Author: sHq_LoGiNz
CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 17, 2026 /3BL/ – Discovery Education today announced that its Digital Citizenship Initiative has been named a 2026 CODiE Award Winner in the category Best Digital Citizenship Solution, presented by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA). The recognition follows the Initiative’s selection as one of five Discovery Education solutions named 2026 CODiE Award finalists earlier this year.
Now in its 40th year, the CODiE Awards are the technology industry’s most established peer-reviewed recognition program, celebrating excellence and innovation in education technology. Selected from 228 finalists across 75 categories, winners are determined through a rigorous evaluation process conducted by independent industry experts who assess each solution for innovation, functionality, market impact, and overall value.
“Students are growing up in a world shaped by rapid innovation, and they need the digital fluency and critical thinking to navigate it safely and confidently,” said Catherine Dunlop, Senior Vice President of Corporate Partnerships at Discovery Education. “Through the Digital Citizenship Initiative, we partner with leading industry experts to give educators free resources that turn today’s digital challenges into practical classroom learning. This CODiE Award affirms the importance of that work and the commitment of educators preparing students to participate responsibly in our digital world.”
Launched in February 2025, the Digital Citizenship Initiative gives educators and students the tools and knowledge to participate responsibly in today’s digital world. Grounded in Discovery Education’s research report, From Risks to Resilience: Why Digital Citizenship Matters in K-12 Education, the Initiative translates documented student challenges — including misinformation, cyberbullying, privacy risks, and emerging AI technologies — into structured, classroom-ready learning experiences delivered at no cost to schools.
“The 2026 CODiE Award winners represent some of the most innovative and impactful solutions in the industry,” said Jennifer Baranowski, President of the CODiE Awards. “These organizations are solving meaningful challenges, delivering measurable outcomes, and helping shape the future of technology.”
The CODiE Award win for Best Digital Citizenship Solution marks one of five finalist nominations Discovery Education received in the 2026 program. Discovery Education Experience, DreamBox Math, Science Techbook, and Sandbox Immersive Learning were also all honored as finalists. Together, the recognition underscores the breadth of Discovery Education’s portfolio and its focus on delivering practical, classroom-ready solutions across core instruction, supplemental learning, home education, and immersive experiences.
Announcement At-a-Glance
- Discovery Education’s Digital Citizenship Initiative won the 2026 CODiE Award for Best Digital Citizenship Solution, one of five Discovery Education solutions honored as 2026 CODiE Award finalists.
- Developed in partnership with Verizon, Norton, IBM, the Family Online Safety Institute, and #HalfTheStory.
- Launched in February 2025, the free curriculum addresses AI fluency, digital safety, online identity management, and media literacy at no cost to schools. Content includes lessons, educator guides, and an engaging video series, updated quarterly.
- First-year impact: Since its launch in 2025, the Initiative has reached nearly 1,000,000 students, with more than half of participating schools identified as Title I, and educators reporting stronger student engagement and awareness of digital behaviors.
To learn more about the Digital Citizenship Initiative, visit digitalcitizenship.discoveryeducation.com.
A complete list of 2026 CODiE Award winners is available at codieawards.com/winners.
About Discovery Education
Discovery Education is a global education technology leader whose innovative solutions empower educators and progress student learning. Discovery Education’s solutions have served more than 100 million students globally, supporting effective teaching and learning in 45% of U.S. K-12 schools and in 100+ countries and territories. The company’s portfolio includes award-winning core and supplemental curriculum, high-quality standards-aligned content, and AI-enabled teaching and learning tools. Solutions span math, science, literacy, social studies, and career-connected learning, including instructionally aligned content developed through one-of-a-kind partnerships with industry leaders to bring real-world relevance into every lesson. Learn more at www.DiscoveryEducation.com.
About the CODiE Awards
The CODiE Awards are the technology industry’s most established peer-reviewed recognition program. Since 1986, the CODiE Awards have recognized the companies and products transforming the way the world learns, works, and communicates. The awards span five tracks covering startup technology, developer and AI tools, digital transformation platforms, education technology, and industry-specific solutions. For more information, visit codieawards.com.
Media Contact
Ali Koper
Discovery Education
akoper@discoveryed.com
Originally published in GoDaddy’s 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report
By valuing individuality, we grow together.
At GoDaddy, we are committed to attracting, motivating, and retaining qualified talent from around the world. We work to create a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace where employees can learn, grow, and succeed. We believe a workforce that reflects the communities we serve strengthens our ability to experiment and innovate. The unique perspectives and experiences of our employees help us to better serve entrepreneurs globally.
Accountability and transparency are essential to this approach. Our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Steering Committee, composed of senior leaders, plays a key role in fostering an inclusive employee and customer experience by providing feedback and direction as needed. We also support accountability through transparent public disclosures on workforce representation and pay parity.
Our People-Centered Strategy in Action
We put our people-centered strategy into practice through inclusive programs and policies across the employee experience. These efforts are designed to support employees individually and empower teams to deliver strong business outcomes.
We also integrate people-centered priorities into how we operate across our business. This includes a thoughtful approach to partnerships, investments, policies, and communications, supporting consistency between how we work internally and how we show up for our customers.
To better serve entrepreneurs, we seek to understand the diverse needs of the customers we support and use that insight to inform the enhancements we make to our solutions and tools as well as how and what we build in the future. By connecting employee experience to customer experience, we equip our teams to help entrepreneurs succeed.
Representation Matters
We believe representation matters because it helps us attract and retain the best talent and brings a wider range of perspectives into how we build and innovate. By reflecting the communities around us, we strengthen collaboration, creativity, and long-term performance.
Board Composition
Our business and long-term value creation are supported by our purpose to make opportunity more inclusive for all by serving a diverse customer base. In support of this purpose, our Board, in conjunction with the Nominating and Governance Committee, seeks qualified individuals to serve as directors who bring a broad mix of experience, skills, knowledge, personal and professional backgrounds, age, tenure, and diversity to the Board. For more information on our Board please review our 2026 Proxy Statement on our Investor Relations Governance page or the Frameworks & Metrics section in the Appendix.
Global Gender Diversity4
As illustrated below, women continue to represent approximately 30% of GoDaddy’s global workforce, while non-binary employees continue to represent 0.2%.
U.S. Racial & Ethnic Diversity5
Employees of color represent 39% of GoDaddy’s U.S. workforce.
A Closer Look at U.S. Racial & Ethnic Diversity6
Employees who identify as Hispanic and Black increased by approximately one point each, while all other groups remained within a couple of tenths of percentage points year-over-year.
We recognize that ethnicity and race are distinct, and we continue to assess our data collection efforts against frameworks and guidelines from government reporting agencies and best practices. For more details on our workforce diversity, please refer to the Frameworks & Metrics section.
Pay Parity
Our compensation programs and practices are designed to pay our employees fairly based on the type of work they perform and their overall performance of such work. In 2015, we were among the first companies to publish pay parity results. We are proud to mark 11 years of sharing our gender pay data and nine years of U.S. race and ethnicity pay data. Our goal is to achieve $1.00-to-$1.00 pay parity after controlling for legitimate compensable factors, including role level, individual performance, tenure, location, and the timing of variable compensation such as bonuses and equity grants. We consider pay parity achieved when differences remain within a few cents on either side of the dollar.
Pay parity is not a one-time exercise, but an ongoing and rigorous process. We continue to partner with an independent third-party expert to conduct a multivariate regression analysis. This approach supports the use of established methods and standards and informs our ongoing analysis and mitigations. This also allows us to continue to provide transparency and accountability to current and prospective employees through publicly reported pay parity data. In addition, as pay equity frameworks and legislation evolve, we are better able to monitor our programs and compliance as needed.
Gender Compensation Data7,8
As illustrated to the right, GoDaddy-wide, we continue to maintain global gender pay parity, paying employees fairly and equitably regardless of their gender. This commitment spans all career levels globally, as we believe true equity involves everyone.
U.S. Race & Ethnicity Compensation Data9
We aim to pay employees fairly and equitably regardless of race and ethnicity. This data shows that people of color have comparable pay relative to white employees when performing comparable work.
A Closer Look at Compensation Data — U.S. Race & Ethnicity10
4 Categories are not mutually exclusive.
5 Categories are not mutually exclusive.
7 Categories are not mutually exclusive.
8 While we continue to track the data for non-binary employees, the sample size is too small to report.
9 Categories are not mutually exclusive.
10 While we continue to track the data for American Indians and Pacific Islanders, the sample size is too small to report.
Learn more about GoDaddy’s 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report.
About this Report
The GoDaddy 2025 Global Stakeholder Impact Report details our progress toward our corporate sustainability goals, strategies, and initiatives in support of our overarching purpose and values. Unless otherwise noted, this report reflects our corporate sustainability performance across our global operations covering the fiscal year period from January 1 to December 31, 2025. To demonstrate our commitment to transparent communication regarding our sustainability progress, we routinely share updates through our website and our annual reporting. We welcome your questions, comments, and feedback on this report by contacting ESG@GoDaddy.com.
This report references the Global Reporting Initiative Standards, includes select Sustainability Accounting Standards Board metrics for the Internet Media and Services sector, and the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures. We also disclose our contributions and progress toward priority UN SDGs. For additional information on how we align with these frameworks and key indicators demonstrating our sustainability performance, please refer to the Frameworks & Metrics section.
About GoDaddy
GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain name registrar, helps millions of entrepreneurs globally start, grow, and scale their businesses. People come to GoDaddy to name their idea, build a website and logo, sell their products and services and accept payments. GoDaddy Airo®, the company’s AI-powered experience, makes growing a small business faster and easier by helping them to get their idea online in minutes, drive traffic and boost sales. GoDaddy’s expert guides are available 24/7 to provide assistance. To learn more about the company, visit www.GoDaddy.com.
by Gabriele Ballero, public affairs manager at Cascale
Greenwashing faces a real opponent in the form of European legislators. With consumers increasingly looking for more sustainable products, the way companies communicate environmental performance has been top of the EU policy watchlist for some time.
Alongside relevant country-specific legislation, Cascale’s public affairs team has been following both the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (ECGT) and the Green Claims Directive quite closely. While the two are related, they serve different purposes. The ECGT restricts certain misleading or vague environmental claims made to consumers, while the Green Claims Directive was intended to introduce detailed rules on how environmental claims should be substantiated and verified.
Yet while this year ECGT moves to implementation, after the Commission announced its intention to withdraw the proposal, the Green Claims Directive is still stuck in Council. There is currently no clear timeline for whether, or in what form, it may move forward. Even so, companies can take several practical steps now to strengthen readiness.
Actions to Take Now
Don’t delay action. Entering into force September 27, 2026, ECGT will introduce new restrictions on misleading environmental claims. Their immediate priority will be to map all existing environmental and climate claims that companies doing business in the EU have made to consumers.
Brands should convene colleagues across marketing, legal, and product teams to flag any high-risk wording, and vet all packaging, advertising, websites, labels, and product descriptions to ensure compliance with the new rules.
Broad, generic environmental claims without appropriate substantiation will become significantly more restricted under the ECGT. Companies should steer clear of vague claims like “climate neutral,” “carbon positive,” “zero impact,”or “environmentally friendly.” In line with other generalizations, a company cannot market an entire product as “made with recycled material” if only one aspect (such as packaging) contains recycled material. Where recycled-content claims are intended for consumer-facing communications, companies should obtain clear information from suppliers on the scope and percentage of recycled content.
Companies should also exercise caution when making comparative environmental claims. Comparing products based on environmental or social characteristics or circularity aspects such as durability, reparability, or recyclability is increasingly common, but could mislead consumers if comparisons are unclear, incomplete, or not properly substantiated.
Manufacturers should ensure they have appropriate technical evidence supporting recycled-content claims, durability testing, environmental performance claims, and warranty terms. Retailers, traders or resellers are generally responsible for passing on information received from producers, although they are not expected to actively verify or seek information that has not been provided.
Ultimately, the ECGT is not a product disclosure framework — it is a consumer protection and marketing law. Its objective is to ensure that consumers receive accurate and reliable information when making purchasing decisions.
Your 3-month ECGT Readiness Checklist:
- Assemble a cross-functional task force: Convene marketing, legal, and product design teams to flag high-risk environmental or climate claims on all packaging, ads, and digital touchpoints before September 27, 2026.
- Eliminate vague generalizations: Completely phase out sweeping claims like “climate neutral,” “biodegradable,” or “eco-friendly” unless they can be robustly substantiated.
- Secure supplier percentages: Where consumer-facing recycled-content claims are planned, obtain exact, audited percentages and scopes from suppliers.
- Establish technical substantiation: Ensure manufacturers have verifiable durability testing, recyclability metrics, and warranty data ready.
What’s Next for Substantiation
The ECGT represents a sharp shift in how companies communicate environmental performance to consumers. While it introduces broad restrictions on misleading environmental claims, it leaves an important question unanswered: how those claims should be substantiated. That was the role envisaged for the proposed Green Claims Directive, though its future remains uncertain.
In light of this regulatory gap, standardized methodologies and credible sustainability data become increasingly valuable. Tools such as the Higg Index can support companies in strengthening the data, governance and measurement systems that increasingly underpin environmental claims. The adoption of the Apparel & Footwear PEFCR also demonstrates continued EU efforts to promote greater methodological consistency in measuring product environmental performance.
Regardless of the future of the Green Claims Directive, the direction is clear: companies should expect increasing scrutiny of environmental claims and continue strengthening the governance, data, and substantiation processes that support consumer-facing communications.
Cascale Corporate and Affiliate Members can continue exploring these developments during the EU Policy Briefing for Cascale Members on July 20. The member-only session will cover key EU policy updates across corporate sustainability reporting, product sustainability, human rights and due diligence, circularity, and consumer information — including how these developments may affect internal planning, data needs, supplier engagement, and value chain readiness.
Interested in accessing member briefings, expert insights, and opportunities to engage with peers across the consumer goods industry? Learn more about Cascale membership.
Disclaimer: This information is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter.
Gabriele Ballero is Cascale’s manager of public affairs.
KeyBank and the Buffalo Sabres brought together community spirit, philanthropy, and hometown pride on July 16 during a special Give 716 Celebration at KeyBank’s Northtown Branch in Amherst, NY.
Give 716, the annual online giving event led by the Buffalo Bills Foundation and Buffalo Sabres Foundation, has become a powerful platform for connecting residents with the nonprofit organizations that serve local communities. The initiative helps nonprofits raise critical funding while generating awareness for missions that address a wide range of community needs.
Supporting the Organizations That Strengthen Western New York
The event highlighted the power of collective giving in Western New York and encouraged residents to support the nonprofit organizations that strengthen communities across the region. Sabres legends Rob Ray and Derek Roy joined fans alongside Sabretooth for an afternoon that celebrated both local generosity and Buffalo hockey.
As part of the celebration, the first 50 attendees who showed proof of a donation of $71.60 or more to Give 716 received a Rasmus Dahlin jersey, motivating participants to support causes that matter throughout Western New York.
KeyBank is proud to support Give 716 alongside the Buffalo Sabres as part of its ongoing commitment to investing in the people, neighborhoods, and organizations that help Western New York thrive.
“Give 716 is a great example of what makes Western New York special,” said Chiwuike Owunwanne, KeyBank Corporate Responsibility Officer in Buffalo. “When businesses, sports teams, nonprofits, and residents come together around a common purpose, the impact is significant. Every donation helps strengthen our region and the communities we call home.”
A Partnership Built Around Community
KeyBank’s relationship with the Buffalo Sabres extends far beyond hockey. Together, the organizations have partnered on initiatives such as Give 716 and HocKey Assists that celebrate community pride, support local nonprofits, and create opportunities for residents across Western New York.
Community investment is a cornerstone of KeyBank’s corporate responsibility efforts. KeyBank works alongside nonprofit organizations, civic leaders, and community partners across the communities it serves to help create economic opportunity, advance neighborhood revitalization, and support programs that improve quality of life.