Salesforce new cloud enables supply chain sustainability

With its own sustainability commitment that pledges to ensure that 250 of is top suppliers will set their own Science Based Targets by 2024, Salesforce has just made it simpler for all companies to follow suit with the launch of its Sustainability Cloud Scope 3 Hub.

Designed to help organisations streamline how they track their supply chain carbon footprint data, this new innovation means companies can now undertake their supply chain carbon accounting in less than a day, rather than the complicated multi-month process it was previously. 

With Sustainability Cloud, Salesforce has put transformational digital tools in the hands of companies in order to give them a “360 view of their carbon footprint so they can take meaningful action across their supply chain and reach net zero, faster”, says Patrick Flynn, VP of Sustainability, Salesforce. 

Pressure on to deliver results

With a net zero transition increasingly important to governments, investors and businesses, and as consumers demand more sustainable practices from the brands they buy into, organisations need to look more closely at their supply chain to deliver results.

“Companies must take action immediately to change the way they do business, including collaborating more deeply with suppliers for climate action,” says Flynn. 

And if an organisation wants to deliver an impactful climate strategy, then all emissions need to be considered and accounted for in their carbon emissions portfolio, and to get the strategy right, the data needs to be clear and reliable. 

With Sustainability Cloud, scope 3 emissions are captured and visualised within the same platform that currently calculates scope 1 and 2 emissions, and so offers customers a single source of reliable emissions data. 

And according to the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, any tools that “continue to advance the quality and comparability of corporate climate data and allow companies to make more informed decisions”, is very welcome. 

So what functionality does Sustainability Cloud Scope 3 offer?

• Comes with a commonly used emission factors dataset from the US Environmental Protection Agency, while aloowing firms to bring their emission factors dataset.
• Fast and simple to track – companies need to simply enter procurement or spending data and the system provides a simple process of matching spending categories to spend-based emission factors and to scope 3 categories. The results can be rolled up and summarised by spend type and by vendor. 
• As well as capturing scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, it can track historical and real-time environmental, social and governance data in the same platform, for a 360 view of investor-grade data. 

Salesforce practices what it preaches

And Salesforce are putting this into practice themselves as part of their own 1.5 degree Science Based Target. Working with 250 of their own top suppliers (60% of their scope 3 emissions) to set Science-Based Targets of their own by 2024, Salesforce has confirmed that as of 2020, they are nearly halfway to their goal. 

Among such suppliers is Herman Miller, which through the Salesforce Health and Sustainable Materials initiative has “been able to amplify our sustainability efforts beyond our walls and help pave the way for our own suppliers to do the same”, says Gabe Wing, Director of Sustainability at Herman Miller.