Going Green in the Cloud: How Salesforce is Leading the Way

You’re likely familiar with the concept of net zero energy, where the amount of energy generated by a building’s renewable sources equals the amount of energy it consumes. Similarly, Net Zero Cloud by Salesforce is a sustainability initiative aimed at achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions across the entire Salesforce Cloud infrastructure by 2040.

Salesforce offers Net Zero Cloud as a sustainability management platform created to help organizations oversee and control their environmental footprint and track their progress to net zero. It tracks Scope 1, Scope 2, and the majority of Scope 3 emissions.

The initiative involves a comprehensive method to reduce carbon emissions and offset the remaining emissions to achieve carbon neutrality. This includes investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency standards, and carbon offsets.

Salesforce has set ambitious targets to use 100% renewable energy for its global operations by 2022 and to reach net zero emissions by 2040. In early 2022, this achievement was confirmed by Salesforce’s third-party assurance provider. Let’s take a closer look at that.

Net Zero Cloud

Net Zero Cloud by Salesforce is not only a crucial step towards a more sustainable future, but it also delivers an opportunity for Salesforce customers and partners to join the company in its efforts to decrease the carbon footprint of their cloud-based operations.

By leveraging Salesforce’s sustainable infrastructure, customers and partners can contribute to a more sustainable future and demonstrate their pledge to environmental stewardship.

Who Should Use It?

Net Zero Cloud by Salesforce is suitable for a wide range of organizations, including small, medium, and enterprise businesses. Likewise, organizations in all stages of their sustainability journey can use Net Zero Cloud – for everything from estimating an organization’s carbon footprint for the very first time to creating emission reduction strategies and reporting data to customers, investors, and key stakeholders.

Industries such as energy and utilities, agriculture, manufacturing, travel and transportation account for some of the largest carbon emissions and would find Net Zero Cloud valuable for their businesses. Moreover, companies should track their carbon emissions and environmental impact to ensure compliance with current and future governmental laws and enforcement related to sustainability and climate change.

It is only increasingly more likely that companies and organizations will be required by law to report on and be transparent about their carbon emissions. So, understanding and reporting on the data with Net Zero Cloud is vital, and Salesforce can make that happen. Here are some examples of how each type of organization can benefit from the platform:

Small Businesses

This comprehensive CRM solution offered by Salesforce is a game-changer for small businesses looking to manage their customer relationships more efficiently and cost-effectively whilst taking steps towards tackling climate change.

For small businesses, compliance with legal requirements and cost-effectiveness are critical factors – and Net Zero Cloud offers a solution for both. Non-compliance with climate change regulations can have a significant financial impact on any business, and small businesses may be particularly vulnerable. But with Net Zero Cloud’s data-driven insights, small businesses can stay up to date with contemporary laws and avoid costly enforcement.

Moreover, Net Zero Cloud’s data-driven results can help small businesses optimize their investment and expenditure strategies to drive cost efficiencies. By leveraging the power of data, small businesses can reduce their carbon footprint and contribute to the fight against climate change. Additionally, they can save money on energy costs through the use of renewable energy sources.

Adopting Net Zero Cloud can enable small businesses to manage their customer relationships more efficiently, remain compliant with regulations, and ultimately save money on energy costs while reducing their carbon footprint. So, what are you waiting for? Try out Net Zero Cloud and take the first step toward making your business more sustainable!

Mid-Sized Businesses

Are you running a mid-sized business and looking for a way to create a seamless customer experience across all touchpoints? Net Zero Cloud might be a good place to start!

With its capacity to integrate with other Salesforce products like Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, Net Zero Cloud can help mid-sized businesses streamline their customer experience. By creating a seamless experience from sales to customer service, businesses can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

But that’s not all. Net Zero Cloud’s customization options allow mid-sized businesses to create a more streamlined workflow that fits their specific business processes. This means businesses can tailor their CRM to their unique needs, improving productivity and efficiency.

Mid-sized businesses are also more likely to have multi-cloud implementations – this is where Net Zero Cloud shines. Thanks to its C360 adoption, a single shared view of platforms, services, and customer journey, Net Zero Cloud can communicate brilliantly with existing solutions, reducing the hassle and complexity of managing multiple systems.

Overall, Net Zero Cloud is a great choice for mid-sized businesses looking to create a seamless customer experience and streamline their workflows.

Enterprise Businesses

Enterprise businesses can benefit from Net Zero Cloud thanks to Salesforce’s ability to scale to meet their demands, decrease their costs and make an environmentally friendly impact in several ways.

Firstly, the platform can handle large volumes of data and be customized to meet the precise needs of enterprise businesses. This data can then be used to reflect on organizational spendings, profit, investments, and returns.

Salesforce’s best-in-class technology is designed to be energy-efficient, which is great for the environment and can help reduce energy costs. Plus, by using Net Zero Cloud, organizations can reduce the need for expensive on-premises infrastructure. This, in turn, can reduce their carbon footprint and save money on maintenance costs.

Net Zero Cloud, built on the Salesforce platform, offers top-notch security features like encryption, multi-factor authentication, and role-based access control to help organizations protect their data and reduce the risk of costly security breaches. Salesforce also provides compliance certifications that meet industry standards and can help organizations meet their compliance obligations while avoiding costly penalties.

By strategically aligning their financial activities with data-driven results, large enterprises can mitigate their carbon footprint to a great extent. This not only decreases the overall spending on high-carbon corporate methods, goods, and services – but also enables these large companies to pave the way for a greener future as market giants who can make a monumental impact.

Overall, choosing Net Zero Cloud can help large enterprise organizations reduce their costs while making an environmentally friendly impact. Net Zero Cloud by Salesforce is a versatile and customizable platform that can be tailored to the requirements of small, mid-sized, and enterprise businesses.

Why Is It Useful?

Make sure to check out the full video on Salesforce Zero Cloud to get a broader perspective on this topic. However, here’s a recap of the key points covered in the video, which we’ve already mentioned in the preceding sections of this post:

1. Net Zero Cloud can help your company embed sustainability in its operations, achieve business goals driven by sustainability duty, and maximize resource productivity.
2. In terms of business impact, Net Zero Cloud can significantly increase reporting efficiency whilst decreasing expenses, waste disposal, and cost of capital.
3. Net Zero Cloud can also help mitigate the organization’s environmental impact and equip it with resources and tools to handle pressure driven by consumer choice, corporate commitments, employees, shareholder activism, and unforeseeable/foreseeable governmental regulations.

With Net Zero Cloud, you can efficiently manage real-time sustainability data in one place, ensuring its auditability and reportability. This expands to your partners and business relationships as well. You can collaborate with suppliers to forecast and reduce risks with intelligent emissions tracking and reduction recommendations.

Is Net Zero Enough?

Although Net Zero Cloud is a great initiative, from an organizational perspective, there are still elements and computing methods to be enhanced and improved.

When a company or organization claims to be net zero, it means they have lowered their emissions as much as possible and offset the remaining emissions through assets in renewable energy or other carbon-reduction projects.

In the context of cloud computing, it can be challenging to accurately measure the environmental impact of organizational activities and other infrastructure. While cloud providers may invest in renewable energy and other sustainability initiatives, it is difficult to determine the precise amount of carbon emissions associated with their operations.

Additionally, achieving net zero requires a long-term commitment to reducing emissions rather than merely offsetting them through investments. It’s important to scrutinize the procedures and criteria used to calculate net-zero claims, as they can vary widely and may not always accurately echo the true impact of an organization’s activities.

In summary, it’s essential to carefully evaluate the details and methods behind net zero endeavors, especially in the context of complex business activities.

Summary

Salesforce’s Net Zero Cloud is an ambitious sustainability initiative aimed at achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions across its entire cloud infrastructure by 2040. It is a comprehensive method that involves reducing carbon emissions, investing in renewable energy, using energy-efficient standards, and carbon offsets.

The initiative benefits Salesforce’s operations and provides an opportunity for customers and partners to contribute to a more sustainable future by reducing their carbon footprint. Net Zero Cloud is suitable for small, medium, and enterprise businesses and offers comprehensive CRM features, marketing automation tools, and seamless integration with other Salesforce products.

Overall, Net Zero Cloud is a valuable platform for businesses of all sizes to achieve their sustainability goals and increase reporting efficiency while decreasing expenses, waste disposal, and the cost of capital.