Sustainability and technology: the case of the Salesforce Sustainability Cloud

Moving towards a more sustainable management model requires us to introduce the time variable in the objectives of our organisations: the business must deliver value in the medium and long term and for this, we need to understand that the core transcends the current P&L, to think of our Company as an organism that generates wealth and growth beyond the traditional KPIs.

To adapt our business to a world that will necessarily mutate towards the 2030 Goals, technology plays a key role in delivering resilience: it implies speed, new business, and exponentiality: key when creating new business models (democratisation of work tools, mobility revolution...), integrating ourselves into macro indicators to generate more transparent governance models, in relation to the Administration, adapting our products and services to vulnerable groups, or using connected intelligence to make industrial processes more efficient.

One of the key points is the analysis and collection and processing of large volumes of data. If we look at sustainability from the perspective of the UN SDGs, the challenge of data appears in practically any of the goals. It is technology that makes it possible to collect, measure and monitor them in order to make decisions. From traffic management to improving crop yields, to analysing the impact of our company.
 

Sustainability Cloud

This last use case is the one we wanted to focus on when approaching Salesforce and its Sustainability Cloud. The technology giant has launched a new type of project, which integrates sustainability into the strategy and automates the operations of companies, in order to provide competitive advantages in the face of the requirements of their customers and regulators. 

A carbon footprint measurement tool, capable of automating one of the headaches of the Sustainability and non-financial reporting areas of companies. Sustainability Cloud is a "single source of truth" capable of triggering change in organisations.

• Accelerates the company's data analysis and information management to weeks instead of months.
• Enables both internal and external audits of the company's greenhouse gas emissions in an effective and demonstrable manner. 
• It facilitates the communication of measures and achievements to investors, employees and customers in a truthful and demonstrable way.

What does SFSC offer?

Automatic calculation of emissions using tables

It provides an automated calculation of emissions through tables containing carbon emission factors. It allows for easier data entry by the company and transforming it into carbon emissions.
By default, it includes the U.S. EPA and IPCC dataset preloaded, but can be extended with more.

Data audit trails

Sustainability Cloud enables each asset to be securely and demonstrably audited through status, validation rules, permissions and profiles.

Separate emissions into three areas

Sustainability Cloud allows the separation of carbon emitted by:

• That emitted directly such as private aircraft, natural gas that heats a building, etc.
• That emitted indirectly by third parties on behalf of the company such as that which produces the electricity that powers the buildings.
• That emitted indirectly from company activities such as commercial flights, hotel stays, etc.