Marketing Training served as an introductory workshop reflecting on the implications of race, 
equity and inclusion for our brand – from the agencies we hire, to the audiences we target, to the briefs we 
write. This training equips Spotifiers with tools and vocabulary that empower them to be effective agents 
of change in their day-to-day work.
As a follow up to our Inclusive Marketing Training, we produced a guide that enables team members to 
think more proactively about inclusive marketing practices. The guiding principles will help team members 
assess campaigns to confirm that our marketing practices are inclusive by speaking to and elevating 
historically marginalized communities through what we say and how we work. The guide will be shared 
internally in early 2022. 
On Spotify
As the world’s largest audio streaming subscription service, Spotify has 
a unique opportunity to connect underrepresented artists and creators 
to more fans around the world. We continue to use our platform to 
empower and celebrate creators of every race, ethnicity, religion, 
sexual identity, and gender, including by curating top audio destinations 
featuring Black, LGBTQIA+, women, Asian Americans and Pacific 
Islanders, and other underrepresented voices.
Cultural moments
The stories we tell can move culture forward or 
set it back. We’re supercharging social change 
through storytelling that uplifts the voices of 
underrepresented and historically marginalized 
communities, including during key cultural 
moments. As a brand we believe in the importance 
of celebrating these calendared cultural moments 
to drive impact, while also finding ways to uplift 
these communities all year. 
Black History Month
In honor of Black History Month, we continued 
to recognize and uplift the rich history and voices 
of the Black community through guest-curated 
playlist takeovers and new podcasts on our 
Frequency hub, as well as internal programming led 
by our BLK ERG, all laddering up to the theme of 
NEXT IS NOW – because why wait for  
what’s next?
To showcase a wide spectrum of Black talent, 
Spotify licensed the work of seven Black 
photographers to curate specialty cover art for our 
eight key Black playlists. We also gave listeners a 
taste of what influential black curators, celebrities, 
and creatives are listening to through exclusive 
playlist takeovers. For example, Keyon Harrold and 
his son, Keyon Harrold Jr., made headlines after 
Harrold Jr. was wrongly accused of stealing  
a woman’s cellphone at a New York hotel. The 
father-son duo are no strangers to speaking out 
against injustice, and took over our Black Lives 
Matter playlist in partnership with the organization 
Color Of Change to use the power of music to 
further conversation on this important issue.
We also released new podcasts and hosted 
special guest episodes with key Black creators to 
guide important conversations. On February 4, 
we debuted Black Girl Songbook, a music-and-
talk format show hosted by magazine editor and 
journalist Danyel Smith that celebrates and uplifts 
the talents of Black women in the music industry.
Our BLK ERG also curated NEXT IS NOW 
programming that centered on three focus areas: 
resilience, community building, and joy. Together 
with BLK, we hosted fireside chats and workforce 
development talks. We partnered with House 
Party Entertainment for a virtual game show 
that saw members of our fellow ERGs compete 
against each other to test our knowledge of Black 
culture. Through our Spotify Gives Back program, 
we encouraged band members to donate to The 
Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music and 
Harlem Children’s Zone, which were eligible for 2:1 
matching by Spoitify.

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International Women’s Day (IWD)
Being a cultural powerhouse in the audio industry means we have to address the elephant in the 
room when no one else does. Both the music and podcast industries have a long way to go in terms 
of supporting women creators, so that the world can appreciate their exceptional entertainment and 
knowledge. We have a responsibility to lead the industry in supporting women creators, and in 2021,  
we put a stake in the ground and made our intent clear: we’re committed to doing our part to create a 
more inclusive audio industry for women creators of all experiences.
While our support for gender equity is ongoing, we wanted to rally around International Women’s Day 
and share a strong brand message that exhibited our support for this community and the issues that affect 
them. To convey that sentiment, on International Women’s Day we launched our new EQUAL on-platform 
destination to foster equity for women in audio and celebrate their global contributions, including through 
a short film to share our manifesto with the world. You can learn more about EQUAL below. 
On IWD, we dedicated space on-platform to a 24-hour stream of women’s voices — unfiltered, 
uncensored, and uninterrupted. We tapped a diverse group of 24 women creators to create their own 
hour-long WoMN Music and Talk episodes, highlighting woman-centered content pulled from our 
platform. We also partnered with gender equity-focused nonprofits such as Color of Change, GLAAD,  
Girl Makes Beats, and Soundgirls, who curated playlists of women who are pushing the boundaries of  
the industry.
Asian American Pacific Islander History Month (AAPIHM)
Now more than ever, it’s important we celebrate and support our Asian American and Pacific Islander 
(AAPI) community. In response to the initial rise of anti-Asian incidents at the start of the pandemic, we 
recognized that we must stand with the AAPI community by providing tangible pathways for solace 
and solidarity on our platform with the ambition of achieving some level of comfort and healing. During 
AAPIHM, we continued our ongoing efforts to amplify and lift up this community by spotlighting AAPI 
creators on Spotify and inviting them to share their stories of pride.
To amplify the voices of our AAPI creators around the world, we created the AAPI Content hub. This 
dedicated space houses leading AAPI voices alongside fresh new releases from creatives across the audio 
landscape. We also refreshed a number of playlists with updated covers highlighting AAPI and mixed-race 
artists, as well as added new songs for listeners to enjoy.
To support our AAPI podcasters who are talking about hard truths, we created a dedicated podcast shelf 
with episodes that address racism and xenophobia. On the podcast Asian Enough, for example, U.S. Vice 
President Kamala Harris addressed the rise in anti-Asian hate and how government leaders need to address 
racism in America. 
Stop Asian Hate
Anti-Asian hate in the U.S. has risen to historic levels during the pandemic. The Asian community have become victims 
of misplaced blame for a virus that is affecting us all. In light of this, we used the power of our platform to educate 
consumers about the rise in anti-Asian attacks, condemn damaging rhetoric, and provide valuable resources to support 
the Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. 
We launched “Stop Asian Hate,” a programmed shelf on Spotify platform, curated by incredible AAPI artists including  
Far East Movement, TRACE, and Kalani Pe’a. Each playlist linked to an organization supporting the AAPI community, such 
as Gold House, ‘Aha Pūnana Leo, and Asian Mental Health Collective. Internally, we also worked with the SPACE ERG 
and Social Impact to launch an internal 2:1 Donation Matching Campaign for organizations focused on providing support 
for the AAPI community. In addition, the SPACE ERG, in partnership with other organizations, provided resources and 
support for the AAPI community within Spotify.

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LGBTQIA+ Pride Month
Throughout their lives, LGBTQIA+ creators, cultural 
figures, and activists have fearlessly demanded 
to be seen, heard and recognized for who they 
authentically are. This year’s CLAIM YOUR 
SPACE Pride campaign was a celebration of that 
commitment and resilience, as well as a recognition 
of the ways audio and art have always been 
avenues for LGBTQIA+ expression. The experience, 
complete with playlists and podcasts as part of 
our Pride hub, aimed to permanently create more 
space for LGBTQIA+ representation, both on our 
platform and in our culture.
We also worked with LGBTQIA+ artists in Detroit, 
Nashville, and New Orleans — places where the 
queer community has been instrumental to the 
music scene, but where their stories are often 
untold — to commission permanent murals 
celebrating groundbreaking local LGBTQIA+ artists 
and activists, in close collaboration with The Ally 
Coalition.
At each touch point across the campaign, Spotify 
donated directly to all of our key partners, including 
queer venues and local organizations such as 
BreakOUT! in New Orleans, Just Us at Oasis Center 
in Nashville, and Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit. 
We also used Pride Month as a time to encourage, 
empower, and amplify the voices of LGBTQIA+ 
Spotifiers within our own community. At the close 
of the month, our Life at Spotify social channels 
shared how several queer band members “claim 
their space” in the workplace, as well as the songs 
and artists that help them live their identities loud 
and proud. 
Latinx Heritage Month
In honor of Latinx Heritage Month, we launched 
Aquí Siempre, an awareness campaign to support 
our dynamic, multicultural Latinx community 
and the myriad of musical genres it continues 
to influence. Our goal was to amplify the voices 
shaping Latinx culture today, including those that 
challenge stereotypes, fight adversity and uplift 
Latin American communities through their work.
We worked with the celebrated Latinx 
photographer Camila Falquez to capture a series  
of still and video portraits that document Latinx 
who are reshaping our communities. As the 
center of our Latinx Heritage Month campaign, 
the portraits were accompanied by self-
recorded videos from Latinx creators celebrating 
their cultural experiences and uplifting their 
communities. We also asked Yesika Salgado, 
a Salvadoran poet, to create an original poem 
for Aquí Siempre to live on platform. The poem 
speaks to the strength and passion of the Latinx 
community and depicts its multifaceted culture.
Spotify’s Latinx Heritage Month included the 
Mixto playlist, which features a mixture of sounds, 
artists, and languages from various countries that 
aren’t easily labeled as a specific genre but share 
Latinx origins, in addition to non-Latinx artists that 
resonate with listeners. The playlist serves as a 
destination for artists both in and adjacent to the 
Latinx space to share music that exists outside of 
clearly defined labels. 2021 was also the first time 
Spotify launched Spotify Singles in collaboration 
with the Mixto playlist, asking rising Latinx artists 
Twin Shadow, Ambar Lucid, and Tokischa to add 
their voices to the catalog of Spotify Singles by 
recording a unique version of one of their  
own songs.
Amplifying content from underrepresented and marginalized communities
We’re investing in and highlighting content from underrepresented and historically marginalized creators 
to increase exposure, awareness, and understanding.
Frequency
In May, we unveiled Frequency, a global initiative 
and holistic destination for celebrating Black art, 
entertainment, creativity, culture, and community 
both on- and off-platform. Frequency was created 
in response to a climate in which Black voices in 
music, fashion, business, and more continue to 
be left out of the narrative, their contributions left 
underappreciated and underrepresented. 
Frequency marks an extension of Spotify’s ongoing 
commitment to and investment in Black voices. 
Through the rollout of new content, cultural 
partnerships, and an ambassador program, 
Frequency aims to further connect the Black 
community to upcoming and established Black 
creators. In addition to building consumer brand 
love for Black audiences, Frequency strives to 
boost audience engagement and consumption of 
on-platform content through its suite of 20+ music 
playlists (including Ripple Effect, which celebrates 
regional influences on Black music and culture), 
newly created podcast shows, and content 
partnerships through Greenroom shows. 
We also launched the intertwined “Raising the 
Frequency” Ambassador program, which offers 
scholarships to Black college students aspiring to 
pursue careers in music and tech. The program 
also provides donation matches to select 
community organizations and a songwriting camp 
to connect artists, producers and songwriters. 
EQUAL
On International Women’s Day, we launched 
EQUAL to demonstrate our commitment 
to fostering equity for women in audio and 
celebrating their global contributions. Our EQUAL 
hub is a one-stop destination that highlights the 
work of women artists and podcasters.
We also created an invite-only EQUAL Collective 
consisting of 15 organizations from around the 
world, including She’s the Music (U.S.), Girls Rock 
Australia Network (Australia), shesaid.so (Italy), 
and Girls Rock Camp (Brazil). Spotify provided a 
grant to each organization, with the goal of finding 
tangible ways to make the audio industry more 
equitable for women creators. In late 2021, we 
launched a second grantmaking program for these 
organizations, asking them to partner together on 
ideas for a concept that will further gender equity 
in music globally. Grant recipients will be selected 
in early 2022. 
To support emerging female artists across 35 
markets, later in the year we unveiled our EQUAL 
Music Program, introducing 35 local EQUAL 
playlists that span 50+ countries as well as a “best-
of” flagship EQUAL Global playlist. We kicked off 
the program by highlighting 35 inaugural EQUAL 
creators. In the first six months following its launch, 
the EQUAL Global Playlist garnered 3.6 million 
streams across 166 markets, while EQUAL’s 35 
Local Playlists gained 29 million views across 177 
markets.
We also relaunched our EQUAL Directory (formerly 
EQL Directory). This partnership with SoundGirls 
allows women of all experiences and gender-
nonconforming creators to create a profile and 
claim their space in the community of women 
changing the game in audio.

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Sound Up
Four years ago, Spotify created Sound Up, a global program that gives underrepresented podcasters the 
tools to boost their platforms and build their own shows. Sound Up aims to raise up the next generation 
of podcasters through education, workshops, and support. Our goal is to create a space for new voices, 
stories, and perspectives in podcasting. 
In 2021, we expanded our Sound Up program from 6 to 12 countries, including Mexico and Italy, enabling 
us to support an additional 140+ emerging creators in 2021 alone. The new programs focus on creating 
Spanish-language or multilingual podcasts for an ever-growing Spanish-speaking U.S. audience, female 
creators in India, and lower-income youth from large urban centers in Argentina. In 2022, Sound Up will 
continue to serve these 12 markets and return to markets such as the U.S. and U.K. with the first-ever genre 
focused programs for underrepresented creators in Kids & Family (U.S.) and Sports (U.K.).
Beyond Spotify
We know our platform is a 
powerful tool to amplify the 
voices of marginalized and 
underrepresented communities 
around the world, but the Spotify 
platform alone is not enough to 
create systems-level change for 
current and future creators. That’s 
why we’ve launched programs 
and engaged external groups to 
elevate underrepresented artists 
and creators with the tools, 
resources, and skills needed to 
create a more equitable  
streaming industry.
Elevating underrepresented creators
In order to uplift creators from marginalized 
groups, it is paramount to uncover the barriers 
preventing these individuals from rising up 
within the world of streaming, as well as provide 
opportunities that support them as they navigate 
around these obstacles.
NextGen in Studios
We launched NextGen in Studios to support 
the next generation of diverse creators and 
industry leaders in discovering the power of 
podcasting to propel their passions, careers, 
and our community forward. We’re supporting 
colleges and community organizations investing 
in podcasting through curriculum development, 
bringing Spotify talent to the classroom, 
building campus studio spaces, and providing 
students professional pathways. We are actively 
developing new partnerships with HBCUs, HSIs, 
public universities, and community colleges.
Funding Racial Equity
As part of our commitment to support racial equity, 
Spoitfy distributed over $5 million to empower the 
next generation of Black creators through our Racial 
Equity & Giving Program during 2021. You can learn 
more about our philanthropic giving to uplift and 
support racial equity here.
Spotify has been a long-time partner and supporter  
of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, a leading think-
tank studying diversity and inclusion in entertainment. 
In 2021, we funded the Annenberg Inclusion 
Initiative’s fourth annual “Inclusion in the Recording 
Studio?” report, which examined gender and race/
ethnicity for artists, songwriters, and producers 
appearing on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Charts 
from 2012 to 2020. The study found that women 
were 21.6 percent of all artists on the Billboard Hot 
100 Year-End Charts across the past nine years and 
represented only 20.2 percent of artists on the chart 
in 2020, demonstrating the meaningful change that 
still needs to take place in the audio industry.

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Behind the Mic
Behind the Mic was launched in 2021 to expand opportunities to members of underserved  
communities aspiring to careers as podcast producers, sound engineers, and other behind-the-scenes 
roles in podcasting.  
This career development program is a year-long paid fellowship, where producers rotate among show 
teams and producorial roles as well as attend a weekly virtual class to refine their skills and get exposure 
to the business and industry. During the fellowship, producers apply and sharpen their established skills 
by working on a Spotify podcast. They also try their hand at different production roles. Finally, Behind 
the Mic fellows produce their limited series podcast on any topic of their choice to apply their learnings. 
Behind the Mic fellows who complete this program successfully are offered a permanent production 
position at Spotify. The U.S. and Australia have served as initial launch markets
Industry partnerships
Our definition of success when it comes to 
Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging extends beyond 
our company to encompass the entire audio 
industry. Since success is seldom accomplished 
alone, we’ve engaged several external partners to 
join us on our journey to create a more inclusive 
and equitable audio industry.
Executive Leadership Council (ELC)
Our partner, The Executive Leadership Council 
(ELC), aims to create channels of opportunity for 
Black executives to positively impact business  
and communities. In 2021, we sponsored two  
new industry-wide development programs with 
The ELC.
Together with Google, we supported Decoded, 
The ELC’s professional development program for 
mid-to-senior level Black professionals across the 
technology sector. Decoded helps grow Black tech 
leaders through proven strategies and tactics to 
apply critical leadership competencies, broader 
and deeper professional networks, high levels of 
emotional intelligence, and a strategic blueprint for 
their professional journeys and development.
We also sponsored the launch of LEVELS, which 
aims to support junior and mid-level Black 
band members in the music industry to better 
navigate their careers. The four-month program 
helps accelerate the progress of Black music 
professionals to the executive level, and is geared 
towards sound technicians, studio managers, 
marketing specialists, brand managers, and 
producers.
ADCOLOR
We are an active partner of ADCOLOR, a 
champion of diversity and inclusion in creative 
industries. We support ADCOLOR’s work to 
help underrepresented groups rise up in creative 
industries, with the goal of creating a community 
of diverse professionals who support and uplift 
one another. In 2021, we expanded our partnership 
with ADCOLOR, supporting the recognition and 
contributions of underrepresented groups in 
technology and music. 
We sponsored the ADCOLOR Futures program, 
a unique program dedicated to identifying and 
nurturing the next generation of leaders in the 
advertising, marketing, media, and public relations 
industries. We are also a founding sponsor of 
ADCOLOR in Music, an initiative that aims to help 
diverse professionals in the music industry, and 
are a leading sponsor for ADCOLOR Everywhere, 
a hybrid annual event featuring the ADCOLOR 
conference, ADCOLOR Futures program, and 
ADCOLOR awards.
Gold House
Gold House is a nonprofit collective of Asian 
and Pacific Islander founders, creative voices, 
and leaders working toward more authentic 
multicultural representation and societal equity. 
The Spotify Asian Community Engagement 
(SPACE) ERG partnered with the Spotify Music 
Team to develop an exclusive partnership with  
Gold House for its new FUTURES program as 
the Music sponsor. 
Gold House’s FUTURES Program seeks to  
address the historical challenges of API 
contributions being undersupported and 
undervalued across various industries. Spotify 
and SPACE are partnering with Gold House as 
part of our continued investment to amplify and 
support emerging API voices. SPACE has had 
a long standing relationship with Gold House 
through our support for initiatives including 
“Gold Open,” collaborating on editorialized 
API playlist “Gold Beats,” amplifying messaging 
around the importance of diversity & allyship, 
and joining in solidarity during this past year’s 
#StopAsianHate movement.
Affecting policy change
As a company, we do not make donations 
to candidates’ campaigns; however, we are 
committed to affecting policy change with 
our global reach and influence. We do this by 
supporting legislation that’s making a difference 
in the fight for racial equity.
We sponsor the Racial Justice State Legislative 
Tracker, which tracks and recommends state and 
local government policies that address police 
practices, the criminal justice system, and ballot 
access. Throughout the last year, we’ve lobbied 
for bills that support racial justice, such as the 
George Floyd Justice in Policing Act and the 
Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.

Wellness on Spotify
Click to listen as you read
At Spotify, we want our employees to feel safe and supported,  
in both good and challenging times. We want them to feel they 
can bring any parts of themselves to the physical or virtual office, 
and not have to hide parts of who they are. We want them to feel 
they belong at Spotify, no matter what experiences they bring 
with them.
We believe that sharing experiences is a key part of the healing process. With open conversations about 
mental health, we can create a culture where people thrive to be their happiest, healthiest selves. Now 
more than ever, mental health is unique for us all, and in 2021, we worked to further expand our support 
to fit the needs of our employees, users and creators. From building out our Heart & Soul advisory board, 
to broadening our World Mental Health Day activation, to expanding the tools and resources available to 
Spotifiers everywhere, 2021 brought great strides in mental health support. 
We don’t want our people to hide behind a happy face – we want our culture to be a place where 
employees always feel safe and supported to ask for and receive the support they need, free from 
judgment and stigma.
Mental Health

Heart & Soul
In 2018, we launched Heart & Soul, our global mental health initiative. 
We believe that everyone’s experiences of mental health – from 
illness to well-being – should be respected, and everyone’s process 
toward thriving should be welcomed and championed. During the 
last few years, we’ve educated our employees on what mental health 
and mental illness are, and provided them with different resources, 
since mental health is unique to all of us.
Heart & Soul aims to do three things: raise awareness and remove stigma, provide proactive self-care 
and professional support and normalize the conversation surrounding mental health. We believe all 
three need to happen at the same time to make a meaningful impact on our culture and our people. 
In 2021, we built an advisory board with three global mental health partners whose purpose is to 
guide, advise and provide input to the Heart & Soul team.
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Heart & Soul Conversations
Normalizing the conversation around mental 
health and mental illness in order to reduce 
stigma is one of Heart & Soul’s strategy 
pillars. In 2021, we closed season one of our 
employee-only mental health podcast, Heart 
& Soul Conversations. This internal podcast 
explores different aspects of mental health 
through the stories of Spotifiers and guest 
speakers around the world, discussing topics 
such as being a parent in the pandemic, 
eating disorders and stress and self-care 
in the Black community. By listening to our 
fellow colleagues’ experiences, struggles and 
how they navigate work and life, we can help 
others feel less alone and more inclined to be 
open about what they are going through. 
Heart & Soul Ambassadors
We have a network of volunteer Heart & Soul 
Ambassadors from across the company to, alongside 
their day jobs, help plan and drive mental health 
initiatives, influence leaders to be role models in this 
space and make sure the way mental health is being 
approached is locally relevant and respects cultural 
nuances. Since Heart & Soul launched in 2018, our 
Ambassadors have been instrumental to our work 
to drive mental health awareness and conversation 
throughout the company. 
As conversation on this issue has increased, we’ve 
also seen an increase in employees reaching out 
to our Ambassadors for guidance and advice. We 
wanted to equip our Ambassadors to have those 
supportive conversations as well as meet the other 
requirements that come with their role, so in 2021 we 
evolved the Heart & Soul Ambassadors into Mental 
Health First Aiders.
Mental Health First Aid is a mental health training 
program that teaches participants how to notice and 
support individuals who may be experiencing a mental 
health struggle or crisis in a work environment and 
connect them with appropriate support.  
Our Heart & Soul Ambassadors all went through  
this training and as of 2021 can support with:
•	 Having an open and supportive conversation  
about mental health
•	 Demonstrating empathy and non-judgmental 
listening
•	 Recognizing some of the signs and symptoms  
of common mental health issues
•	 Intervening in a mental health crisis
•	 Guiding towards professional help and the 
appropriate internal support (self-care,  
All The Feels Employee Assistance Program, 
emergency, manager, or HR)
Additionally, as Work from Anywhere and our 
distributed-first way of working has changed the 
way we look at the business, Heart & Soul has 
evolved with it. In 2021, we changed its structure  
to increase impact and expanded the team with  
17 additional Ambassadors. We now have 60 Heart 
& Soul Ambassadors across the globe, representing 
all business areas, with one thing in common –  
they want to change workplace culture when it 
comes to mental health.

Mental Health Moments
Throughout the year, we leveraged key moments as opportunities to further 
the mental health conversation among our band members and users. 
Eating Disorder Awareness Week
Eating disorders are serious mental health illnesses 
that don’t discriminate against age, race or gender. 
They’re not always about the food itself – people 
with eating disorders often use disordered ways of 
eating to cope with difficult feelings or situations. 
Heart & Soul felt it was important to shine the light 
on this mental illness that’s unfortunately still  
highly stigmatized. 
During Eating Disorder Awareness Week in 
March, Heart & Soul offered our band members 
opportunities to learn and talk about eating 
disorders; how what we eat influences our mood, 
brain and mental health; and what disordered 
eating looks like. Spotifiers also got to hear from 
some of our own colleagues about their personal 
experiences with eating disorders.
Mental Health Awareness Month
During Mental Health Awareness Month in May, 
Heart & Soul invited band members to partake in 
programming centered around mental health and 
well-being. Our goal was to inspire employees to 
get outside, wherever they are in the world.
 
The past year has challenged us all, forcing many 
of us to find new ways to look after our mental 
health and well-being. While the experience 
has been different for everyone, we’ve seen one 
consistent way people are coping with increased 
stress: getting outside and connecting with 
nature. Throughout the month, Spotifiers had the 
opportunity to tune in to content that could be 
explored while walking and using nature to help 
tackle stress, process change and take time  
for ourselves.
Mental health partners
We enlisted the support of Brooklyn Minds, a mental 
health service provider, to enhance the mental health 
support and offerings available to our ERG members, 
for example through “Real Talk” – an opportunity to 
come together in a group hosted by a mental health 
partner to explore, connect and learn about a specific 
topic. In between sessions, individual coaching is 
offered for those who feel the need to connect on a 1:1 
basis. And these days, while many of us are still apart, 
our “Real Talk” sessions have covered topics such as 
self care, finding balance and more. 
Another mental health partner that Heart & Soul 
works closely with is Utopia. Utopia works with the 
Heart & Soul Ambassador team, equipping them for 
their role to support their colleagues while also taking 
care of themselves and staying resilient. Every month, 
Utopia runs Ambassador Circles, one-hour sessions 
that explore a specific mental health area through 
education, reflection, conversation and hands-on 
resources. Ambassador Circles offer our Ambassadors 
– who are so often focused on the mental health 
of others – an opportunity and space to tune into 
themselves. 
Taking a beat with our first-ever 
Wellness Week
With the sudden changes brought on by a rapidly 
changing world, it’s clear the toll that various aspects 
of the pandemic have taken on us. Our people are  
our greatest asset and priority number one. In 
November, Spotify established its first-ever Wellness 
Week. This initiative gave all employees a paid week 
off from work to focus on their personal health and 
mental well-being. 
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World Mental Health Day
We often think of mental health as something that 
only impacts individuals who are struggling, but in 
fact, mental health is something we all have – and 
could all use support in. 
And these days, while many of us are still apart, 
we’re united by the experience of living at a time 
where the concept of mental health is being 
redefined on the fly.
On World Mental Health Day, we highlighted 
diverse experiences, expanded our audience’s 
understanding of mental health and encouraged 
consumers to take action to support their own and 
friends/families’ mental health. We brought our 
efforts to support mental health onto our platform 
and encouraged our listeners, creators and band 
members to “Take a beat to tune in to yourself” in 
an effort to shine a light on mental health – not just 
during this day and other cultural moments and 
milestones, but every day.
We curated a special edition of our Wellness hub, 
designed to support listeners on their wellness 
journey, in 11 markets, where listeners were able 
to connect with themselves, prioritize their well-
being and easily access mental health resources. 
On World Mental Health Day, our users received 
in-app messaging encouraging them to take time 
to tune in to themselves and linking to the Wellness 
hub. We also partnered with notable mental health 
advocates such as Chelsea Cutler, Lyn Lapid, 
WE THE URBAN and MD Motivator to create 
playlists and video content for the Wellness hub. 
Additionally, an array of creators, including Cole 
Cuchna from Dissect, Mark Hugo from Teenager 
Therapy and Nia Sioux from Adulting with Teala & 
Nia, shared original videos on how they are taking 
a beat and turning inwards to support their own 
mental health. 
We also empowered employees to refocus their 
attention on themselves, support and be supported 
by colleagues and take a much-needed deep 
breath. We hosted virtual talks, workshops and 
panels related to our employees’ mental well-being, 
where employees were able to learn new skills, 
deepen existing self-care practices and open up in 
important conversations.

Tools & Resources
We equip employees and managers with the necessary tools and 
resources to create a stigma-free workplace where we look after 
ourselves and each other. 
We provide a list of organizations that offer 
support for anyone feeling distressed, experiencing 
feelings of depression or anxiety or thinking about 
self-harm or suicide.
Manager guides and community- 
specific manager toolkits
We believe it’s important that managers have open 
and honest conversations with team members 
about their mental health and encourage them 
to set and stick to healthy boundaries at work. 
To help band managers successfully create an 
open dialogue, we provide guidance to help 
them recognize common signs of mental health 
struggles, how best to support team members and 
how to help them begin the journey to healing. 
Understanding personal and  
professional boundaries
At a time where work and home lives are blurred, 
the impact is being felt by people globally who are 
experiencing feelings of anxiety, fatigue and, in 
some instances, burnout. Boundary setting seems 
more important than ever, which is why Heart 
& Soul created a resource to share knowledge, 
evidence and tips for boundary setting with our 
band members. Our “Understanding Boundaries” 
resource aims to create an understanding of 
the impact that boundaries can have on both 
individuals and teams.
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56
Let’s Talk About Mental Health  
HR training
With support from our mental health partners 
Brooklyn Minds and Utopia, we offered a training 
to our Human Resources Business Partners 
(HRBPs) and Specialists (HRS) on the stigma and 
barriers preventing people from talking about 
mental health, how to recognize when a colleague 
is suffering and ways to positively impact our 
culture through fostering supportive conversations, 
setting boundaries and being an ally.
Mental Health hub
With support from Ditch the Label, a global charity 
helping young people navigate the issues affecting 
them the most, our Mental Health Resources hub 
helps connect those in need of mental health 
support with an easy-to-navigate list of localized 
resources. Our goal is for this microsite to make 
it easier for our listeners and creators to get the 
support they need for themselves or others they 
know who are struggling.
In 2021, we launched a new in-product message 
on our platform, displayed at the top of search 
results when users perform specific searches 
that are considered high-risk of self-harm-related 
behavior. When a high-risk search is performed,  
a message will direct users to the hub.
All the Feels
At Spotify, we offer short-term counseling (up to 5 sessions per issue 
per year) through our All the Feels Employee Assistance Program (EAP). 
Available 24/7, all employees and their dependents aged 16 and up 
can receive the help they need for issues including relationships and 
parenting, stress and anxiety, major life changes or surviving loss.  
The program offers confidential, professional support and treatment  
via third-party mental healthcare professionals.
*1,092
Number of web logins 
to All the Feels
*This data represents U.S. and all international markets except Sweden
72%
Increase in web 
logins from 2020

Play Your Part on Spotify
Click to listen as you read
Civic and community engagement are an essential part of our 
values and mission, and we believe that using our platform to 
encourage our band members, creators and listeners to get 
involved is critical to promoting healthy communities around 
the world.
That’s why we’re equiping our employees and users with the tools and information needed to create 
change in their communities. Through partnerships, on-platform content, educational marketing 
campaigns and philanthropic giving, we’re helping empower community members to make a 
difference so that we can all rise and advance together.
Civic & Community 
Engagement

COVID-19 Vaccine Support & Awareness
We understand the need to provide our listeners with accurate and 
up-to-date information about the COVID-19 vaccines. In 2021, we 
updated our global COVID-19 information hub we created in 2020 to 
serve as a destination for accurate vaccine information. Alongside the 
global vaccine rollout, we featured vaccine content and resources 
on the hub in 11 different countries, reaching up to one million 
weekly platform searches for virus and vaccination-related topics. 
To help amplify our work here, we launched a number of campaigns 
and partnerships with trusted voices to bring more awareness and 
support surrounding COVID-19. 
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Civic & Community Engagement	
60
Getting back to it with the Ad Council
In partnership with the Ad Council in the 
U.S., we developed six original Public Service 
Announcements (PSAs) focusing on “getting back 
to it” — whether it be dive bars, concerts or road 
trips. From May 1-July 31, these ads delivered 
almost 17 million impressions to Spotify listeners in 
the U.S. about getting vaccine answers.
Spotlighting trusted voices 
We encouraged our Spotify Studios original 
podcasts to promote vaccine awareness and 
education by incorporating vaccine messaging into 
their content. Spotify Studios podcasts integrated 
pro-bono ads., conducted in-show host-read 
information and reminders and created episodes 
that include vaccine content and storylines in 
partnership with the Ad Council in the U.S. and the 
UN Foundation globally. In 2021, over 50 unique 
shows in ten markets participated, including The 
Get Up (U.S.), Between Us Queens (Philippines) and 
Wissen Weekly (Germany).
Bring Back Live Music  
Safely campaign
There’s one thing we know for sure: the safest way  
to bring back live music is for everyone to stay 
informed about COVID-19 vaccines. We launched 
our Bring Back Live Music Safely campaign across 
billboards primarily in vaccine-hesitant areas, on 
social media and on our platform to emphasize how 
vaccinations will help us return to live music and 
concerts. The campaign featured unplayed 2020 
concert setlists from artists such as Kelsea Ballerini, 
Erich Church, Calibre 50, Mau y Ricky and Sebastian 
Yatra, serving as a reminder of the live shows we’ve 
missed since the start of the pandemic and driving 
viewers to GetVaccineAnswers.org, the Ad Council’s 
vaccine webpage. 
 
We also sent in-app messages to all of our 18+ 
listeners in the U.S. directing them to our Concerts 
hub, where they could learn which artists are 
currently on tour as well as visit the Ad Council’s 
vaccine webpage to find COVID-19 vaccine 
resources. The in-app and email campaign drove 
nearly 140K people to GetVaccineAnswers.org.
Music moments
On May 8, we participated in Global Citizen’s Vax 
Live event with an in-show integration as well as 
a donation to both the World Health Organization 
and COVAX to increase vaccine equity. We also 
created a “Vaccine Songs” playlist with tracks such 
as “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” by Pat Benatar and 
“Big Shot” by Billy Joel that linked directly to the Ad 
Council’s Get Vaccine Answers website for listeners 
to learn more about COVID-19 vaccines. In 2021, 
there were more than 48 million streams of vaccine-
related playlists on Spotify. 
Vaccination sweepstakes
In the U.S., we joined forces with the National 
Independent Venue Association (NIVA) to host a live 
music sweepstakes offering 500 vaccinated young 
people the chance to win free tickets to a show 
at a NIVA venue. To enter the contest, music fans 
who had gotten the COVID-19 vaccine shared on 
Twitter why they were excited for the safe return of 
live music. The partnership with NIVA enabled us to 
donate to independent music venues via the prizes.
Go Give One campaign
We know that not every country has sufficient 
access to COVID-19 vaccines, which is why we 
teamed up with the World Health Organization 
Foundation’s Go Give One fundraising campaign 
to help address global vaccine inequity. Through 
this program, Spotifiers can donate to play their 
part in closing the vaccine accessibility gap and 
assist in vaccinating people around the world. 
Spotify matched all employee donations 2:1, and 
all money raised goes to COVAX, which funds 
COVID-19 vaccine distribution for lower-income 
countries and those that traditionally lack access.

Voter Enagement 
At Spotify, we have the influence 
and opportunity to create change 
and drive a positive impact on 
communities around the world. 
This includes getting people  
to vote.
Since 2016, we’ve created initiatives for U.S. 
presidential and midterm elections, as well as 
the European Parliament, reaching millions of 
listeners globally with resources to help them get 
to the polls. We’ve also built programs to help our 
band members get out to vote — most notably, 
2020’s first-of-its-kind civic ambassador program 
that trained U.S. band members to support their 
colleagues in registering and voting. 
In 2021, we expanded our commitment to voter 
engagement through two new initiatives: our first 
U.S. campaign during an off-year election and our 
first national-level campaign outside the U.S. for 
the German Bundestag election. We’re excited to 
continue to broaden this work in 2022 and beyond 
to get more people around the world to the polls.
U.S. National Voter Registration Day
Though off-year elections don’t typically generate 
as much attention from consumers, they are 
still critical to running our democractic process 
smoothly with the input of as many eligible voters 
as possible. Unfortunately, only about 27% of voters 
currently show up in local races.
On National Voter Registration Day, we activated 
across our platform to encourage all voting-age 
Americans, especially young people, to register 
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Civic & Community Engagement	
62
to vote. We partnered closely with HeadCount, a 
non-partisan organization that uses the power of 
music to register voters and promote participation 
in democracy. The campaign drove viewers to 
headcount.org/spotify, where they could quickly 
and easily register to vote.
We also sent in-app notifications to listeners and 
created a “Register to Vote” playlist to remind 
listeners to get out and vote. In addition, “Rights 
and Representation,” a new version of our Play 
Your Part (PYP) podcast hub, featured episodes on 
topics such as constitutional rights, the history of 
voter suppression and perspectives from historically 
marginalized communities, as well as a guest-
curated podcast playlist from civil rights activist 
Alicia Garza.
German Federal Election
In September 2021, Germany held national 
elections for the 20th Bundestag. With Chancellor 
Angela Merkel resigning from her role after 16 
years, this election marked a significant moment of 
change that had the potential to reset the country’s 
political course for the next decade. Given the 
critical nature of the election, Spotify worked to get 
German listeners — especially Gen Z, young people 
and first-time voters — to vote by helping them feel 
empowered and informed to make a choice for their 
own future. 
This non-partisan campaign included a 
collaboration with Germany’s Federal Agency 
for Civic Education to link our campaign content 
to its Wahl-O-Mat voter education tool; in-app 
notifications to encourage listeners to get informed 
on the election; a podcast hub with information and 
analysis on the election and a playlist cover takeover 
reminding listeners of the upcoming election.

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Civic & Community Engagement	
64
Philanthropic Giving 
We have the influence to make a 
real impact and we’re using it to 
shape a better future for society. In 
2020, we announced a $10 million 
commitment to philanthropic 
giving, predominantly focused 
on supporting racial equity. We 
fulfilled this commitment by 
establishing our first-ever employee 
match program, Spotify Gives Back, 
in addition to creating a corporate 
giving fund. In 2021, we made an 
additional $10 million commitment 
to continue these efforts.
We give our people the tools and resources needed 
to give back, so that their efforts in the community 
are supported by Spotify and bolstered by strategic 
programs. In 2020, we launched our first-ever 
employee donation match program using the 
Benevity platform. This was a beta program that 
focused on supporting organizations that were 
engaged in the fight against racism. In 2021,  
we scaled and standardized our employee donation 
match program, making it permanent with many 
additions, including a new name: Spotify Gives 
Back. Highlights of the new program include:
•	 We created an interactive hub on Benevity 
to encourage charitable contributions 
from employees and provide them with the 
opportunity to double their donations to 
organizations they care about. All band member 
donations through Benevity qualify for a 1:1 
Spotify match, with the company matching up  
to $15,000 per employee annually.  
•	 Throughout the year, we ran 2:1 matches to  
align with cultural moments we support  
globally, including LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, 
International Women’s Day, Earth Day and  
Black History Month. 
•	 Our Benevity hub also connects band members 
with meaningful volunteer opportunities, even 
in a distributed work setting. And we provide 
all full-time employees with an annual “Impact 
Day,” a paid day off to volunteer at local 
nonprofits.  
•	 Employee volunteering is further enhanced 
through our Dollars for Doers program, which 
rewards band members with a $20 donation to 
organizations they support for every hour that 
they volunteer. 
The opportunity to amplify the impact of their 
volunteer efforts has inspired participation among 
our employees, with 54% engaging in giving, 
donation and volunteering programs.
In honor of Giving Tuesday, we gave all full-
time band members $100 to donate to causes 
they care about at any time through the rest of 
the calendar year, and we matched employees’ 
donations on Giving Tuesday 2:1. We also 
donated $100 in the name of each of our part-
time employees and contractors to Go Give One, 
HeForShe, Pencils of Promise, and the UNDP. We 
were proud to see over half our band members 
participate in Giving Tuesday, since according to 
CECP’s Giving in Numbers 2021 report, in 2020, 
on average 22% of employees participated in their 
employers’ gift-matching programs.
Giving back to support racial justice
As part of our 5 Star Strategy created with our 
BLK Employee Resource Group (ERG) to combat 
racial injustice, we’re funding organizations that 
are making a difference in the fight against racism 
and inequity. Over the past two years we have 
supported benefactor organizations including Black 
Girls Code, The Great Khalid Foundation, .PAAK 
House, United Negro College Fund, Trombone Story 
Foundation, Vale de Donde in Brazil, EMMS Tech in 
Sweden, and The Black Curiculum in the UK.
Spotify-UNCF Scholars Program
Spotify partnered with UNCF in support of its 
mission to develop a robust and nationally-
recognized pipeline of underrepresented students. 
Building on this goal, the Spotify-UNCF Scholars 
Program focuses on scholarships and career 
opportunities for young Black creatives at various 
stages in their artistic journeys. 
Supporting music education
We provide local grants to support music programs 
at schools in predominantly-Black communities. 
As part of this program, in 2021 we partnered with  
Girls Makes Beats – an organization that utilizes 
educational programs, summer camps, networking 
events and after-school seminars in cities such as 
L.A. and Miami to educate girls on the ins and outs 
of the music industry – to scale our program on a 
national level.
International grants  
for racial equity
Spotify has committed to supporting racial justice, 
globally. We put out internal calls to our global teams 
to source unique, ambitious, and meaningful ideas to 
support racial equity.  
 
In the U.K., Spotify has partnered with The Black 
Curriculum, funding an educational podcast around 
Black British history. Spotify is also collaborating with 
PRS Foundation to bolster their Power Up Initiative 
that supports Black music creators and industry 
professionals, as well as addresses anti-Black racism 
and racial disparities in the music sector. 
 
In Brazil, Spotify has partnered with Vale de Donde, 
a social impact accelerator and innovation center 
created in Salvador (BA) to build strategic programs 
and partnerships focused on empowering the next 
generation of Black creators in Brazil. A key tenet 
of the program was the investment in small music 
producers and podcast creators. 
 
In Sweden, Spotify has collaborated with 
EMMSTechnology, a nonprofit that aims to empower 
women of color and other underrepresented groups 
in the tech industry by creating a community that 
offers workshops and networking meetups.

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Civic & Community Engagement	
66
Philanthropic Giving 
Give Back Sweden
Be good, do good. With a focus on giving back 
to society, Give Back Sweden forges educational, 
creative and fun interactions with organizations. 
The program creates meaningful partnerships with 
organizations championing racial equity, gender 
equity, immigration and mental and/or physical 
health issues to build impactful opportunities for 
Spotify employees in Sweden to give back.
Give Back Sweden welcomed two new partners 
in 2021: Pink Programming and Musikbojen. 
Through our work with Pink Programming, a 
nonprofit that organizes code events for the female, 
transgender, and non-binary communities, a group 
of female Spotify engineers hosted a panel at a 
Pink Programming digital meet up. To support 
Musikbojen’s mission of sponsoring music therapy 
for children that struggle with social, mental and 
physical difficulties, we provided three years of 
financial support to the NGO’s new partnership, 
Uppsala Child and adolescent psychiatry, that offers 
music therapy to autistic children. 
Disaster relief
As global citizens, it’s important that we support 
the communities where our employees live and 
where we do business. Through our employee 
match platform, we are able to create disaster 
relief campaigns on Benevity where employees 
around the globe can support organizations that 
are doing on the ground relief work. With the help 
of our cross-functional rapid response team, we 
are able to launch these campaigns right away.
Through our collective Spotify and band member 
donations, we were able to provide assistance 
to New Orleanians facing the devastating 
effects of Hurricane Ida in August 2021 via relief 
funds including Save The Children’s Hurricane 
Ida Children’s Relief Fund, Americares’ Help 
Americares Respond to the Next Disaster, and 
All Hands and Hearts Disaster Relief Fund. In 
December 2021, we supported Filipinos impacted 
by Typhoon Rai through charitable contributions 
to organizations such as One Million Lights 
Philippines, Waves for Water, and UNICEF’s 
Emergency Response. When Texas was ravaged 
by Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, we jumped 
in to help alleviate the hardships Texans faced 
through our financial support of Texas Relief 
Warriors, Central Texas Food Bank, Austin Area 
Urban League Inc. and other local groups. 
Helping hundreds of Afghan students reach Portugal
Following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August, many musicians fled the country or went 
into hiding. When we learned that nearly 300 students of the Afghanistan National Institute of 
Music (ANIM), their families, and their teachers who had fled their homes were stuck in Qatar,  
we stepped up to help. In less than two weeks, we provided funds to charter a plane to fly them to 
Lisbon, where they’d been promised asylum, in the largest evacuation of a self-contained Afghan 
community since the Taliban’s takeover. 
 
In Lisbon, the musicians, their families, and their teachers are working to rebuild their school and 
restart their lives. We’re proud to have played a part in bringing ANIM into its new chapter and are 
committed to doing more to preserve Afghanistan’s musical heritage.
Afghanistan
Portugal 
Qatar

As the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription 
service with 406 million monthly active users, we have a 
responsibility to our employees and listeners to hold ourselves 
to the highest ethical standards. We also hold our suppliers, 
partners and creators to that same standard. We’re cognizant 
of our platform’s real and potentially significant impact on our 
global community, underscoring our duty to conduct business 
in a socially responsible manner. 
In order to live up to our ethical standards internally, it is paramount that we implement strong 
frameworks to guide us and make sure we are accountable for our actions, including our approach  
to governance, board of directors, comprehensive policies and standards, and integration of ESG  
through our ever-expanding Equity & Impact (E&I) team. On the Spotify platform, we are committed  
to providing our users and creators with a secure platform through our robust trust and safety  
process, all the while keeping their data private and protected. Our responsibility to embody the 
highest ethical standards is not limited to our walls and platform, however, as we  
regularly exhibit our dedication to social responsibility through philanthropic giving that addresses 
some of the most serious societal issues.
Responsible 
Business

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Responsible Business	
70
Governance
As part of our commitment to business responsibility and ethical 
standards, Spotify applies sound governance practices and has 
adopted several policies in direct support of our company’s values 
and stakeholder interests.
Spotify’s board of directors is responsible for 
promoting the long-term value and health 
of the company in the best interests of our 
shareholders.* Our work with environmental and 
social topics is led by our E&I team and codified 
in our global policies that outline the way our 
band members engage with one another and are 
held accountable for our E&I priorities. 
Spotify’s board of directors
Currently composed of 11 members, Spotify’s 
board of directors provides management with 
strategic guidance and also confirms that 
management adopts and implements procedures 
designed to promote both legal compliance 
and the highest standards of honesty, integrity 
and ethics throughout the organization. 
Spotify’s board of directors has a standing 
Audit Committee and a People Experience 
and Compensation Committee. The board and 
committees conduct annual self-evaluations of 
their performance to make sure that they are 
functioning effectively.
The board has adopted Procedural Rules for 
Board of Directors and Corporate Governance 
Guidelines as a supplement to our Articles of 
Association. The Procedural Rules and Corporate 
Governance guidelines address topics such as 
board duties and responsibilities, composition 
and qualifications of members and corporate 
governance laws. For more information on 
our governance practices, please visit our 
Governance webpage.
Board snapshot
Gender: 36.4% female directors
 
Independence: 72.7% Independent directors
36.4%
72.7%
35%
Increase percentage  
of E&I team in 2021
Men
Women
Non-independent
Independent
E&I team structure:
Orchestrating ESG at Spotify
We strive to integrate ESG thinking across our 
business. While our E&I team lays the foundation for 
our ESG priorities and initiatives within Spotify, our 
Manager Manifesto serves as a reminder for how 
each and every Spotifier can exhibit our  
core values. 
Equity & Impact team
The growth of Spotify as a company has spurred the 
growth of our E&I team, which works to cultivate a 
more diverse workforce, hone our inclusive culture 
and drive our impact as a company. Since last year, 
the team has grown by 35%. Our E&I team devotes 
substantial time to review the core matters of 
Spotify’s culture, especially around environmental 
sustainability and human capital management. 
In 2021, the E&I team partnered up with leaders 
from other key departments within the company 
to create an E&I Reporting Steering Circle. The 
Steering Circle focuses on managing the many 
cross-functional inputs to track impact, using 
findings to inform goal setting, improve ESG 
performance as well as create transparent and 
accurate disclosures for Spotify’s E&I reporting.
E&I
Diversity, Inclusion 
& Belonging (DIB)
Social Impact
Sustainability
*In this report, unless the context otherwise requires, references to “Company,” “we,” “us,” “our,” and “Spotify” refer to Spotify Technology S.A. and its direct and indirect 
subsidiaries on a consolidated basis.

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Responsible Business	
72
This is How We Roll
Being a member of the Spotify 
band comes with many benefits, 
and working for a responsible 
company is one of them. Our 
culture, our reputation and our 
work environment are influenced 
by how each band member acts, 
talks and behaves every day. We all 
answer to the other band members, 
our stakeholders, creators, Spotify 
listeners and the general public.
Policies and standards
All of our band members are required to review 
and acknowledge their compliance with our Code 
of Conduct and Ethics (the “Code”) and other key 
global policies, annually. At its core, our Code 
is based on our company values – innovative, 
collaborative, sincere, passionate and playful, 
which are designed to build and maintain trust 
among our band members and with those outside 
the company, including our listeners, creators, 
advertisers and partners. Mostly, the Code 
describes our three main rules and how to make 
sure we live up to them: 
•	 Do the right thing. Always act with honesty, 
integrity and reliability. Keep moral and ethical 
standards sky-high. 
•	 Be nice. Treat people with dignity and respect, 
regardless of who they are and where they 
came from. Stay decent and courteous in all 
relationships. 
•	 Play fair. Don’t cheat. Be careful to balance 
the interests of all groups (stakeholders, artists, 
listeners, band members and the general public) 
when you go about our business. 
Our Code is reflective of our commitment to drive 
integrity and has been adopted to encourage: 
•	 Compliance with applicable laws, rules and 
regulations
•	 Full, fair, accurate, timely and understandable 
disclosure
•	 Honest and ethical conduct, including fair 
dealing and the ethical handling of actual or 
apparent conflicts of interest
•	 Protection of the Company’s legitimate business 
interests, including its assets and corporate 
opportunities
•	 Protection of confidential information 
•	 Prompt internal reporting of any violations of law 
or the Code and accountability for adherence to 
the Code
Our Code also incorporates Spotify’s other policies, 
including our:
•	 Commitment to abide by laws and regulations 
and promote competition and fair dealing 
•	 Prohibition of all forms of human trafficking, 
slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory  
labor in our business and supply chain
•	 Global policies designed to prevent corruption, 
discrimination, harassment and retaliation 
against band members for reporting  
compliance concerns. 
 
In 2021, we distributed an infographic company-
wide, detailing multiple available reporting options 
for raising compliance concerns and a support 
playbook detailing the process for escalating 
concerns of potential incidents of harassment  
and discrimination.
We encourage reporting of any violations of 
our Code through multiple available reporting 
channels, including Conduct@Spotify.com, our 
Spotify Ethics Line or our Global Compliance 
team. Spotify has a zero retaliation policy, 
meaning that anyone reporting any suspected 
breach of our policies in good faith will not be 
subject to any retaliation.
Supplier responsibility
At Spotify, our goal is to be as open and 
transparent with our business partners as 
possible, while being responsible for where and 
how we source services. Our Supplier Code of 
Conduct (SCoC) defines the basic expectations 
of our suppliers and third-party intermediaries 
concerning their responsibilities toward their 
stakeholders and the environment. Our SCoC and 
statement concerning Modern Slavery underscore 
our commitment to high ethical standards for 
our supply chain and promotion of fair and safe 
working conditions. 
In 2021, we added more environmental and  
social requirements to our supplier guidelines.  
One key development was to improve supplier 
diversity by expanding work with Black creative 
agencies. Through our Freemium Marketing Equity 
Initiative, we have been intentionally increasing 
the number of Black creative agencies we engage 
with as well as agencies that prioritize inclusive 
and diverse stories.
This enables us to expand the number of small 
businesses we work with by allowing us to 
compensate them for their services sooner. 
Third-party risk management and due diligence 
We utilize Kodiak, a risk assessment interface that 
provides a rating for selected Spotify vendors, to 
promote consistency and efficiency in managing 
risks and opportunities in our supply chain. Through 
the platform, we index vendors against Spotify’s 
values by leveraging publicly available information, 
including assessments of their business ethics 
and brand sentiment in the media. We also track 
compliance to specific agreements in our Supplier 
Code of Conduct, such as records of their own 
codes of conduct or third-party audits. If a vendor 
receives a low rating across any of the tool’s criteria, 
we work with our legal team to activate our Incident 
Plan and mitigate the situation accordingly. This 
tool also feeds into our broader strategy for the 
prevention of third-party corruption and compliance 
with laws prohibiting illicit transactions.

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74
Creating a Safe, Secure & Transparent Platform
We’re dedicated to creating a 
platform that is safe for listeners 
and creators, offers an enjoyable 
user experience and remains true to 
our company’s values. This includes 
developing, implementing and 
enforcing platform policies that 
apply across all Spotify creators 
and making sure we’re designing 
and building a safe product.
In 2021, we focused on continuing 
to build out our Trust & Safety 
team as well as the Product and 
Engineering teams who support  
our safety efforts.
Our Platform Rules
We know there are subtle product decisions we 
make that can have a huge impact on creators 
and listeners, so we are intentional, thoughtful and 
precise about developing platform rules that reflect 
Spotify’s Mission and minimize the risk of offline 
harm while respecting creator expression and 
listener preferences. 
While we welcome different forms of artistic 
expression, ideas and perspectives, it’s important 
that our creators are aware of what is not allowed 
on Spotify. Our platform rules focus on dangerous, 
deceptive, sensitive and illegal content, and we 
outline these rules clearly for our creators. These 
policies were developed by internal teams in 
concert with a number of outside experts and are 
updated regularly to reflect the changing safety 
landscape. They are being localized into various 
languages to help our users understand how Spotify 
assesses all content on our platform.
Our policies are only as effective as our ability to 
enforce them consistently and at scale around the 
world, which is why every piece of Spotify content 
is subject to the same policies and enforcement 
consequences. We take these enforcements 
seriously and keep the context in mind when 
making them. Breaking the rules may result in the 
violative content being removed from Spotify. 
Repeated or egregious violations may result in 
accounts being suspended and/or terminated.
Algorithmic impact 
Understanding the impact our algorithms have 
on the listeners and creators we serve is core 
to our business and product success. In 2021, 
we improved our processes and approaches to 
create a safe community that’s more fair and 
inclusive. We’ve accordingly expanded the size 
of our team focused on algorithmic responsibility, 
launched formal work with partner product teams 
to build support infrastructure and expanded 
our dedicated data and metrics effort in this 
area. We also continued to invest in algorithmic 
impact efforts, which consist of research and case 
studies, direct work with product teams to better 
assess and address our impact, as well as external 
collaboration engagement with communities and 
researchers outside the company. 
In 2021, we set clearer expectations across 
the company by introducing our new Spotify 
Algorithmic Policy, Guidelines and Best 
Practices. This resource provides Spotify teams 
with centralized guidance on facilitating safer 
approaches to personalization, data usage, 
content recommendation and discovery. The 
policy also creates space for teams to further 
investigate (in)equitable outcomes for creators 
and communities by providing guidelines and best 
practices to mitigate algorithmic harms. 
Since the launch of the policy, over 80 systems have 
been assessed using high-level Algorithmic Impact 
Assessments to plan work ahead. Algorithmic 
Impact Assessments complement the algorithmic 
policy and serve as an instrument for teams to 
self-assess where there may be potential harms 
to listeners or creators based on the framework 
provided by the policy and enable them to plan and 
prioritize that work. Assessments are not meant 
to serve as formal code audits for each system 
(although teams have reviewed and changed code 
as a result), but instead provide an overall map 
where deeper investigation and work, such as 
product-specific guidance, technical assessment  
or external review may be required.
The introduction of our algorithmic policy has 
allowed us to create more granular instructions  
for our Product teams. Across the company,  
we ask our teams to evaluate existing or potential 
algorithmic harms, such as stereotyping, and 
provide customized guidance based on the 
recommendations found through the assessment 
process. While industry methods and guidance in 
this space is still limited, we’re rolling out this policy 
across the company and investing in developing 
additional tools and playbooks to fill the gap. Since 
the policy explicitly addresses equity, we continue 
to advance our research with product teams on 
outcomes for gender and racial equity, economic 
opportunity and other dimensions. Industry 
practices are evolving and we continue to develop 
methods to conduct this work responsibly. 
Spotify is part of a broader industry conversation 
about algorithmic responsibility, impact and 
accountability. In academic and industry forums,  
we share our best practices, learn from others  
and apply those insights, including through 
establishing structures internally, to operationalize 
algorithmic responsibility. 
In-app resources for vulnerable listeners
Content warnings provide listeners with the ability to make their own 
decisions on if, how and when they’d like to consume content that could 
be upsetting or increase the risk of harmful actions such as self-injury, drug 
misuse or suicide. At Spotify, we strongly encourage creators of our owned 
content use content warnings on pieces of content that include sensitive 
themes, and we supply our creators with the resources and guidance  
they need to implement these warnings.
During National Suicide Prevention Week in the U.S., we launched a new 
search feature on iOS and Android that connects vulnerable listeners 
to mental health resources. We collaborated with the Jed Foundation to 
identify nearly 200 different search queries that indicate the potential for 
self-harm. When listeners perform specific searches that are considered 
high-risk of self-harm-related behavior, an in-app message directs them  
to our Mental Health Resources hub, where they can get connected to  
locally relevant emergency mental health and related support services.

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Responsible Business	
76
Content guardrails 
Spotify is committed to bringing audio content to more people in 
more ways – including the next generation of listeners. However,  
not all content on Spotify may be suitable for kids and teens —  
for example, some music may contain objectionable language,  
and podcasts can discuss adult subjects. 
We launched Spotify Kids, a standalone app available exclusively for 
Premium Family subscribers and intended for kids ages 3+, in 2019. 
The content within Kids is hand-picked by a team of editors, who 
have nearly 100 years of combined experience curating content for 
kids. This year, we provided advice on how to support and protect 
teenagers or young children when using Spotify’s services through 
our Spotify Parental Guide. 
Data privacy and protection
We respect privacy as a fundamental right of all people. That’s why we take care, across every part of our 
business, to handle data with the utmost integrity. 
We also understand that information on privacy can often be complex and confusing, so we focused our 
efforts on making our communications on privacy simpler, clearer and more transparent in 2021. Our 
recently-updated Privacy Policy features simplified language that’s easier to understand for our listeners 
and artists. We revamped our Privacy Center, a user-friendly hub that explains the key elements of our 
Privacy Policy – the data we collect, how we use and protect it and our listeners’ rights and controls over it. 
The Privacy Center also now includes short, animated videos to help listeners get up to speed on specific 
privacy concepts such as how Spotify uses their data, personalization and privacy controls.
Worldwide, all of our listeners have access to the same tools to exercise their data rights under the EU 
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) regulations.  
In 2021, there were 708,123 people who used our “download your data” tool to download their listening 
history and basic account data. 
We value our consumers’ trust when they use our service, and we intend to maintain it. We take steps to 
protect listeners’ data from unauthorized use and inappropriate disclosure, and we follow a formal incident 
response process so that any incidents are managed swiftly. In 2021, our Data Protection Office identified 
two incidents that we deemed to be reportable personal data breaches under the low threshold of GDPR 
and notified EU privacy regulators accordingly. We continue to hold robust and rigorous training sessions 
with Spotifiers so that any data incidents are identified and addressed promptly. 
We are committed to providing a platform that is not only for everyone, but that protects listeners’ privacy 
and security and empowers them to exercise their privacy rights. Read our full Privacy Policy to learn more.

About This Report
This is Spotify AB’s fifth Equity & Impact Report and refers to the financial year 2021 from the month of 
January through December. While this report brings the opportunity to share our work, our progress 
and our commitments to push ourselves to be better every year, it also fulfills disclosure requirements 
from the Swedish Annual Accounts Act (implementing EU Directive 2014/95 regarding disclosure of 
non-financial information).
The Sustainability Report covers the parent company, Spotify AB (corporate ID no. 556703-7485), 
headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden and all subsidiaries as per note 13 of the Spotify AB annual 
financial statements, unless otherwise noted in this report. In signing the annual financial statements, 
the Board of Directors has also approved the Sustainability Report.
Reporting 
Principles & Data

Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Reporting Principles & Data	
80
Methodology for Calculating GHG Emissions 
The emissions data is compiled in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. For Scope 1 and 2 
calculations, which largely consists of natural gas and electricity in our office buildings, consumption 
information from our electricity suppliers and landlords have been used. For calculation of Scope 3, 
multiple methods have been used. These include calculations based on usage, spend data, vendor-
specific spend data and publicly available estimates. 
GHG Emissions Data:
2019 MTCO2e
2020 MTCO2e
2021 MTCO2e
Scope 1
701
668
682
Scope 2
2,803
2,445
0
Scope 3 
328,847
306,293
352,372
Total Net Emissions 
332,351
309,406
353,054
Equity and Impact Report 2021  /  Reporting Principles & Data	
Auditor’s report on the statutory sustainability statement 
To the general meeting of the shareholders of Spotify AB, corporate identity number 556703-7485. 
Engagement and responsibility 
It is the Board of Directors who is responsible for the statutory sustainability statement for the year 2021 
and that it has been prepared in accordance with the Annual Accounts Act. 
The scope of the audit 
Our examination has been conducted in accordance with FAR’s auditing standard RevR 12 The auditor’s 
opinion regarding the statutory sustainability statement. This means that our examination of the corporate 
governance statement is different and substantially less in scope than an audit conducted in accordance 
with International Standards on Auditing and generally accepted auditing standards in Sweden. We believe 
that the examination has provided us with sufficient basis for our opinions. 
Opinions
A statutory sustainability statement has been prepared. 
Stockholm 
31 March 2022
Ernst & Young AB 
Andreas Nyberg, Authorized Public Accountant

Forward-Looking Statements and Materiality Disclaimer
The statements, estimates, projections, guidance or outlook contained in this report include “forward-
looking” statements that are intended to take advantage of the “safe harbor” provisions of the federal 
securities law. The words “may,” “might,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” 
“intend,” “seek,” “believe,” “hope,” “want,”  “strive,” “aim,” “goal,” “target,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” 
“continue,” “contemplate,” “possible,” and similar words are intended to identify  forward-looking 
statements. These statements may contain information about financial prospects, economic conditions 
and trends and involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual future results, including the achievement of our 
targets, goals or commitments, could differ materially from our projected results as a result of changes 
in circumstances, assumptions not being realized, or other risks, uncertainties and factors. Such risks, 
uncertainties and factors include but are not limited to unexpected delays, difficulties, and expenses in 
executing against our environmental, climate, diversity and inclusion or other “ESG” targets, goals and 
commitments outlined in this report, changes in laws or regulations affecting us, such as changes in data 
privacy, environmental, safety and health laws and the risk factors discussed in the filings by Spotify 
Technology S.A. with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including the reports on Forms 20-F 
and 6-K.
This report contains statements based on hypothetical scenarios and assumptions as well as estimates 
that are subject to a high level of uncertainty, and these statements should not necessarily be viewed as 
being representative of current or actual risk or performance, or forecasts of expected risk or performance. 
In addition, historical, current, and forward-looking environmental and social-related statements may be 
based on standards for measuring progress that are still developing, and internal controls and processes 
that continue to evolve. While certain matters discussed in this report may be significant, any significance 
should not be read as necessarily rising to the level of materiality used for the purposes of complying with 
or reporting pursuant to the U.S. federal securities laws and regulations, even if we use the word “material” 
or “materiality” in this report.